A Poker Hand Odds Calculator Is A Crutch

There are plenty of offers out there to sell you a poker hand odds calculator for a pretty penny. The promise is that you'll instantly know the value of your hand and the odds that other players will have a better or worse hand than you. Guess what? That's a lie. Nobody knows the value of a poker hand until it's over. If you've been bluffed, it doesn't matter what the calculator said. You lose!

Poker hand odds calculators, cheat sheets and other crutches will only make you a mediocre player. If you learn early to depend on something other than your common sense, your smarts and your gut, you put a limit on your ability to play winning poker. The player who goes ahead and makes mistakes learns the fastest how to play better poker. It's the new player who fears making too many mistakes that falls for the trap of using a crutch. Never fear mistakes - fear avoiding them!

Most successful people can't really tell you why they're successful. In fact, many of them identify the wrong things as being the reason for their success. Most of the time, being able to intimidate your opponent is the key to success. Now, imagine how intimidating it is to face a player who is clearly using a crutch to help them play. Not very intimidating at all, is it?

More important than appearances, how you learn to handle yourself in the moment of play will matter more than how you learn to do algebra with poker hands. Using a poker hand odds calculator won't teach you that. It'll just teach you to be less of a poker player.