Use 2 for -S and 3 for -E

Try the Mobile Phone version of the calculator!

This a beta version of an odds calulcator for Word Ace, an excellent Texas-Holdem / Scrabble crossover made by the folks at Self Aware, for the Apple iPhone, Palm Pre and Facebook.

What does it do

"[It has the] kind of info a person who's playing Word Ace enthusiastically can use to learn how to play better, but still fairly." -- Seppo Helava, Lead Designer, Self Aware Games

Given the 5 community cards, and the 2 cards in your hand it will tell you the following statistics:

• The highest possible score for your cards. It will NOT tell you what the word(s) are, you have to figure it out for yourself.
• The Probability that if you make the highest possible score with your cards, the odds that that word will beat,lose, or tie any other set of hold cards. I haven't figured out how to calculate multi-handed play
• What the probability that someone has hold cards to make a Bingo word (7 letters)
• What the average score for all the possible Hold cards given the community cards.
• What the hold cards would make the best possible hand with the community cards, the best possible score, and 1 example word (This is the only place where the anagram results are shown. I figure if you managed to flop the nuts, well congratulations.)
• What the best score the community cards by themselves make, if this is the same as the best score for your hand, then your calculated probabililty of winning should be 0
• A Histogram of the max score possible for the board. (displaying the Results Table in graphical form)
• Finally it will list what the highest score possible for each combination of hold cards are. Here you can see how your opponents did relative to their potential

If you only give it your pocket (2 hold cards), and don't enter the Board cards:

• The Probability that you recieved that pocket
• The Highest possible score for those pocket cards, and the collection of letters that will allow that score.
• Probability of not getting any points.
• The average score for your pocket given all the possible boards.
• A Histogram of the all the possible scores with for the pocket.
• The Bingo|Hand Index,[0-100] which is a measure of how good the pocket cards are in terms of Bingo Probability and Average Bingo Score, Higher number is better
• The Probability that the board will allow/not allow a bingo
• The Average score of possible Bingos for the pocket
• A Histogram of the Bingo scores for the Pocket with the Average Bingo score bin highlighted in red.
• Relative ranks out of 402 pockets for most columns are shown in parentheses, Lower Ranks are better

If you only give it your pocket (2 hold cards), and only the flop (first 3 Board cards) or the flop and river cards only (first 4 Board cards):

• The Probability that if you make the highest possible score with the given 5 or 6 cards, the odds that that word is beating, losing or tieing any other set of hold cards. I haven't figured out how to calculate multi-handed play
• What the average score for all the possible Hold cards given the flop.
• What hold cards would make the best possible hand with the flop cards, the best possible score, and 1 example word (This is the only place where the anagram results are shown. I figure if you managed to flop the nuts, well congratulations.)
• Best Possible score you have right now with the given 5 or 6 cards.
• A Histogram of the max score possible for the flop (and Turn). (displaying the Results Table in graphical form)
• Considering all the possible [Turn and] River Cards, what your average score will be
• The Probability of getting a Bingo with the [Turn and ]River cards
• Which [Turn and] River cards give you the best possible board for your pocket
• A Histogram of the best possible scores for the given, considering all possible future Cards. (displaying the Results Table in graphical form)

How does it work?

There is a perl script that I wrote to perform the anagraming and calclate the statistics. It takes into consideration: the letter distribution, and the scores, as well as the word list. It doesn't currently account for impossible duplicate hold cards, (i.e. if you have J and X in your hand, no-one else will) And of course, it can't predict whether or not you or your opponents will find the best possible score for your hands. The Pocket stats are precomputed, everything else is done live.

But why not show the resulting words?

I like the challenge of finding words, but I often get a nagging suspicion I could do better, this calculator will let me know whether or not I could've done better without spoiling the answer. Not to mention that it would be cheating. Some will argue that using this calculator is cheating as well, and I won't disagree with you. But it far less egregious than using a straight up anagramer. Also if you suspect someone is, you can use this calculator to see how often they find the best possible result. If it happens alot, they're either really really good, or they have help.

What's Next

• More Pocket stats, just need to figure out what's useful. :)
• Making this a widget or gagdet or even a facebook app (that would make sense), if there is interest. (I've never done this before but should be straight forward. Ha!)
• Your thoughts here....

The Average Word Score Guider gives you guidlines on what it will take to improve your average word score.

What it Needs

Fill in the fields above to the best of your ability

• Target Average Word Score: What you want your average word score to be
• Current Average Word Score: Look at the mini-profile at the table on an iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad Client for average score to the closest tenth
• Total number of Hands Played: Look in your main Profile page for this number
• Total number of Hands Bought: Look in your main Profile page for this number
• Total number of Hands Folded: This number is not currently accessible, give a guess or put zero here probably 5 to 10 times the hands bought
• Total number of Words Failed: This number is also not currently accessible, give a guess for this number as well.

Underlying Assumptions

• You play the best possible word every hand, folding, failing or buying the pot when you have a hand with a best possible score below the recommended score
• You don't buy the pot when your best possible word is higher than your target score. (obviously you shouldn't fold those hands)
• You play at the rate of 20 hands an hour
• Your current average word score is within 0.1 of the value given

How does it work

• A precalculated table of the best possible score for every possible hand is used to determine the average scores if you fold all hands below a certain score, there is a slight error in this table due to incorrect specification of the letter distribution. So currently the guide will over predict the amount of time
• The number of hands you need to play with that average score is calculated in order to raise your score to the desired target
• A range is calculated by assuming your current average score could be as much as +/- 0.05 points higher than shown
• The number of hours necessary is calculated based on 20 hands an hour, taking into account the percentage of hands you'll need to fold (with a best possible score lower than your target score) For example, since the average best possible score for all possible hands is 12.57, you'll be folding at least half of your hands if your target is above 12.6, which means the number hands you'll be playing will be at least twice.