Re: The Mathematics of Poker
 

As of yesterday it had not shown up in my Massachusetts location at either Borders or Barnes & Noble.

Re: The Mathematics of Poker
 

I finished going through it today.

Of great philosophy books, it's often said that, "the smarter you get, the smarter it gets." In economics, I get that feel reading someone like Thomas Schelling. With each reading, you gain a richer understanding of his genius. The Mathematics of Poker is clearly a work of genius. It's the best poker book ever published. It doesn't merely build on Sklansky and the like --- we've leaped forward a few years with this work.

Congrats to Jerrod and Bill for this outstanding book.

I have a math and econ background (i've taken twelve phd-level econ courses, including two in game theory) and I missed a lot of key stuff on the first reading. I plan to spend a lot of time with this book.

Brandon

Re: The Mathematics of Poker
 

To either of the authors, I have a question about the concept of jamming the pot on pg 86-88.

On Pg 88 you state that if your opponent raises 25% of his hands from the button but only calls a few reraise jams then this is a good play when he is calling you less than 1/5 of the time.

I'm kind of confused about the idea you guys mentioned about jamming him from the blinds just because he will usually fold. Correct me if I'm wrong but the idea I got is that a player like this is only going to be calling these jam moves with AA KK or AK.

What my question is, are there any specific range of hands you recommend needed to jam the guy with in this situation, or are you actually recommending jamming with 2-3?

Also, I haven't read ahead yet, so you may have answered this, but what about considerations of people who remain in early position left to call your jam move? Do you not worry about them limping in with monster hands in this situation?

By the way excellent book so far. I can see why Chris Ferguson says this will be the only book on his syllabus if he ever teaches math at UCLA. I've taken Probability and Statistics, and Psychological Stats(involved confidence intervals, and central limit theorem.) This book is in-depth, but tough so far for me. Math is not my strong point, even though I made A's in each class. Just tough to remember how to do a lot of it, without an actual hands on teacher. Either way, nothing I can't handle overall so far. Great book.

Re: The Mathematics of Poker
 

How come 2+2 did not publish this book?

cheers
Boon

Re: The Mathematics of Poker
 

[ QUOTE ]
To either of the authors, I have a question about the concept of jamming the pot on pg 86-88.

On Pg 88 you state that if your opponent raises 25% of his hands from the button but only calls a few reraise jams then this is a good play when he is calling you less than 1/5 of the time.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is a good exploitive play in this circumstance, if you know the guy's strategy and the stacks are as we describe.

[ QUOTE ]
I'm kind of confused about the idea you guys mentioned about jamming him from the blinds just because he will usually fold. Correct me if I'm wrong but the idea I got is that a player like this is only going to be calling these jam moves with AA KK or AK.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, you're definitely unhappy if he calls. But all the money you picked up by raising all the times he doesn't more than makes up for it.

[ QUOTE ]
What my question is, are there any specific range of hands you recommend needed to jam the guy with in this situation, or are you actually recommending jamming with 2-3?

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, "this situation" is specific to the stack size and the player -- the idea is that you can calculate the equity of your different actions and figure out which is best from an exploitive standpoint. Here, it's fairly obvious that "jam" is the best option for almost every hand because the opponent's strategy is so weak - that is, he raises loosely but gives up frequently.

[ QUOTE ]
Also, I haven't read ahead yet, so you may have answered this, but what about considerations of people who remain in early position left to call your jam move? Do you not worry about them limping in with monster hands in this situation?

[/ QUOTE ]

There are no limpers in this example, and yes it would be imperative to be aware of them and their likely distributions and strategies if there were any.

[ QUOTE ]
By the way excellent book so far. I can see why Chris Ferguson says this will be the only book on his syllabus if he ever teaches math at UCLA. I've taken Probability and Statistics, and Psychological Stats(involved confidence intervals, and central limit theorem.) This book is in-depth, but tough so far for me. Math is not my strong point, even though I made A's in each class. Just tough to remember how to do a lot of it, without an actual hands on teacher. Either way, nothing I can't handle overall so far. Great book.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks.

jerrod

Geeky typographical errata
 

I'm enjoying the book and I think it's pretty well-written considering the material (mathematics) and the intended audience (poker players).

There are lots of little typos, as there will often be in a book like this. However, the thing that has been bugging me most is the typography. Typesetting mathematics is different from typesetting ordinary text, and there are lots of mistakes in the book.

[ QUOTE ]
Yeah since there are 382 pages not counting the roman numbered ones, I opened to 191. I see what you mean.


[/ QUOTE ]

So let's take a look at p191 to illustrate...

line 1: "where x is odd" should say "where n is odd"

line 2: there's a missing + before the first occurrence of "[...]"

line 3: "when X is even" should say "when n is even"

The next few lines look okay.

