PLO players have never had quite the same selection of tools as their Texas Hold’em compatriots. Whilst we have all been doing equity calculations with PokerStove since the Moneymaker boom years, four-card fans have lacked a real equivalent. The PLO mainstay has always been ProPokerTools, but this is browser-based and lacked a offline version. And as a multitude of new tools have appeared for Hold’em – CardRunners EV, Equilab, The Combonator and many more – PLO players have been largely sidelined.
“Beyond simple calculations, Omaha Equilab has a few other tricks up it’s sleeve.” But in the last year or so things have changed. First we had the release of Slice, an offline equity calculator that included PLO and Omaha 8 support. This was followed by ProPokerTools’s own “Odds Oracle” this year, a calculator for multiple games that goes well beyond range equity calculators.
And last week saw the launch of PokerStrategy’s “Equilab Omaha,” an Omaha version of its popular Texas Hold’em calculator. So how does the free tool stack up against the existing offerings?
One thing that made the original Equilab popular was the user-friendly interface. Poker software has traditionally suffered from rather quirky designs and esoteric references, with little in the way of help or guidance for the uninitiated. Equilab changed that with an intuitive, straight-forward design, and the new Omaha tool is based on the same layout. Buttons are explanatory, tool tips offer useful hints, and smart use of color aids in calculation output.
Equilab can run hand-vs-range and range-vs-range calculations for up to ten players, preflop and on later streets. Ranges can be based on a percentile (with various preflop hand rankings available), or through a custom syntax similar to ProPokerTools to define the specifics of the hand. There are also predefined ranges available curated from a variety of sources, although it does not appear possible to save your own.
All calculations are run on a Monte Carlo simulation. Equity percentages can be output on a per-street basis, and can be copied to the clipboard for easy sharing on forums.
Beyond simple calculations, Omaha Equilab has a few other tricks up it’s sleeve. “It provides everything that most learners will need in one fast little package, without all the unintuitive interface cruft of other programs.” A Hand Range Explorer feature outputs the combinations for defined hand ranges, and a “Next Street” equity graph shows how the equity will shift based on the next cards to come. There is also a separate “hand vs hand” tool to give in-depth breakdown and compare two specific hands preflop.
The feature list is not as extensive as some of the other tools available. Slice, for example, provides additional output options and board texture descriptions; Odds Oracle has extra calculators built in like the “Playable Hand Calculator” and an advanced language to define hand ranges. Both tools support split games, whereas Equilab is Omaha Hi only.
But that is not really the point of Equilab Omaha, nor was it with its Hold’em sister. It provides everything that most PLO learners will need in one fast little package, without all the unintuitive interface cruft of other programs. If you are already happy with your existing Omaha calculator there are probably no compelling reasons to switch to Omaha Equilab; but if you are a new student of PLO looking for an equity calculator, or you are frustrated with the existing offerings, then this tool is certainly worth a look.
Omaha Equilab is available to download free from pokerstrategy.com.
