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Hold’em Resources Calculator

What is the Hold'em Resources Calculator (HRC) software

Hold'em Resources Calculator (HRC) is a specialized poker tool for tournament players who want to calculate the equity or ICM of several scenarios, simple or complex. To sum up, we will say that HRC is, among other things, a ICM calculator (it is also much more as you will see in this article)

HRC is available as computer software compatible with Windows, MacOS and Linux. HRC is a very popular tool for pro tournament players to study their pre-flop strategy as well as to study the late stages of no-limit Texas Hold'em tournaments (push-or-fold situations in particular)

In poker or sit'n'gos tournaments, when approaching or in paid seats, it will be essential to always keep the ICM issue in mind in order to make the best decisions in the long run. This is why having access to an ICM calculator is so important

For the curious, HRC has a free trial version to test the software

What is ICM?

We could go on and on about ICM for pages and pages, but for simplicity and to give you a basis if you're unfamiliar with the term, ICM is a mathematical model for calculating our fairness in a tournament or sit'n'go (or any form of tournament type poker). This equity is often converted into money representing a fraction of the remaining paid seats in a given tournament. In an ICM calculation, only objective data will be taken into account. This data includes the size of our mat, the number of players remaining in the tournament, the number of paid seats and the size of these different paid seats. The ICM is the value of our theory mat at a specific moment in a tournament. Knowing the theoretical value of our carpet will help us to make the right decisions when playing hands

How to install Hold'em Resources

To get started, go to the HRC home page by clicking here

On the home page, click on FREE TRIAL to download the trial version of HRC. The trial version will entitle you to the full functionality of HRC for 14 days. During this period, you will be able to familiarise yourself with the software before taking out a paying subscription

Download HRC

HRC is available for Windows, MacOS and Linux. Choose the version that best suits your situation. For these instructions, we will install the application under Windows 10. The following instructions will be given for Windows, but the installation under MacOS or Linux will not be that different

Hold'em Resources Calculator on windows mac and linux

Once the file is downloaded, double-click on it to start the software installation

Launching HRC

You will then see this window appear:

Continued installation

Press "Next" to continue installation

You will then have to accept the terms and conditions (License Agreement):

Acceptance of HRC cgu's

Then press "Next" to continue

Now select the location where you want to install the software. You will be able to install it wherever you want, but it is always easier and recommended to let the software install in the default location (otherwise additional configuration on your part may be necessary)

Destination path Hold'em Resources Calculator

Press "Next" to continue setting up the system

Your computer now installs the software:

Installation in progress

Once the installation has been successfully completed, you will see this window:

End of HRC installation

Click "Finish" to complete the installation

The software will launch itself automatically. You will then see this window:

Launching Hold'em Resources Calculator

When you first launch Hold'em Resouces Calculator, you will have the following options:

HRC options
  • Set Licence Key (if you already have a key that comes with your subscription)
  • Purshase (to select the type of subscription that suits you)
  • Request Free Trial Key (to request a free trial key valid for 14 days)

If this is your first step with Hold'em Resources Calculator and you just want to test the software using the trial version, you can click on "Request Free Trial Key"

To obtain this key, simply fill in the following boxes:

Hold'em Resources Calculator Key

Please note that we are not obliged to check the box regarding email news in order to receive your free key

Some practical features of Hold'em Resources Calculator

HRC has many uses. First, you can use it as a standard equity calculator. Of course, HRC can do much more (buying HRC simply for its standard equity calculation function would be like buying a computer just for the calculator), but can still be very useful

Let's test this option. Let's see here the fairness of 3 players according to their rank:

3-player equity

Above, we made a simulation of equity between three players. The green rectangle indicates the players involved in the hand (Player 0, Player 1 and Player 2)

The red rectangle indicates the extent of the range of villains. For example, "Player 1" has 29.4% of all possible Hold'em hands in his range. It has 29.4% of the strongest possible preflop hands

In purple you have examples of the hand(s) included in the range

Finally, the black rectangle shows us the fairness of each row in relation to the other two. Note here that "Player 2" will win the hand 42.2% of the time with his hand (AQo). Fairness tells us the percentage of time all three hands will win the prize pool at the river. Fairness is only valid if all hands go to the slaughter every time. This is a theoretical result to help us understand the value of a hand or a range

Let us now look at a simple hand analysis by asking about the Independent Chip Model (ICM)

On the Home screen, we will select "Advanced Hand" to create an ICM scenario. Several other calculation options will be offered, but we would need a whole book to go through them all in detail. For this article, we will see the most practical and popular options

Advanced Hand

For this hand, our equity model will be "Multi Table ICM"

