Tournament Indicator

Tournament Indicator is one of the many poker odds calculators available out there. They have an offer where you can get Tournament Indicator for free if you sign up to one of the affiliated poker rooms and make a minimum deposit.

Unlike some of the other poker odds calculators out there, Tournament Indicator is geared specifically towards Texas Hold'em tournaments. Both Sit and Go's and MTT's. One of the key features is player profiling. Tournament indicator tracks the players at your table assigns icons to indicate their type of play. You can instantly see if a player is a Rock, Calling Station, Tight Aggressive, etc. and adjust your play against them accordingly.

Some of the key profiling data is as follows:

• vpip% : The percentage of time the player has voluntarily put chips in the pot. A player with a high vpip% is a loose player or is on the card run of his life since the chances of getting premium hands a large amount of time is not likely. You can use this number to gauge the hand-strength of the player along with his play.
• pfr%: The percent of time the player raised pre-flop. Again, since premium hands don't come along too often, if the player has a high pfr% then they tend to raise weaker hands.
• af: Aggression Factor. This indicates how aggressive the player is post flop with his betting. Used along with vpip% and pfr% as well as your judgment you will have some idea of what the player's bets/raises actually mean.

If you've read Dan Harrington's books you'll be familiar with M-Zone. M-Zone is basically your chip stack size in relation to the blinds. M-Zone = (chipstack)/(small blind + big blind + (numplayers * antes). M-Zones ranges are grouped into different numbered and colored groups. Knowing your M-Zone will help you decide which hands to play and how to play them. If you're low M-Zone you want to push premium hands all-in. If you're in a high M-Zone you can limp more speculative hands. Knowing your opponent's M-Zone will also help you understand why he's playing the way he is. If he's red M-Zone'd, he may be pushing with any Ace, any pair or any two cards greater than 10 for example.

Tournament Indicator displays your M-Zone along with the M-Zone of all the players on your table. In a Multi Table Tournament (MTT), Tournament indicator will keep track of any players you might have come across in previous tables and you can see how they played when they were in various M-Zones.

Tournament Indicator will also give you an indication of the strength of your hole cards by displaying both the EV and the Sklansky Group the hand belongs in. As the preflop action goes along, it will update the Pot-Odds as well as your Win Odds. If you're holding AXs and you have some limpers in front of you, it will let you know when you have the correct odds to play to try and catch a flush. After the flop, the pot odds and win odds also update with the action to let you know if you have the right odds to continue with the hand.

This is where it gets tricky. You cannot rely solely on pot odds and win odds. You have to examine player tendencies and your read on what's happening. The mathematically correct decisions don't always result in a win. If you play the odds, in the long run you'll win but in a tournament, you can't just dig into your pocket and pull out more money. When you bust you're out. Thankfully, Tournament Indicator provides more than just the odds. It provides you with information about your opponents that you can use in conjunction with the odds. For instance, if you're in a hand with a Tight Passive player who has won 100% of his showdowns and you've hit middle pair, and he is betting aggressively, chances are you're beat. The odds may say you can continue but really think about what he may have and make sure you're not drawing dead.

One of the nicest features is the odds comparison against standard hands. It will tell you your odds of winning against big pairs, AK, small pairs, suited connectors, random cards, etc. This will help you decide when to push or fold (or call a push) when you're in the red M-Zone. If you were in the Big Blind and an early position raiser makes a big raise and you put him on AK, AA, KK or the like would you re-shove all-in with a hand like 79 suited? If you have the right pot odds sure. You're only a 3:2 underdog to win and you're re-raise my cause the other player to lay down a weak hand. This scenario actually happened to me today when I was short stacked in a Sit and Go. My 79s busted a pair of Aces when I made a flush on the river. Sometimes you have to take calculated risks and Tournament Indicator will help you make those decisions. It won't tell you what to do, but it helps you make better informed decisions.

If you are a player that likes to multi-table many games at once, Tournament Indicator will profile your opponents while you're focused on other hands.

If you've seen Marty Smith's videos on www.pokersitandgoreport.com you'll see he uses Tournament Indicator extensively. If you haven't seen his videos sign up on his website and watch them. I can't go into all the features as well as Marty has but luckily he has provided a series of video tutorials for Tournament Indicator.