Strategies is FlopHero's solver library: it serves pre-solved strategies for the spot you build, and solves live only on the heads-up river. You build a spot in a configuration panel, then read the strategy the solver plays for it, hand by hand. Because you build the spot yourself, you are not limited to hands you uploaded, and you can study a line before you ever sit in it.
When to open Strategies
Open Strategies before a session, so the spots you play most are fresh before the first hand. Afterwards, rebuild a spot you think you misplayed; your history stays where it is.
Walking a line street by street is the best way to see the theory, and the solver shows where it splits its actions. For the hands you played, the Hand Replayer is the tool; Strategies is for the spots you want to understand.
Build a first spot
Four steps build a real spot, and the clip plays them on it.
The spot this article follows: the Game Configuration panel, with its site, stake, type, study depth, players and stack.
- Set the table and the stack.
- Build a short preflop line, one seat at a time.
- Read the strategy panel for the solver's action frequencies, hand by hand.
- Deal a flop to watch the strategy shift.
Step through the turn and river to follow the spot to the end. Configuring a Spot is the full walkthrough. To clear a line and start it over, that article also covers the undo and restart controls.
Your spot lives in the page URL. Copy the link to keep a spot or send it to someone. Opening that link rebuilds it exactly.
The two panels
Game Configuration, on the left, is where you build the spot. The strategy panel is where you read the answer.
The Strategies screen on the spot this article follows: the configuration on the left, the strategy panel on the right.
- Game Configuration, where you build the spot: the players, the stacks, then the line seat by seat.
- Range, Split and Matrix, three ways to read the same answer.
- The summary bar, the whole range's split across its actions.
- The grid, every hand painted by what the solver does with it.
In Game Configuration:
- The simulation type controls how the spot is solved. On No Rake, pick Precision or Expand in the Study row. Once you pick your first preflop action the panel shrinks to three buttons, and the room and type button brings the full choice back. Simulation Types covers which one to pick.
- Players and Stack set how many seats are in the hand and how deep everyone plays.
- The preflop action builder gives you a row per seat. You work one seat at a time, from whichever is first to act (EP, highlighted, in the screenshot above).
Configuring a Spot walks through building the line and moving between streets.
The strategy panel opens on the Range tab. Split and Matrix sit beside it. A Categories panel beside the list groups the hands by type.
The Categories panel: each hand type with its share of the range and its action split.
- Range shows each hand with the solver's action frequencies. A summary bar gives the whole range's split, echoed by a slim vertical bar beside the list with its top segment outlined.
- Split separates the range by action.
- Matrix lays the same range out as a grid.
The Matrix tab, showing the starting-hand range as a 13x13 grid with the suit filters above it.
The Range View and Syntax Search reads the list in full and searches for specific combos. Split View and the Matrix View covers the other two.
The strategy panel reflects the active spot and street. Deal a card or change the line and it updates to the new spot.
What changes on the flop
When you deal a flop in Precision, a Boards tab joins the tab row. It shows aggregate strategy across every flop, including the one you dealt. The tab appears on the flop only and disappears on the turn and river. Aggregated Reports covers it.
The flop also adds equity tools in the right panel. The range splits into equity buckets that compare how the two sides' hands stack up, alongside an equity graph. Equity Buckets and the Equity Graph explains them.
The Boards tab on the flop: one row per flop with each side's expected value and its strategy bar, with the group-by row above them.
To study the hand types themselves, from preflop hand groups to made hands and draws, see Hand Categories.
How Strategies connects to your review
The Replayer can hand a spot straight to Strategies. When you open one of your hands, its Study button, a book icon at the top, opens that exact spot here. The Hand Replayer covers opening a hand.
From Strategies, a Train icon at the top of the action tree carries the current spot into the Trainer BETA. Getting Started with the Trainer picks it up from there.
When it looks wrong
Three readings of the spot look wrong at first sight, and each one is the solver doing its job.
One hand, two moves
The solver splits this hand between two moves, and both earn about the same. When two moves earn the same, the solver plays both, so its range stays hard to read. Either one is right.
A strong hand that checks
The strongest hand on this board still checks sometimes. If every strong hand bet, a check would always mean a weak one, and the other player could attack every check. Checking a few of the best hands keeps the checks honest.
A hand with no pair that bets
This hand holds no pair, and the solver still bets it. A bet needs hands like this one: if only made hands bet, a check would give the other player an easy fold, and the bluff would be gone.
To read any hand this way in the app, find it in the Range view and switch Bar data to EV to compare what each move earns.
Where to go next
- Configuring a Spot sets up a spot and moves through the streets.
- Simulation Types explains Precision, Expand and Preflop Only.
- The Range View and Syntax Search reads the range and searches for combos.
- Split View and the Matrix View displays the range in a grid.
- Hand Categories breaks down hand types.
- Aggregated Reports studies strategy across flops at once.
- Real-Time River Solving solves a river with custom bet sizes.