Partial simulation lets you analyze a hand
up to intermediate points
- up to the
flop or up to the turn or up to just the hole cards
(preflop), in addition to all the way to the river. That is partial
simulation lets you turn the normal 7-card game (simulate all the way to
the river) into a 5-card game (simulate to the flop) or a 6-card game
(simulate to the turn) or even a 2-card game (simulate to just the hole
cards). This is another powerful feature that you won't find in most other
odds calculators, including desktop, online, and website calculators.
So far we've shown examples of simulating all the way to
the river, which is the normal usage and is what you'll want to do most of the time. But the strength of a starting hand is also determined
by where it stands up to just the flop or the turn or preflop. For
example some components of a hand's strength are how often it flops big
hands, and how strong a draw the hand can flop and how often, and how often
the hand makes top pair or an overpair on the flop. Partial simulation
to the flop gives you this information, as the following example
demonstrates.
An Example - Studying A Hand Up To
The Flop
Say you have JTs (Jack-Ten-suited) and an opponent has raised preflop
and you're considering whether or not to call the raise to see the
flop. There are many factors you need to consider; one of them should
be how often JTs flops a big hand, either a big made hand or a big draw.
We won't discuss the other factors because we
want to focus on the odds here (it could take a chapter in a book to
discuss this example fully). Some of the other factors are: is this no-limit or limit?,
cash game or tournament?, what stage of the tournament?, the size of the
blinds, the players' stack
sizes, the number of players that have entered the pot so far, your position, the raiser's position, your position relative to
the raiser, are the players in the pot action players who'll give you
high implied odds on your call?, etc., and things we the authors forgot to mention or
don't know or understand yet at our current skill level. On to the odds and stats ...
Here's partial simulation to the flop for JTs in
PokerCruncher:
We see that:
So with JTs the stats show that you'll flop a big made hand that you're very
confident about 7.5% of the time, and you'll flop a good draw
around 20% of the time (if your flush draw was to the nuts we would have
said "great draw").
Are these odds, in relation to the blinds
and stack sizes and your position and your implied odds and the many other factors involved,
good enough for you to pay
the price that the raiser has set to see the flop?
More Examples
The above example is one of the most basic uses of
partial simulation - studying the characteristics of a specific hand up
to the flop. See the Odds Questions
section for more applications of partial simulation.
