Why You Should Care About PokerTableStats' Hand Strength Meter

If you are new to Texas Hold'em or have been playing for a little while but need some help with the math behind it, you should consider taking a look at PokerTableStats.  It's a tool that provides and in-game poker odds calculator and a HUD right on your PokerStars table.  This allows you to not only have the math at your disposal at every turn of the cards, but also useful information about your opponents.
 
A couple of weeks ago, we told you about a mailer PokerTableStats sent to its customers about why they should care about the software's Draw Meter.  In this article, we'll talk about the importance of the Hand Strength Meter.
 
If you are not aware of what the Hand Strength Meter is, it will let you know how strong or weak your hand is on any street.  It acts as a guide to help you make the best decisions on the virtual felts, thus maximizing your potential profits.
 
When the meter is full, it means you have the nuts and should never be folding.  Instead, you should be trying to get your opponents to put as much money into the pot as possible.  When it is empty, you basically have no chance at winning if the hand goes to showdown, thus giving you two options: fold and not lose any more money or try to bluff and get your opponent to fold.
 
The hand strength meter works by calculating all of the possible cards that could appear on the board along with all the possibilities of hands your opponent may have.
 
PokerTableStats gave an example of how many calculations the software needs to go through to provide its players with an accurate Hand Strength Meter reading.  If a particular hand is already post-flop, but the turn and river are yet to come, there are 2,162 different combinations (or 47 turn cards multiplied by 46 river cards) that could still appear.  Assuming the hand still has three players in at this point, there are 3,575,880 possible cards your opponents can have (45 x 44 x 43 x 42).
 
When factoring both of these variables together, the software has to run through a mind-numbing 7,731,052,560 calculations in order to present the Hand Strength Meter properly.  What is even more amazing is that the software shows the Hand Strength Meter almost instantaneously despite having to run through almost eight billion different possibilities.
 
Check out PokerTableStats to see all of the program's functionality.

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