Dealer Options
Dealer Options allows you to rig the deck so that
certain cards will be dealt. Choose Dealer Options...
from the Dealer menu.
The options you choose here will be applied to any ring games that
you play and to the tournament games that you are watching or participating
in. These options are never applied during online games, or to any
background tables during a multi-table tournament.
Fixed Hole Cards
Fixed Hole Cards controls how hole cards are dealt to each player.
Every seat has two radio buttons allowing you to specify
how cards are dealt. You can specify particular cards with the left
option or a range of cards with the right option.
Click any of the card backs to bring up the Card Chooser and select the
specific cards you wish to have dealt out. Cards that have been chosen elsewhere
will appear grayed-out. Cards left face down will be dealt randomly from
the remaining cards in the deck.
Select the right radio button if you wish to select ranges of cards
to be dealt to a seat. These ranges are based on the 169 possible starting hands
in Hold'em. For example, selecting "Top 5%" would deal only premium hands that fall
in the top 5% of these 169 hands. Selecting "Middle 30%" would select a larger range
of middling hands from the centre of this ranking of hands.
Fixed Board Cards
Fixed Board Cards controls how the board cards are dealt.
You can specifically select each board card with the card chooser as described above.
Other Options
You can uncheck Log Hand Histories and Statistics so that
games played will not be logged in the Hand History Database
or affect the tracked statistics in the Player Statistics System.
You may wish to not record games and stats where you where the deal has been
skewed.
The Remove Cap once Heads-Up option means that when you
are playing against only one opponent in a limit game, more
than 4 bets or raises are allowed in a round. This an optional rule in
Hold'em seen in many cardrooms.
How Can This Help Me?
Being able to control which cards are dealt to which seat is a powerful
tool for learning about different poker situations. For example, you can
force yourself to be dealt various hole card pairs that you are
uncomfortable playing so that you can try out various strategies and
see which ones work in which situations. When you combine this
ability with the ability to "fix" board cards and additionally even
your position in a ring game, you have the ability to force yourself to
learn how to deal with problematic situations until you become comfortable
with them. Additionally, these options can be used to allow you to
practice and explore specific concepts that you may have read in poker
books.