What exactly is a Poker Calculator and how can it help your game? Essentially a poker calculator is a small application that you can download and run in the background while you are playing online poker.

The Poker calculator then monitors every hand that is dealt, including your cards, the opponents cards, and the community cards, that is the cards that are dealt in the centre of the table during the flop, turn and the river.

How does it work? That varies. Some poker hand calculators rely on a simple user interface into which you type the cards as they come up. The calculator then calculates your odds of winning, the pot odds, the outs and many other useful statistics. However, the problem with this type of calculator is that it can distract you from the action as your rapidly type in your cards, thus risking missing vital information happening on screen.

Far more effective is an automatic poker odds calculator. These work in a quite different way, sitting quietly on the side of the screen and automatically reading the cards from the screen. They use screen capture to detect the faces on the cards being dealt and use this to determine which action you should take. Of course the final decision is down to you. However the information the calculator produces makes a phenomenal difference to your gameplay. The best automatic poker hand calculators tell you not only the pot odds, the outs, and your chance of winning, but also run statistical models to tell you whether you should raise, fold or call.

A poker odds calculator like this provides a significant advantage over other players. While this remains a niche, many more players are likely to start using free download poker calculators in future.

Alex Mayer is a Poker industry professional from London, England. With a masters in Mathematics she offers Poker advice and strategy to professionals worldwide. Alex shares her wisdom on FirstPokerTips.co.uk and offers guidance on the best free download Poker calculators.