Today I teach you about the most valuable hand analysis tool available, Flopzilla, and how it’s revolutionized my poker game and my hand reading skills.

In episode 66 I taught you basic hand reading, and how understanding percentage form can lead to assigning more accurate pre-flop ranges.

Flopzilla and H.A.N.D. Reading

Podcast Mission (4:25)

My mission for today is to teach you the benefits that I’ve gained from using Flopzilla as well as show you how I use it for the very specific task of hand reading an opponent.

How has Flopzilla benefited my game? (5:00)

Range Visualization

Constant use of Flopzilla has helped me to better visualize ranges.  I’m able to conjure in my mind what a 5% or 15% or 30% range looks like.  With the ability to visualize ranges, I have a better idea of what my opponents are likely playing given their pre-flop actions, and I can keep this range in my thoughts longer as the hand progresses.

And I’m so much better with the percentage form (episodes 60 & 66) now because of Flopzilla.  This is a key skill for online players who use HUD’s which relate info to you in %-form, but it helps LIVE players as well.  If you’d estimate a player opens the BTN 30% of the time, or your HUD stat tells you as much, you know he’s likely opening any pp, A5s and A8o or better, every suited 8+ and every off-suit 9+, and 54s+ and 64s+.

Range & Board Interaction

Until I used Flopzilla I had no idea how to calculate how often a range of hands hit a board.  How often does the 30% range above hit a JT7r board?  By “hitting the board” I mean TP+, an oesd or pair+draw.  The answer is 50%.

The reason this hits so frequently is b/c the 30% range consists of lots of broadway and middle cards which of course hits this type of board.

Practice like this has helped me to see the type of boards that different ranges hit strongly, which helps me to avoid costly flop cbets or c/r or donk bets that won’t elicit the fold I’m looking for.

Future Cards & Effects on Equity

Another great aspect of Flopzilla is seeing how different flops affect equities, but also what future cards can do to it.  AA vs the 30% range and the JT7r flop has 74% equity.  But that equity drops to 72% on a turn Q, but increases to 81% on a turn 3.

Now, we all know that future cards can be good for us or our opponent, but we often don’t think about it in a hand.  But, working with Flopzilla gets you to start thinking about this stuff more often, which helps you to develop plans for future cards.  If you know what helps your range and hurts your opp’s on the next street, or vice versa, you can make plans for the cards that come.

Counting Combos

So I talk a lot about %’s and percentage form in studying poker.  But Flopzilla does something really cool by displaying ranges and statistics in combo form.  For example, that 30% range consists of 281 combos once we remove the board cards and our AA.  Hitting the flop is 53% of the time, which is 148 hands.  And, for lots of people, these hard numbers are easier for them to understand.

Looking at analyses in combo form helps us to spot huge frequency issues in our game.  Let’s say we get to the flop with a player, we cbet 90 combos of hands we have, but he c/shoves and we only call his c/shove with sets.  Well, for any non-paired flop there are only 9 combos of sets, which means we’re only calling 9 out of 90 combos or only 10% of the time.  His c/shove only needs to work 50% or less, but it’s working 90% of the time.  He’s printing money by shoving 100% of the time vs us in this spot.

Finding and correcting these frequency issues can plug many holes in our game.

Utilizing the Statistics & Filters

The statistics section allows you to narrow the range as you progress in the hand.  Within the statistics section it will show you the % of the range that hit a specific hand, whether it’s a TP, set, fd, no made hand, whatever.  You can begin to narrow down the range by filtering for these specific hands.

So, with the 30% range, JT7r example, and we’ve got AA, let’s say our opp only continues beyond the flop with TP+, an oesd and pair + draw.

Well, we see he only continues with 148 combos of his original range.  The software removes hands from his range that don’t meet the criteria we set.  I’m sure you can see how valuable this aspect of Flopzilla is to hand reading.  You don’t have to mark hands off on a piece of paper or painstakingly consider each one in Pokerstove and manually remove them from the matrix.

How can I use Flopzilla to practice hand reading an opponent? (14:50)

H.A.N.D. Reading is: History, Assign, Narrow and Destroy! (episode 66)

Podcast Challenge (24:50)

Here’s my challenge to you for this episode: If you’ve got Flopzilla already, do some hand reading practice with showdown hands you’ve played and that you don’t remember. See how accurate you are in your final assessment of the opponent’s range. If you don’t have Flopzilla yet, either get the ‘Hand Reading Lab' that comes with a license to use Flopzilla with my offer code “smart” or go to www.Flopzilla.com to download it for a free 7 day trial and do some hand reading practice on the house.

Purchase the Hand Reading Lab with my affiliate offer code

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The course contains everything you need to master the skill and art of hand reading:

• 27 videos
• Powerful Guides and Exercises
• A 2-hour Hand Reading Webinar
• A Hand Reading LIVE Tags video from Red Chip Poker
• A Flopzilla License
• A set of custom Flopzilla Ranges to help you hand read opponents and use Flopzilla successfully

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Up Next…

In episode #69, I'll answer 3 superb listener Q’s.  And next week, in episode #70, I’ll continue the HRL series and I’ll discuss thinking about your own ranges and creating them based on different scenarios like your responses to 3bets or what range you’d continue with vs a flop cbet.

Until next time, study smart, play much and make your next session the best one yet.