Recently I sat down to evaluate the Texas Calculatem T by Texas Holdem Calculatem, LLC. It is a Hold'em 'Heads Up Display' (HUD) designed to run along side your poker client software and give ready access to a myriad of information about the hand. Of the half dozen or so HUD's available, this one seems like any of the others, but it also has some capabilities that cause it to stand well above the others. And, like the others probably works best with Limit Hold'em.

Basically, it graphically reads the poker client window and transfers the information to its calculation engine. It displays a mini-duplicate of the table, gives you the percentage chance of making your hand, and calculating all of the possible back door wins gives you a good estimate of your chance to win the hand. You can find this or something similar in most of the other HUD's available. For starting hands, unlike the rest, Texas Calculatem T uses the true percentages for starting hands hard coded into the program. The rest run a large number of random hands and base their percentage on the result. These will provide inaccurate results about 16% of the time, based on 1.5 standard deviations.

Additionally Texas Calculatem T seems to take into account the betting in the current round. Most HUD's recommendations become questionable if there is a bet or raise. Texas Calculatem T seems to reevaluate the situation after money goes into the pot and pot odds change. Like the rest, Texas Calculatem T allows you to select a Tight, Average, or Loose advisor. In a separate window it tracks graphically your available outs. This would really be valuable in Stud, and some might find it useful to their Hold'em play.

Now, getting to what really makes it more advanced than the others.

1. I really like the annotation of Sklansky's starting hand groups. If you haven't read Sklansky, you should. I think all casual players will definitely find this valuable, and most serious players might also find it useful.
2. Not only does Texas Calculatem T present you with the chance of you making your hand, it compares it to the most probable hands of the opponents. Most good players do this automatically to some degree, but often, casual players forget to evaluate the opponent's cards. Texas Calculatem T displays it in a systematic way that can help make it an automatic consideration.
3. To predict the opponent's cards, Texas Calculatem T attempts to estimate the cards folded by other opponents, along with the most probable cards of players still in the hand. I would really like to see the methodology they use.
4. Unlike most HUD's, Texas Calculatem T works with most poker sites. This does present some problems, but the flexibility makes those problems pale in comparison.

Rather than say shortcomings, I think I will say possible improvements, because in many cases the other HUD's have the same problems.

1. I find the tight advisor way too loose. I seldom play A9os. I would never consider playing A3os, even in a Limit game. If we had the capability to develop our own advisor profiles, it would make the HUD much more flexible, and useful for No Limit and Tournament play.
2. I have only reviewed one HUD that included the pot odds. The inclusion is a real simple fix. Hopefully Texas Calculatem T will include this in the future release.
3. Texas Calculatem T does not track or does not display the see the flop percentages of the other players. This is valuable informationto estimate how tight, or loose the other players may be.

I have corresponded with the publisher and they tell me that a new release will actually address some of these improvements.

GL and see you at the River.

Sarge