Matrix Cells
If you've got a No Limit background, the matrix view might already look familiar! This is a 13x13 grid where we are separating good suits and bad suits to make it easier to train both preflop and postflop.
Each matrix cell contains two cards in a 13x13 grid, with pocket pairs cascading diagonally from top left to bottom right.
Reading the grid from left to right the hands/cards are sorted from highest rank to lowest rank - for example, Aces and then AK, AQ, AJ and so on.
Good suit variations will always display on the top right side of the diagonal. A good suit variation means your hand is always suited to the highest card in the hand, or the highest two cards in your hand when you're double suited. A bad suit variation means you're not suited to your highest card or two cards.
The default view for the preflop matrix view is level 0.
Using the Preflop Matrix
Let's imagine you want to learn how to play pocket kings from EP. We'll start off at level 0 which is the highest/top level in the preflop matrix.
Start off by selecting KK from the preflop matrix view - this will send us to level 1. We'll now be able to see that KK is selected near the top of the matrix view graph. This will lock us into KK.
The view of the matrix will now change - we can now see that the colors have changes. This allows us to pick our next 2 sidecards that go along with KK. In red we see the hands that are raising, and in blue the hands that are folding.
In the left hand tab called details, we can see every hand that is part of a cell when we highlight or click that cell. For example, if we click QJ (with the good suits) we'll see all the combos of KKQJ and their preflop action from EP. In this example, we're opening all of these combos.
If we click on QJ (with the bad suit variation), we'll see the following instead (notice how in the details tab it shows us if we are using the good suits or bad suits):
Why is the Preflop Matrix Useful and how can we use it?
By using the matrix view, we can easily see at a quick glance how our entire range performs and what we want to do. Taking EP RFI as an example, we can easily see what our strongest hands are and where the drop-off starts.
Taking Ax as an example at level 0, we're obviously opening 100% of AA combos, and as we start to look at AKxx and AQxx and so on, we can see by the time we have AQxx we're only opening about 50% of our hands now.
Now let's look at KK again in level 1 - we can see that when we have a bunch of side cards that are connected we're also opening all of these hands. We can easily see once we start to have disconnected side cards and lower ranking/wheel cards these are the hands we're folding from EP. We can also see that good suit variations are opening more than bad suit variations.
Preflop Matrix Filters
Along the right hand side of the matrix view, we can see additional filters: Single Suited, Double Suited, Triple Suited, and Monotone/Rainbow.
These filters can be used to gain quick insights into certain hand classes and make it easier to see what we're doing with specific hands and hand classes.
For example, if we filter for double suited KKxx, we can see that 100% of this entire hand class is opening:
Hands that are greyed/blacked out do not exist for a filter, as it's not possible to have these hands.
Preflop Matrix - Practical Example
Let's assume we have T987 single suited to the 9 in EP and see if we want to open this hand. First, click on T9 from level 0 because these are the two highest ranking cards in our hand:
Next, click on 87 because these are the next two highest cards by rank in our hand, and we can see which hands are raising or folding by looking to the details tab located to the left hand side. You can also use the filter on the right hand side to filter for single suited if you'd like:
Preflop Matrix - Practical Example (Hand Contains)
You can also use the filters on the right hand side to filter for hands that contain two specific cards. After you have selected two cards, simply use the "Switch to any cards" filter to take a look at our entire range with those selected cards.
Sticking with the example from above, we'll use T9 and then click the filter option for "Switch to any cards":
We can see that T9 is locked in the top left, and now the matrix grid is showing all hands with T9xx in them.
Preflop Matrix - Video Tutorial
For a complete video tutorial showing all of the steps above, please visit https://plomastermind.com/lessons/plo-trainer-members-only-ux-ui-update/. Please note you must have a current PLO Mastermind subscription to watch the video, as only current subscribers will have access to PLO Trainer.