Hand rakings calculated w/ non-PokerStove formulas

I've been playing around w/ a few equity tools (besides PokerStove) like Holdem Viewer, Equilab, and Slice, and I've noticed they have options to choose different methods of how hands are ranked. There is 2-way equity (heads up), 3-way equity, 4-way equity (PokerStove's formula) which I guess are are self explanatory enough. But then there are other options like Bloch, Takana, Sklansky-Malmuth, Sklansky-Chubukov, NoFoldem, & a few others.

As a novice full ring cash player who is mostly trying figure out how to put a villain a range when I see their VPIP in the HUD, I'm wondering whether I need to pay much attention to these different ways of calculating hand rankings. I've been primarily using PokerStove for hand analysis (which apparently is based on 4-way action). Should I just stick to that and assume it is more or less reflective of the way people will play their opening hands?

(p.s. I know who David Sklansky and Mason Malmuth are. I just don't know if their different models are worth trying to understand at this point.)

Are you saying that these tools are including different hand ranges for a certain percentage of hands? Or different equity calculations/results for the same hand history? Sorry, I'm confused.

Different ranges for a certain % of hands.

You should always "tune" you ranges manually imo. From Pokerstove FAQ:

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The slider interface for setting the top N% of hands orders the hands according to their preflop all-in equity versus three random hands. This rather arbitrary selection was picked because it balances the value of high cards with the value of drawing cards. It is not an absolute ordering, and depending on the specific situation you may want to edit that range of hands when doing equity calculations.

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Wow, that Slice stuff does something I have been looking for for a long time: it counts combos in a range, taking into account board cards or hole cards (if you enter these under "dead card" in the range enumerator).

Thanks for that!

Oh well, yeah... don't ever use the default ranges Stove gives. So I guess it doesn't matter what you're using as long as the calculations are correct, since you have to account for the human factor of how each villain thinks about a hand. Is Stove really based on 4 way action?

Yes. 4-way all-in equity against 3 random hands.

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Originally Posted by StarGrinder

Are you saying that these tools are including different hand ranges for a certain percentage of hands? Or different equity calculations/results for the same hand history? Sorry, I'm confused.

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I believe the way it calculates the equity is the same in the different programs, but the value/order of the opening hands are ranked differently depending on which method you're using. So for example, here's what PokerStove considers the top 10%: { 77+, A9s+, KTs+, QTs+, AJo+, KQo }

http://i838.photobucket.com/albums/z...usepd/PS10.png

And here's what 10% looks like according to the Sklansky-Malmuth groups: { 99+,ATs+,KTs+,QTs+,J9s+,T9s,98s,AJo+,KQo }
http://i838.photobucket.com/albums/z...usepd/SM10.png

I'm wondering which of the many hand ranking systems (not just these two) realistically reflects the kinds of ranges I expecting. Remember I'm still learnin' this stuff, so for me it's matter of getting a general sense here rather than understand the math behind how these are determined.

Btw, none of the ones I've seen seem to value pocket pairs enough. You don't even get the full list of all the pairs in Stove until you hit 60% ... which of course is ridiculous.

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Originally Posted by daviddem

Wow, that Slice stuff does something I have been looking for for a long time: it counts combos in a range, taking into account board cards or hole cards (if you enter these under "dead card" in the range enumerator).

Thanks for that!

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You mean by dragging the "cutoff" bar? HEM's hand range tool does something similar, but otherwise it's pretty limited.

I get how there are different ranges that can make up a %, but I still don't get this "There is 2-way equity (heads up), 3-way equity, 4-way equity (PokerStove's formula)"

I thought it depended on how many villains you added in PokerStove. I'm missing something here...

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Originally Posted by Smith

I get how there are different ranges that can make up a %, but I still don't get this "There is 2-way equity (heads up), 3-way equity, 4-way equity (PokerStove's formula)"

I thought it depended on how many villains you added in PokerStove. I'm missing something here...

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Equity is determined how many people are in the hand. Not sure what determines the ranking of the hands that are pre-set by Stove & the other programs, which is what I was asking about.

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Originally Posted by rowhousepd

Equity is determined how many people are in the hand. Not sure what determines the ranking of the hands that are pre-set by Stove & the other programs, which is what I was asking about.

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Right, so how can PokerStove be always calculated as 4way Equity?
Sorry, I'm just confused by that.

I probably understand it perfectly, but I'm getting messed up by the wording of the OP.

Ha. Yes, it's very possible -- I have a feeling I made that confusing. Check out Holdem Viewer & maybe you'll see what I mean. Otherwise, I'm not really sure.

OK, to be clear:
1) yes all these programs calculate equity in the same way. They only rank starting hands in different manners, which only influences which hands are selected when you pick the top X% of hands for a range (like when you use the slider in Stove).
2) there is not one ranking method that is better than another for all cases. It all depends on your opponent, the particular situation of this hand, etc. So you should always tune your ranges by hand, not blindly select X% of hands based on your opp's stats. As you pointed out yourself, an opp who set mines excessively will play all his pocket pairs over all the suited connectors or Axs, and there is no predefined ranking method that takes that behavior into account.
3) To explain the way Pokerstove ranks hands, here is an example: this is how Pokerstove calculates the rank of QJs (all in 4-way vs 3 random hands):
http://www.flopturnriver.com/pokerfo...re71-stove.png
So the rank of QJs is 35.677. Now calculate the rank of all the other starting hands in the same manner, and order them from highest to lowest. That's your hand ranking.
4) No, for Slice, what I mean is that if you go to the "Range Enumerator" tab and you enter for example AK as a range, then you enter Ah,Ks under the dead cards, and then click "enumerate", it will tell you that your AK range has only 9 combos in it because Ah and Ks are removed from the deck. This is convenient when you make hand analysis and you need to count the number of combos within big ranges on a given board and while you are holding given hole cards (blockers).

Hope this helps.

Thanks daviddem

I'm extremely tired, so I didn't catch on until I started watching TV for an hour. (took my brain that long to catch up) It all of a sudden hit me that PokerStove's range %'s are composed of hands that have the best equity against 3 random hands. Sorry about that guys.

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Originally Posted by daviddem

4) No, for Slice, what I mean is that if you go to the "Range Enumerator" tab and you enter for example AK as a range, then you enter Ah,Ks under the dead cards, and then click "enumerate", it will tell you that your AK range has only 9 combos in it because Ah and Ks are removed from the deck. This is convenient when you make hand analysis and you need to count the number of combos within big ranges on a given board and while you are holding given hole cards (blockers).

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Thanks, that made it clearer for me as well. I think #4 is a bit above my skill set right now, but someday. :)

Well start now: let's take a range of 77-QQ,ATs+,KTs+,QTs+,JTs+,AJo+,KJo+ for your opponent. The board is 8sTd7s and your cards are JsTs. If you bet, you figure he will continue with 77-QQ,ATs,AsQs,AsKs,KTs,KsJs,KsQs,QTs,JTs.

You want to know what % of his initial range he continues with (to calculate whether your semi-bluff would be successful).

Do do this, you have to manually count the combos in his initial range, then the combos in his continuing range. For example, since the 7s is on the board, he could be holding 3 possible combos of 77 (7h7d,7h7c and 7d7c). As you will soon realize, the process is a bit long and tedious and error prone for big ranges, so Slice can help you do these calcs quickly and efficiently (however it is worth to do it manually to get used to count combos in your head). One must read thread about counting combos, blockers, etc is here:
http://www.flopturnriver.com/pokerfo...tc-161721.html

Read away, and do the exercise!

edit: I would start by doing the simpler exercise in point 5 of the thread linked to above.

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Originally Posted by daviddem

Do do this, you have to manually count the combos in his initial range, then the combos in his continuing range. For example, since the 7s is on the board, he could be holding 3 possible combos of 77 (7h7d,7h7c and 7d7c). As you will soon realize, the process is a bit long and tedious and error prone for big ranges, so Slice can help you do these calcs quickly and efficiently (however it is worth to do it manually to get used to count combos in your head). One must read thread about counting combos, blockers, etc is here:
http://www.flopturnriver.com/pokerfo...tc-161721.html

Read away, and do the exercise!

edit: I would start by doing the simpler exercise in point 5 of the thread linked to above.

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Wow, indeed this is definitly NOT something I could do in my head at this point -- not by a long shot. But I just read over the Spoon article and will play around with the enumerator feature in Slice. Thanks for the input. I definitely need to get my thinking cap on. ;)