When I was a young kid, I regularly watch the cartoon show “GI Joe”. During a certain stretch of the show, at the end of every episode, one character would be spending time with some kid, the former teaching the latter some of “life’s lessons”; and at the very end, no matter what the “lesson” was about, the character would always mouth, “knowing is half the battle.”

Since the 90’s, we have experienced significant advances in information and communications technology, which culminated in the widespread use of the Internet and the subsequent dot.com boom. Knowledge and information had become the keys with which people attained success. Since then, the innocent phrase of my childhood had taken on an all-encompassing mantle: information is power.

Nowhere is that phrase truer than in playing poker, particularly the online kind where information about one’s opponents (such as facial expressions or reactions) is not readily available. In online plays, information such as poker odds are now provided by the poker calculator, a powerful tool which is freely distributed all over the web. This online poker calculator will give you the edge that is preached by my once-favorite cartoon show: knowing is half the battle. The other half will all be up to you.