Odds of winning against 1, 2, 3, or 4 random hands

(Original post date: October 26, 2007)

I saw a site which sells a preflop poker hand odds calculator. Its a hand-held calculator, and “keeps you from cluttering you screen while you play”, or something like that.

Here’s my preflop hand calculator.

(Click to view proper size)

Pairs are listed on the left, then Ace-high hands, King-high hands, across to Jacks, then underneath the Jacks are Ten high hands, and back the other way. My version also does not clutter your screen if you print it out and have it by your keyboard. Do not tape to the front of your monitor unless you want it to clutter your screen. :)

Be aware that this chart (or the expensive calculator as well!) is only useful in certain situations. Most commonly, late in a SnG when the blinds are getting higher and you have to decide whether or not to steal or possibly to push. Sitting in the SB, 5 handed, folded to you, you and the BB have 12 BBs, you hold Q8s, 58% chance of winning against an unknown hand, push.

The other possible situation is perhaps in the SB in ring games, folded to you, and you want to consider how good your hand is relative to the BB, but then you need to consider some of the aspects listed here.

If you’re not familiar with this chart or some version of it, take a look at how even the top pairs and especially AKs/o and AQs/o fare against 1, then 2, then 3 random hands. And these are just random hands, not raise-calling hands like TT but any hand at all, which is exactly what the BB and SB might have if you don’t raise preflop. This is one of the reasons why you raise AK and AQ in position preflop.

There. This is another of my contributions to the anti-commercialism of the internet. I’ve made other such contributions in areas where I have much more experience, but listing them here would serve to uncloak my anonymity. This information is not unique, and you can find other versions throughout the internet, but I like this compact format.