Multi Table ICM

In this scenario, we will be BB with 690 chips. Our starting hand will be A-Q. We are 4 players at the table with the carpets distributed as shown in the illustration above. The tournament (or sit'n'go) will have a very special structure as there will only be a $100 cash prize given to the winner. In such a structure, you will have to play very aggressively

Carefully analyse the details of the hand above

In this hand there are only 4 players left. With our 690 tokens, we are second. However, only one spot will be paid for $100 so there will be no merit in trying to finish the tournament in second or third place

In the hand in question, the CO (Cutoff) is a very aggressive player who takes advantage of the bubble (he opens all his hands in position). In the CO position it pushes all in (again). The button and the small armour lie down. The question is, with which range we can call profitably

After entering the hand information, press "Next" to find out the call range

Once this is done, you will have your analysis appear

This is the optimal push range of the cutoff:

Optimum range of cutoff push

In this situation, CO will have a range of 100%. This means that it can grow all in profitably with its entire range

On our side, we can call with a range of 78.6% which is detailed as follows:

Range detail

To return to our starting hand (AQo), the hand is strong enough to call for recovery since our equity will be far greater than OC equity in the long run. In this hand, since there will only be one paid seat, we will have to play much more aggressively than if there were 2 or 3 paid seats

The hand analysed here was built from memory, without hand history. It is ideal for your hands played in casinos, at friends' homes or in poker rooms. You will also have the option to import hands played in online poker rooms for analysis

Here is where to find the place to import your played hands:

Import your hands played on Hold'em Resources Calculator

File and then Import. You will have the option to import a complete poker hand file. You will see that importing is very quick and hassle-free

The big strength of Hold'em Resources is that you can configure a multitude of details in your hand (the carpet of all the bad guys, their bounty, paid seats, blinds, antes, ranges, etc.)

One of the achievements that most players will make by working with HRC is that they do not play aggressively enough when approaching paid seats. When using HRC, unless you already have a very aggressive game, you will probably identify several situations where you should play your hands more aggressively

The Advantages and Disadvantages of Hold'em Resources Calculator

Advantages:

  • HRC is a multi-tool in one (with HRC you can calculate the equity of several hands in addition to calculating the profitability of one hand based on the classic ChipEV ICM model in BB or according to the Malmuth-Harville ICM or use the equity model of \Future Game Simulation\; the possibilities are vast)
  • HRC is an extremely configurable tool (you will be able to configure the range, mat, antes etc. of each player in great detail)
  • No other tool on the market is as complete as HRC
  • HRC offers frequent software updates to constantly improve the software. These updates are free for subscribers
  • HRC offers very fast hand analysis (some software takes several minutes to analyse hands while HRC will only take a few seconds). Obviously, the results will vary depending on the power of your computer
  • It is very easy to import poker hands that have already been played in a multitude of poker rooms
  • HRC includes the Future Game Simulation (a high-performance equity estimation engine)
  • HRC is available at a low monthly cost

Disadvantages:

  • Hold'em Resources can be an intimidating tool for a beginner player (it is on the one hand very complete, but on the other hand, these many possibilities can be intimidating for a beginner)
  • There is a learning curve to master the software (you will probably need to take some time at first to fully understand all the features of HRC)
  • There is no way to buy the software since it is only available by monthly payment, which may be inconvenient for some people
  • The calculation of ICM is convenient, but it is not flawless and some criticisms have already been made of it (we will not review all the criticisms made of ICM, but let's just say that the calculation of ICM does not take into account the skill of each player in its calculation, which can bias the results)

Price and subscription to Hold'em Resources

After using the trial version of Hold'em Resources, if you want to continue using the software, you can subscribe on a monthly basis. Here are the available subscription options:

Subscription Hold'em Resources Calculator

Each subscription is valid for one person. You will be able to activate the software on two devices. The longer you take out a subscription, the more affordable you'll be. The subscription is paid in one go and not per month. For example, if you take out a 6-month subscription at $7.99 per month, you will be billed the total amount of $47.90 at once. Your subscription will be renewed automatically after 6 months (unless you cancel your subscription before then)

Verdict?

Hold'em Resources is an essential tool for all tournament players, sit'n'gos, spin'n'gos and other types of tournament poker. It is a great equity calculator as well as a very useful tool for managing ICM issues. Even if you are a very experienced player, you will not be immune to ICM errors. For this reason, when you have doubts about a particular hand, you can always analyse these hands with HRC

Just correcting 1 or 2 bad habits you had in the past with HRC will save you a lot more than $10 a month. Hold'em Resources Caculator is an essential tool for all serious tournament players

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