PokerStove functions as one of the best free tools you can use to learn the fundamental math behind Texas Hold’em. ☀️ The simple equity calculator presented on PokerStove has been around for years, but even in 2024, it can be a ☀️ valuable part of your study routine.
Click here to download PokerStove now >
Here’s a quick look at what the time-tested PokerStove ☀️ download has to offer:
Equity Calculations Made Easy
PokerStove’s no-frills setup allows you to set up different hands against each other and ☀️ see the equities of each. The software allows you to plug in up to ten hands and/or ranges, and calculate ☀️ how they stack up against each other.
You can check the equity of hands and ranges on all streets with PokerStove, ☀️ including preflop, flop, and turn. The PokerStove download is free, with the biggest challenge coming with trying to find a ☀️ clean download.
Once you have your free PokerStove download, however, the simple but effective tool performs many worthwhile functions.
Hand vs. Hand ☀️ Equity
Input any Texas Hold’em hand, up to ten, and see what percentage of the time each one wins. A hand’s ☀️ chance of winning is known as the equity of the hand, and understanding equity is one of the most crucial ☀️ basic concepts of poker.
For example, if you’re holding a pocket pair like Q♣Q♥, you might want to know how that ☀️ hand stacks up against A♣K♣. Let’s take a look at how to set up that calculation using PokerStove:
Clicking on the ☀️ “Player 1” button brings up a matrix of possible hand combinations you can input for that player. Clicking on any ☀️ of the other “Player” buttons allows you to choose a starting Texas Hold’em hand for that player.
In this example, Player ☀️ 1 holds Q♣Q♥, and Player 2 has A♣K♣. The “Board” field in the top right of the display is empty, ☀️ making this a preflop equity calculation. We’ll take a look at how to add cards to the board to calculate ☀️ equity with the flop and/or turn on the board later in this article.
Once you’ve inputted the hands you want to ☀️ look at, choose either “Enumerate All” (which calculates all possible runouts) or “Monte Carlo” (which offers a faster calculation but ☀️ chooses random runouts to save time) and click “Evaluate”. It turns out Q♣Q♥ is about a 54.1% favorite over A♣K♣ ☀️ preflop.
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Range vs. Range
Texas Hold’em is a game of ranges, and as you get better you’ll learn to evaluate ☀️ your opponent’s entire possible range in a given spot, versus putting them on a single hand. PokerStove allows you to ☀️ see how ranges stack up against each other, and this concept is critical if you want to take your game ☀️ to the next level.
To construct ranges for up to ten players, we once again want to start by clicking on ☀️ the “Player 1” tab. That brings up these two options:
The menu on the left is what we use to make ☀️ a hand vs. hand comparison as we discussed above. Clicking on the “Preflop” tab at the top left of that ☀️ matrix switches to the menu on the right.
Clicking on any hand combination in the “Preflop” matrix adds that hand to ☀️ the Player 1 range. For example, let’s say you want to know how a range of the top five pocket ☀️ pairs (tens through aces) and ace-king stacks up against a range that includes all pocket pairs from 22 through 99:
The ☀️ matrix on the left includes pocket pairs TT through AA, AKo, and AKs. Your selections are denoted in yellow, and ☀️ clicking on “Apply” locks in your picks. The matrix on the right includes pocket pairs 22 through 99.
Click on “OK” ☀️ to put the ranges in the PokerStove calculator. The notations for your chosen ranges will look like this:
When we calculate ☀️ these two preflop ranges against each other, we see the TT through AA, AKo, AKs range wins about 69% of ☀️ the time.
Ranges as a Percentage of Total Hand Combos
The slider at the bottom of the matrix allows you to look ☀️ at ranges as a percentage of overall hand combos. Using this slider without inputting any hands will give you ranges ☀️ that use the top hands available using the percentage you’ve inputted.
For example, if you use the slider to input 3.5% ☀️ without putting in any ranges, PokerStove automatically gives you a range of 99+, AKs, and AKo. This is close but ☀️ slightly different from our hand-selected range for Player 1 above, which also makes up 3.5% of all combos. PokerStove rounds ☀️ down the percentage to 3.3% when you try to set the slider at 3.5%, and visually the range looks like ☀️ this:
PokerStove allows for any combination of hands, ranges, and percentages to be pitted against each other and calculated.
All of the ☀️ examples we looked at here are preflop equity calculations, but the “Board” display box at the top right of the ☀️ screen allows you to input the flop and turn and see how the equities stack up with community cards on ☀️ the board. The”Dead Cards” box allows for input of any cards that you know are out of play, such as ☀️ an exposed card that you know is in the burn pile.
Where to Download PokerStove
It’s unfortunately somewhat of a challenge to ☀️ find a bug-free download of PokerStove in 2024. A Google search for the software brings up numerous different places to ☀️ find the PokerStove download, several of which will spam your computer with malware and other unwanted add-ons.
As of September 2024, ☀️ however, this link will get you a clean, fast download of PokerStove without any other external programs going to your ☀️ hard drive.
