Scope and Limitations
What the free practice hands show, what they don't, and how to read a recommendation.
Published scope
- Game
- Six-max No-Limit Hold'em cash games.
- No tournaments or other games. Full-ring hands can be logged, but most of their positions are outside the analysis.
- Arena hands
- Heads-up hands at a six-seat table.
- No multiway pots. How the Arena deals is set out below.
- Stack depth
- Levels 1 to 6 play 100 big blinds, levels 7 to 12 play 200.
- The Best Response Engine reads logged hands at other depths as the nearer of 100 and 200 big blinds.
- Best Response Engine
- Heads-up decisions after the flop in single-raised, 3-bet and 4-bet pots, against a chosen opponent type.
- No preflop decisions, multiway pots or 5-bet pots.
- Balanced reference
- A 100bb CFR solve across all 1,755 flops, with bets of half pot and pot and raises of 3x and 4x.
- No other bet sizes, no 200bb solve, and no limped or multiway pots.
- Rake
- Not modeled. Every EV and every Arena pot is rake-free.
- Edges are thinner in raked games, most of all at low stakes.
- Hand import
- One PokerStars hand history at a time, or a hand typed in shorthand or plain words.
- No other sites, no bulk import, no export to a tracker.
Opponent profiles describe tendencies. They do not predict what one specific person holds.
How the Arena deals
The Arena is built for practice, so it doesn't deal like a real table.
- One opponent per hand.
- Six seats, but every hand is heads-up: one opponent plays you and the other four fold before the flop. There are no multiway pots.
- Who that opponent is.
- Usually the level's opponent: 9 hands in 10 at levels 1 and 2, about half at levels 3 to 10, and about two in three at levels 11 and 12. The other hands go to a player type from that room's pool.
- Your cards.
- In the campaign, you are always dealt a playable starting hand, and your opponent gets a hand it would play from its seat, so you see more contested pots than at a real table.
- Surprise duels.
- Every few hundred hands, a stronger opponent may take the seat for a short duel.
What it does not do
Spots the Lab can't analyze yet
The three practice hands on this site show how a read changes a decision. They are not a list of every spot the app can analyze. When the Hand Lab can't analyze a spot, it tells you instead of guessing.
Predictions about one specific person
A profile is a starting prior for a type of player, not a forecast of the person in seat five tonight. Real players deviate, tilt, and adjust mid-session. Poker Shark teaches you which evidence updates a read, and it will never claim to know what a specific human holds.
Live, real-time assistance
Poker Shark is for practice and review between sessions. It is not designed for use during a live or online game.
Guaranteed profit
Training improves decisions. It cannot promise winnings, and we don't promise them.
Think we got something wrong?
Tell us. Email support@pokrshark.com with the hand and the read you disagree with. Feedback from strong players is how we find what to fix.
How the numbers are built is documented in the opponent methodology, and how your data is handled lives in the data policy.
Practice cash-game adjustments between sessions.
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Early access opens October 9, 2026.
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