Hold'em SimSix-handed no-limit Hold'em against bots, with a coach. Argue with it; the maths decides.

Press Deal
Pot 0
D
Discipline
Heat
Blinds 50 / 100. Everyone starts with 10,000 (100 big blinds).

The button and order of play

Coach

Deal a hand

Your equity
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Needed to call
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Where your chips came from
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Needs more hands

Gains from beating the coach partly reflect bot weaknesses and may not transfer to human tables.

Agreement with coach—
Hands played (VPIP) By position (i)Rough guide for 6-max. UTG: tight, about 14 to 18 percent. HJ: a little wider. CO: wider. BTN: widest, about 40 to 50 percent. SB: selective. BB: defends a lot because of the price.
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The coach folds a lot because winning 6-max players only play about a quarter of their hands, and most hands are too weak to be worth entering the pot.

Dana's read on you

Needs 30 hands

Hands

Earned: you followed the coach and won. Bad beat: you followed the coach and lost. Heater: you went against the coach and won, which may be luck. Punished: you went against the coach and lost.

One hand, many deals

Equity
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Even share
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What the hand becomes by the river, and how often that wins

The blue bar is how often the hand ends in that category. The green part is the share of those deals you win. A strong starting hand mostly ends as one pair or less; the equity comes from winning those pots often, not from making big hands.

Every starting hand

169 hands, about 1,500 deals each.
worsebetter than an even share

Pairs run down the diagonal, suited hands sit above it, offsuit below. The number is your equity against that many random hands. Compare it with the even share (50% against one, 33% against two) and you can see why the opening ranges are shaped the way they are.

The dealer button, in a card room

Online, the software posts your blinds and tells you when to act. Live, you do all of it yourself, and the whole table notices when you do not. The button is the only thing you have to track.

  1. The button moves one seat clockwise after every hand. Whoever has the disc is "on the button" and acts last after the flop. Watch where it is before you look at your cards.
  2. The two seats to the button's left post the blinds before any cards are dealt: small blind first (half a big blind), big blind next. Put the chips out in front of you, not in the pot, as soon as the previous hand ends. If you forget, the dealer will ask, and everyone waits.
  3. Pre-flop, action starts with the seat after the big blind ("under the gun") and goes clockwise. The big blind acts last pre-flop and may check if nobody raised.
  4. After the flop, action starts with the first live player to the button's left (the small blind if still in) and the button acts last on every later street.
  5. Say your action before you touch chips. "Call", "Raise to 600", "Fold". A single chip pushed forward without words is a call, even if it is a 5,000 chip. A raise must be announced or put out in one motion; two motions is a string bet and only the first counts.
  6. Raise sizes are "to" amounts. "Raise to 300" means your total bet is 300. The minimum raise is the size of the last raise again; with blinds 50/100 the first raise must be to at least 200.
  7. Protect your cards. Keep them on the table with a chip on top. Cards that touch the muck or leave the table are dead. Do not show them to anyone during the hand.
  8. Act in turn. Wait for the player before you. Acting early gives away information and is against the rules.
  9. Showdown: the last aggressor shows first; if everyone checked the river, the first player left of the button shows first. Turn both cards face up; the dealer reads the hand, not you. If you lose, you may muck without showing.
  10. Stacks: keep big chips visible at the front. Ask "how much?" before calling an all-in; the dealer will count it.

What the trainer teaches, and what it does not

The bots play fixed styles. Station seats call too much and rarely raise; bet them for value and never bluff them. Tight seats fold most hands and bet only with something; respect their raises. Wild seats raise and bluff often; call them down lighter and let them bet into your strong hands. The seat label shows the style, which is a hint a real table never gives you; later you can hide it in the Lab.

The coach plays a tight, value-heavy strategy that beats weak players and bots. It is the right default while you are learning equity and pot odds. It does not teach bluffing frequencies, range construction or exploitative play against good human players; those come after the fundamentals are automatic.

Equity figures are against random hands, not against the ranges the bots actually play, so they run a little high when a tight seat has raised. The outs count only cards that improve your own hand, not the board.

This is a training tool, not professional advice. Play within limits you set before you sit down.

How the maths works

Equity. Your equity is estimated by dealing out the rest of the hand many times (3,000 deals at the table, 10,000 in Reveal) against random cards for every opponent still in. It counts how often you win, tie or lose. It does not know what the bots actually hold, so against a tight player who has raised, your real equity is lower than shown.

The coach. The coach's advice is a baseline built from position-based opening ranges, hand strength and pot odds. It does not read opponents. That is deliberate: the baseline is what most books teach, and Reveal is how you find out when the table makes the baseline wrong.

Reveal EV. Reveal replays your decision against the table's six opponents as they actually play. For each of 10,000 deals it gives every live opponent random cards, applies your action, then lets the bots respond using their own decision rules for the rest of the betting on that street. If everyone folds you win the pot; if the betting closes with you still in, the board runs out to a showdown. If a bot raises back at you, your response is modelled as calling when your equity against that bot's actual hand covers the pot odds, otherwise folding. The result is the average chips won or lost relative to folding now. The same is run for the coach's line, so the two numbers are directly comparable.

What is not modelled.

  • Later streets. Reveal finishes the betting on the current street and then runs the board out; it does not plan the turn and river.
  • Your image. The bots' rules in Reveal do not carry a memory of your earlier hands, except the Pro, who uses your session statistics.
  • Bet-size tells, timing and anything a human reads from a face.
  • Real humans. The opponents are rule-based players with set personalities. A real table folds more or less than this one.

The Pro. Dana, the Pro, is different from the other four bots: she tracks how often you enter pots, raise, fold to pressure, continuation-bet and reach showdown, and adjusts her play against you. She also makes an occasional deliberate move no chart would recommend. Her rules are not published; working them out is part of the game.

Hold'em Sim: a free Texas Hold'em trainer with a maths coach

Hold'em Sim is a free browser trainer for no-limit Texas Hold'em. You sit at a six-seat table with five bots, each with a fixed style, and play with play chips only. Everyone starts with 10,000 chips and the blinds are 50 and 100.

Before you act, the coach shows an equity estimate, the price the pot is offering and a recommended action based on position, hand strength and pot odds. You can hide the advice and be graded afterwards, or override the coach and see whether you were right. Nothing needs installing.

The Reveal button tests a decision instead of asking you to trust it. It replays your action across 10,000 simulated deals against the table as it actually plays, then shows the result in chips. The Lab tab runs equity for any starting hand, and the Live play tab explains card room etiquette, from the dealer button to showdown.

The tool is built for learning equity, pot odds and position, not for predicting what good human players do. The bots follow rules, and the limits are set out in How the maths works.

Frequently asked questions

Is Hold'em Sim free?

Yes. It is free to play in your browser, with no purchase needed.

Is it real money?

No. It uses play chips only. There is no real-money play, no deposits and no prizes.

How does the coach work?

The coach gives a baseline recommendation from position-based opening ranges, hand strength, your equity and the pot odds. It does not read opponents, which is deliberate, so you can see where the table departs from the textbook.

What does Reveal do?

Reveal simulates your decision 10,000 times against the bots at your table, lets them respond using their own rules, and reports the average chip result of your action.