The missing + rears its head again twice in the displayed formula at line 12.

The last paragraph (beginning "This is Y's entire strategy") contains lots of occurrences of something that comes up throughout the book, which is the random changing typeface of mathematical variables. E.g. on the second line, in "(n + 1)th", n has an italic typeface, but later in "nth" it is Roman. Similarly, the variable r appears in Roman on lines two and three of the paragraph but in italic on line four.

Just below the displayed equation, we find Roman "yn" and "xn" which should be y_n (y subscript n) and x_n, in italic; these are pretty bad typesetting errors.

Speaking of subscripts, what's going on there? Look at the top of p190, where it says "At x_1", and compare with the top of p192, "at y_1": there's a huge difference in size between the two subscript-1s. Why?

Also in the second table on p190, the intervals [y3,y2] and so on are typeset with the ys in subscript font, so that the 3s and 2s appear right next to the ys, whereas in the first and third tables the ys are in normal style and the subscripts are obviously subscripts. This subscripting starts to look really bad on p192 where intervals like [x_n, y_n] appear, because the comma in the middle attaches itself to the subscript n in a weird way and makes it look like a subscript n' (n prime), if you see what I mean.

Anyway, you may think a lot of this is nitpicking, and while you would not be entirely wrong, I firmly believe that if you want to make the book as easy to read as possible, and as correct as possible, then getting the typography right and avoiding these kinds of errors is important: with hard-to-read subscripts etc, the reader is forced to guess what you mean, and while there may only be one reasonable guess most of the time, there is always a chance the reader gets it wrong.

The stuff I pointed out above came from opening the book at a randomly chosen page (chosen by Bill!) but I was confident I'd find plenty of this kind of stuff because it's everywhere in the book.

(I've got it open on p192 now and can see several more such bugs.)

Another related thing is the typesetting of fractions. For instance on p82 near the bottom there's a term

-1/3(100+3x)

and on p128, equation 12.5 we have

9/2(S+3)

In the first of these, the term in parentheses is intended to be understood as being in the numerator of the fraction, and in the second it's supposed to be in the denominator. That's a pretty major ambiguity since they look identical in terms of typography.

So, a plea. If you ever get round to creating a second edition, which I sincerely hope you will since it's a great text, please please please get the typesetting done by someone who knows how to typeset mathematics, using a system which is capable of doing a good job. I'm sure it will add a lot of quality to the final product.

Yours geekily,

Guy.

Question to Authors
 

Question to Authors

Why not typeset mathematics using LaTeX? It's use is virtually universal in mathematics.

Re: Question to Authors
 

[ QUOTE ]
Question to Authors

Why not typeset mathematics using LaTeX? It's use is virtually universal in mathematics.

[/ QUOTE ]

I was wondering that too. Chen has a math Ph.D., so he has to be pretty familiar with TeX. My guess is that non-math/physics publishers just don't do TeX (I certainly can't convince biophysics journals to accept things in TeX, for instance).

Re: Question to Authors
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Question to Authors

Why not typeset mathematics using LaTeX? It's use is virtually universal in mathematics.

[/ QUOTE ]

I was wondering that too. Chen has a math Ph.D., so he has to be pretty familiar with TeX. My guess is that non-math/physics publishers just don't do TeX (I certainly can't convince biophysics journals to accept things in TeX, for instance).

[/ QUOTE ]

Really? Wow! What do they accept? What do they insist on?

Re: Question to Authors
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Question to Authors

Why not typeset mathematics using LaTeX? It's use is virtually universal in mathematics.

[/ QUOTE ]

I was wondering that too. Chen has a math Ph.D., so he has to be pretty familiar with TeX. My guess is that non-math/physics publishers just don't do TeX (I certainly can't convince biophysics journals to accept things in TeX, for instance).

[/ QUOTE ]

Really? Wow! What do they accept? What do they insist on?

[/ QUOTE ]

Take your worst guess.

Microsoft Word or PDF is the standard at most places, but some other formats are supported. I just checked the Journal of Computational Chemistry .. they want you to submit Word files, RTF files or straight postscript. Their suggestion for LaTex is that you convert it to .ps or .pdf before submitting it. Other places are a little more strict. Biophysical Journal requires things to be in PDF (no other options).

Someday, the rest of the publishing world will see the light, but my guess is still that their publisher didn't want to deal with TeX.

Re: Question to Authors
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Question to Authors

Why not typeset mathematics using LaTeX? It's use is virtually universal in mathematics.

[/ QUOTE ]

I was wondering that too. Chen has a math Ph.D., so he has to be pretty familiar with TeX. My guess is that non-math/physics publishers just don't do TeX (I certainly can't convince biophysics journals to accept things in TeX, for instance).

