Behind the Scenes of HORSE Poker Calculator App

Matt Unks, the brains behind SharkFace Poker, answered our questions about his newest product, the HORSE Poker Calculator App. The HORSE Poker Calculator is the only mobile application that will provide you with odds for five different types of poker.

PokerSoftware: What made you decide to develop the HORSE Poker Calculator App?

Matt Unks: There were a couple of reasons. First off, I have become interested in games outside of Hold'em. After watching the HORSE championships, I wanted to see if there were other odds calculators outside of Hold'em. I was looking in the App Store and it seems nearly all of the poker odds apps are for Hold'em, with a few for Omaha.

I thought this would be a great opportunity to provide a nice, simple app that would allow users to view the odds of any of the Mixed Games. There are websites that offer the odds of the various games, but navigating on a small device like a phone or tablet can be cumbersome. I thought an app would be much easier for people to use.

We wanted to take nice features from online sites like Pro Poker Tools that provide equity and CardPlayer, which only shows wins and losses. It was taking the features from those sites and combining them into one.

PokerSoftware: How long did it take to develop this odds calculator?

Matt Unks: The development time took about six months on and off given I do this on the side. The idea of the HORSE Calculator came right around last Christmas.

PokerSoftware: The design of the HORSE Poker Calculator has a similar look to Cardshark Brain. What are some of the differences and similarities between the two?

Matt Unks: The device. The idea was that the cloud could perform faster. Now, with the modern processors, it's easy to get a quick result. So, the HORSE Poker Calculator is a standalone application.

Like Cardshark Brain, I wanted to use the same "pop-up" card selector look and feel.
I thought modernizing the graphics would be good, but I think it's pretty easy to select cards and easier than most other poker calculators, especially ones on tablets or phones. The user interface is very important.

Another similarity resides with the Hold'em game. I wanted to display the "outs" again when a board is selected and have the pop-up screen when you click on the chip to display the cards that are outs. Unlike CardShark Brain, it also shows the "draw odds" in addition to outs.

Another difference is I provided a "settings" menu to choose simple things like color backgrounds for the table and the ability to turn off the sound.

PokerSoftware: What are you currently working on?

Matt Unks: I am making a nice little addition to the HORSE Calculator that will show hand stats for each type of game. Some of the other odds calculators have this. For example, if you are 65% to win and 3% to tie, there will be a pop-up screen that shows the percentage of each type of hand. For example:

High Card: 15%
Pair: 7%
Two Pair: 8%
Three of a Kind: 3%
 
The pop-up screen will show you the number of hands as well. The nice thing is that it will be available for all five games, not just Hold'em. We are also considering range equity features for the Mixed Games.

The other thing I am working on is moving CardShark Brain off the cloud. And I have a few more tools that I will be adding to the Brain.

PokerSoftware: Is there anything else you want to mention to our readers?

Matt Unks: Yes, we appreciate the feedback we have gotten so far and encourage users of the app to offer suggestions on other improvements. The idea is that over time this app will grow in functionality, but not in price.
 
If you are interested in learning about what the HORSE Poker Calculator can do for you, you can download it from this link in the iTunes Store for only $0.99.

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