This is my official Odin poker review for 2022. Here is what I see as a break-even MTT poker player and a winning cash player. I sign up for these poker training sites and most of the training includes strategy based on poker solvers. The players play a bunch of hands, mark the interesting ones where they are unsure (in Pokertracker 4 or Hold em Manager), and review them with a solver to figure out the strategy.
I have yet to dig in completely to solvers, with the exception of using a trainer like DTO poker app that uses pre-solved scenarios to help you learn.
After another frustrating day at the MTT tables, I’m going to fire up Odin Poker solver and do a formal Odin Poker review so that we can see if this is what is going to take my game to the next level. I want to transform into a winning tournament poker player at mid-stakes online.
Proof of purchase & what is looks like to set-up Odin Poker
Odin Poker Pricing
There are three different options currently available for Odin Poker and I elected to go witt the MTT version because that is what I’m truly focusing on. So if you’re looking for the cash version of the solver then I would recommend reading a separate review.
The 3 different tiers are:
- Cash – $99/month USD
- MTT – $162/month USD
- Ultimate (Both) – $194/month USD
There is also a free versino that gives you full pre-flop access and limits the post-flop area as well.
Once you make the purchase you will notice some of the menu items change along the top nav bar and you get started right away.
You get four options along the top for:
- New sim
- My sims
- Battle
- Agg Reports
There is also an option for Tutorials. The tutorials section has about 8 videos and I’m going to watch them all because I have no idea how to use those this software properly. I tried playing around a bit and I’m getting lost trying to upload a marked hand from my database.
Odin Poker New Sim Interface
It’s taking me a little bit to get accustomed to the software and the way the interface works, but now that I understand how it works, I got it down.
I can now review hand histories from marked hands that I have and review them one by one. Some might find this tedious but I find it exciting to figure out if I’m making huge mistakes or if I’m doing well and just getting unlucky.
Let’s take a look at the new sim interface.
Right on the top left you get to select between:
- PreFlop
- PostFlop
You can then select your game type if you subscribe to the ultimate option with Cash Game scenarios.
Select an effective stack size. I believe you actually select the whichever is the lower of the stack sizes but I’m not sure how it works if you have two different stack sizes, so I opt to go with the lower of the options to simplify. I think that is correct but I will update this post if I learn that to be different.
Select your positions. Currently there is only options for heads up after the flop and Odin Poker mentioned they will be updating to have some multi-player postflop scenarios in the future.
Underneath the position (which you can’t see) is an option to select the type of actions in the pot, whether its:
- Single Raised Pot (SRP)
- 3Bet Pot
- Limped Pots
- Limp 3bet pots
- Iso pots
- 4Bet Pots
- Limped 4Bet pots
These are all of the potential options you will encounter pre-flop. We got it covered in our Odin Poker Review so hopefully this all helps.
You also get to select the flop. If you’re using a hand you played then just put that in, or you can explore a variety of common flops that you see. For example, the 567 rainbow flop is an interesting one to look at.
In this example, we’ll use an A97 rainbow flop so you can see how it looks.
***Once you select view postflop to get the solved strategies, you will be automatically redirected to a separate screen. You will then have to wait 20 seconds in order to see the solved post flop options. Why? Because it is illegal to use Real-Time Assistance at the poker table, and it is illegal to use Odin while you’re playing. That is why Odin introduced a 20 second delay in order to help reduce the likelihood it is used at the table.
However, Odin Poker provides you with preflop charts to play around with as you are waiting for the 20 seconds to load. This is awesome. I actually love this feature because I can look at random BB defending ranges and more while I’m waiting. This is extremely beneficial.
This is what the “view postflop” window shows for our selected parameters.
You can examine the strategies of the current lit up player. All pretty straigh-forward. These areas have been run 8 million times for each possible option and these are the most profitable lines to take and bets to make in certain situations.
Small blind is first to act and this is these are the options of how they should proceed.
You can then select an action by clicking one in the top left of the screen (this is the mistake I made earlier because I thought you’d be able to select from the bottom right of this area but that is false, you have to select from the root in the top left.
Save yourself some time haha.
I will select check from the SB and then the automatically moves to the BB and the options will change based on what the solver thinks the BB should do.
That’s it.
The best players in the world know a lot of this stuff off by heart. Many random weird spots they study and memorize the correct frequencies so they can be at the top of their game all the time.
Once you know the optimal things to do based on millions of calculations, you can start to deviate from that based on what your opponents are doing. Some people might fold too often, others might call too often, and you need to decide how much you are going to change your lines from game theory optimal (GTO) in order to exploit your opponent.
That is the basic use of a solver for figuring out your hands. Then there is a My Sims option across the top which saves all of your previous sims. Very helpful when reviewing a previous spot.
Now let’s say you didn’t want to go through your hand history, or you just don’t have a database software like Poker Tracker 4 or Hold Em Manager, then you can use the “Battle” option in the top of the nav bar.
Battle With Odin Poker Review
What is the battle against Odin option? You can select a specific scenario or you can select a completely random scenario in order to play against the Odin Poker Solver while Odin scores your decisions. Odin then allows you to take that spot immediately to a Sim so you can see what you did right or what you did incredibly wrong.
I tend to play until I make a big mistake or I get confused, and then I go to Sim from the spot I mess up on to view the better options available. Very interesting. Also you can play an entire session, and once you end the session you will be able to view all the hands one-by-one and run through each sim to learn more about each spot.
This is essentially what the screen looks like for random.
My only gripe with the battle with Odin feature for this Odin Poker review is that the screen is not big enough on my 15” laptop to fit the entire interface. Meaning I have to scroll up and down to commit the desired actions. This is fine on my bigger monitor though, so not a big deal, but still a bit annoying and almost unusable on my laptop monitor because it takes forever to do any volume.
Aggregate Reports
I wasn’t sure what this section did when I first purchased Odin Poker, so I figured I’d share what I learned with you.
Based on your willingness to do research and study, Odin will provide you with access to a whole wack of charts and reports providing you with check frequencies based on certain bets for 1,700+ flops.
It looks something like this depending on the parameters you select.
This is super interesting because you can figure out how certain flops play in different scenarios. You can then lump them together to come up with an overall strategy and learn some interesting things.
Odin Poker Review Conclusion
Overall I’m really impressed with the interface, the layout, and the design of the product. I also love how easy it is to learn how to use this. I always avoided solvers like PIOsolver because the concept was scary and I was nervous I wouldn’t figure out how to use it properly. AND it was expensive.
For the price, I’m super happy I’m dipping into the world of solvers and feel like I’m already learning some spots where I’m making huge mistakes postflop. I’m going to dedicate myself to marking hands in PokerTracker 4 and then analyzing them in Odin. That is my new system. I’m also going to dedicate a ton of time to learning strategy based on the Odin solver, and I really feel like my game will be taken to the next level.
