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What is a random hand versus a “non-random” hand and how do they affect my reports?

Most hands dealt on our sites are considered randomly dealt. However, in the poker game, you are able to configure (“fix”) which hands are dealt to you. For example, you might decide to have the software only deal you Raising Hands, or only Pocket Pairs. Or even only deal you one specific hand, such as Ace-Queen. If you do this, the hand will be considered a non-random hand.

You can also “freeze” the button in the game. For example, you might ask to only be dealt in the Big Blind, to practice from that position. These hands would also be considered non-random, since paying the big blind every hand would certainly affect your results.

Therefore, these hands do not show up in your reports, to avoid skewing your statistics. If you wish to show these hands anyway, you can uncheck the box that says Show randomly dealt hands only.

That all being said, there are a several exceptions to this rule. Note that some of these pages are only found on Advanced Poker Training, and not our Omaha and Spin-N-Go sites. Exceptions:

  1. “Overview” page: If any hands in a session were non-random, and Show randomly dealt hands only is checked, that entire session is eliminated from the stats shown on this page.
  2. “Performance…Hands” page of your report (the hand chart): If you configured the poker game to only deal you particular hands (Pocket Pairs, Ace-Queen, etc), these hands will always show up in the hand chart, regardless of the status of the Show randomly dealt hands only checkbox. This is because configuring which hands will be dealt to you does not affect your hand chart statistics for individual hands.
  3. “Performance…Positions” page of your report: If you froze the button in the poker game, these hands will always show up on the Positions page, regardless of the status of the Show randomly dealt hands only checkbox. This is because freezing the button does not affect your statistics for individual positions.
  4. “Performance…Difficulties” page: Same as the Overview Page: If any hands in a session were non-random, and Show randomly dealt hands only is checked, that entire session is eliminated from the stats shown.
  5. “Performance…Streets” page: On this page, Show randomly dealt hands only is ignored, because your luck-adjusted BB/100 is computed directly from the theory of poker. Therefore, streaks of good cards, or freezing the button, should not affect the results. See the skill ratings page for more information.
  6. “Luck” page: On this page, Show randomly dealt hands only is ignored, and non-random hands are never shown (otherwise, it might give the impression that you had been lucky, when in fact you had just configured the software to deal you pocket Aces 100 times in a row...)
  7. “Hand Analysis” page: On this page, Show randomly dealt hands only is ignored, because in most cases you’ll want to see all hands that were flagged by our analyzer, or tagged by you.

 

How do you track “non-random” hands?

For all hands in your database, we keep track of when you fixed which hands were to be dealt, and when you froze the button. We keep track of these separately.

 

How do "non-random" hands affect my weekly training plan on Advanced Poker Training?

For the most part, non-random hands are not considered when putting together your weekly training plan. The same kinds of exceptions that apply to reports (as mentioned above) also apply to the training plan. To be more specific: