PokerCruncher's library has 150+
Hold'em scenarios that cover important preflop and postflop
situations involving made hands, draws, specific hands, and random hands.
Clearly one can't realistically enumerate all important situations you
can run into in Hold'em, but the library's set of scenarios is a small and minimal set that covers the important and frequently encountered situations well. If you understand these scenarios then you'll be able to extrapolate your knowledge to many other related situations.
The library is organized in the following tree
structure:
Library
» PreFlop
» AK vs ...
» AA vs ...
» KK vs ...
» 88(MediumPair) vs ...
» AceHigh vs HighCard
» RandomHand vs ...
» PostFlop
» AK vs QQ(HighPair)
» AA vs KK
» TopPair vs MadeHands
» TopPair vs Draws
» BottomSet vs MadeHands
» TopSet vs MadeHands
» MiddleSet vs Draws
» TopTwoPair vs Draws
Each of the leaf nodes (e.g. the first one, "Library->PreFlop->AK
vs ...") has about half a dozen or a dozen or more scenarios. Here are
two of the screens: internal node "Library->PreFlop" and
leaf node "Library->PostFlop->TopPair
vs Draws":
For example two of the preflop scenarios are
"AK vs QQ(HighPair)" and "AA vs 22(LowPair)", and
two of the postflop scenarios are "TopPair vs
TopPairTopKicker" and "TopPair vs FlushDraw" (this last
scenario is shown above in the second picture).
You can load any library scenario into the odds calculator
to study the odds and stats. You can also run an odds test on any level of the library tree to test yourself on that subset of the
library, either all of the tests at a given level or <n> random tests.
Good Coverage Of Important Hold'em
Situations
Note that TopPair, Sets, and TopTwoPair
appear directly under the PostFlop node, but other made hands like MiddlePair, BottomPair, OverPair, UnderPair,
Straight, Flush, etc. do not. PokerCruncher does cover these other made hands
however; they appear under
the TopPair, Sets, and TopTwoPair nodes. For example the "TopPair
vs MadeHands" node
contains "TopPair vs MiddlePair" and "TopPair vs
OverPair" and "TopPair vs Straight", and other made hand
combinations. In this way the library
achieves good coverage of the made hand and draw combinations without
too much repetition, which results in a minimal and manageable set of
scenarios. A similar organization is used in the PreFlop section of the
library to achieve good coverage there using as few scenarios as
possible.
Cash Game And Tournament Scenarios
The scenarios involving made hands, draws, and specific
hands are of course applicable to both cash games and tournaments, but
the "PreFlop->AceHigh vs HighCard" and "PreFlop->RandomHand vs ..."
scenarios are especially useful for tournaments. These
situations also occur in cash games when players' stacks are short in
relation to the blinds.
"PreFlop->AceHigh vs HighCard": In the late
stages of a tournament and/or when the blinds and antes are high in
relation to players' stacks, preflop all-in's involving ace high or king
high or queen high or even with suited connector type hands are common.
"PreFlop->RandomHand vs ...": When it gets
down to heads-up at the end of a tournament and you're first to act,
you're up against a random hand, and it's useful to know where a variety
of hands like ace high or king high or queen high or suited connector or
pocket pair etc. stand against a random hand. A similar situation also
happens if it's folded around to you and you're up against just the
blinds, two random hands.