[/ QUOTE ]

Really? Wow! What do they accept? What do they insist on?

[/ QUOTE ]

Take your worst guess.

Microsoft Word or PDF is the standard at most places, but some other formats are supported. I just checked the Journal of Computational Chemistry .. they want you to submit Word files, RTF files or straight postscript. Their suggestion for LaTex is that you convert it to .ps or .pdf before submitting it. Other places are a little more strict. Biophysical Journal requires things to be in PDF (no other options).

Someday, the rest of the publishing world will see the light, but my guess is still that their publisher didn't want to deal with TeX.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well it's no big deal to convert it to .ps or .pdf

The BIG problem then is when they want to do hands-on editting with these files.

Re: Question to Authors
 

In the acknowledgements reads "Both of us participate enthusiastically in the *ARG community..."
What is the *ARG community?

Re: Question to Authors
 

[ QUOTE ]
What is the *ARG community?

[/ QUOTE ]
alt.rec.gambling

Re: Question to Authors
 

[ QUOTE ]
In the acknowledgements reads "Both of us participate enthusiastically in the *ARG community..."
What is the *ARG community?

[/ QUOTE ]

*ARG events are BARGE (http://www.barge.org) and its sister events ATLARGE, ESCARGOT, and FARGO.

http://www.conjelco.com/escargot.html
http://www.atlargepoker.com
http://www.fargopoker.com

jerrod

Re: Question to Authors
 

When will a new version with errata fixed be out?

Re: Question to Authors
 

[ QUOTE ]
When will a new version with errata fixed be out?

[/ QUOTE ]

Some of the errata (what had been identified before a couple weeks into December) was fixed in the second printing -- mostly in the first part of the book. I would guess that that printing is already being distributed, but Chuck would know for sure.

jerrod

Re: Question to Authors
 

Definitely glad I got lazy about buying this.

Will not be getting it until the 2nd edition.

Re: Question to Authors
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
When will a new version with errata fixed be out?

[/ QUOTE ]

Some of the errata (what had been identified before a couple weeks into December) was fixed in the second printing -- mostly in the first part of the book. I would guess that that printing is already being distributed, but Chuck would know for sure.

jerrod

[/ QUOTE ]

Why did you not use LaTeX? I'm sure this would have led to there being far fewer mistakes. Also, you should not switch between upper and lower case or between fonts for the one quantity. For example P and p are two different symbols, as are T, boldface T, italics T, and script T. You confuse mathematicians when you do this.

Re: Question to Authors
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
When will a new version with errata fixed be out?

[/ QUOTE ]

Some of the errata (what had been identified before a couple weeks into December) was fixed in the second printing -- mostly in the first part of the book. I would guess that that printing is already being distributed, but Chuck would know for sure.

jerrod

[/ QUOTE ]

where can i order 2nd edition from? i normally order from amazon.co.uk but theres no way of knowing which edition i'm getting.

are you planning to write others books? "mathematics of no limit hold em" perhaps??

Re: The Mathematics of Poker
 

the question in the post above me hints at the answer, but may i ask the simplest question: is this book predominantly limit or no-limit? i realize mathematically they are the same except for constraint on betting size, but which does the book use more for examples?

thanks in advance!!

Another bug, I think
 

While this is fresh in my mind I thought I'd post it.

p222, at the bottom, in the fourth line of equations to calculate the value of g, you lose a factor of (x_1)^2 somewhere.

When I solve

g = y_2(x_1 - y_2) - g(y_2)^2

I get g = r/6 not g = r/2. Having said that, I made so many mistakes in doing this calculation that it could well be off.

Guy.

Re: The Mathematics of Poker
 

[ QUOTE ]
the question in the post above me hints at the answer, but may i ask the simplest question: is this book predominantly limit or no-limit? i realize mathematically they are the same except for constraint on betting size, but which does the book use more for examples?

thanks in advance!!

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't have the book, but the impression I get is that most of the examples of real poker games are of NL HE. There is a huge difference mathematically between FL and NL because of the difference in maximum bet size.

It sounds like this book will help me think about problems I already like to muse on (like what is an unexploitable starting hand range UTG?), but it won't tell me the answer - is that correct? I will probably get this and love thinking about it in the abstract, but will have to wait until 'Applied Mathematics of Poker' comes out before it changes my game?

Re: The Mathematics of Poker
 

Is the errata PDF on the conjelco site being updated consistently?

Re: The Mathematics of Poker
 

[ QUOTE ]
Is the errata PDF on the conjelco site being updated consistently?

[/ QUOTE ]

It says "Last updated on 12/6/06."

Why did I have to look that up rather than you? [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Guy.

Re: The Mathematics of Poker
 

Well, you didn't. I guess your name says it all? [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

frequencies
 

How do we make sure that our actions frequencies (bluffing frequency, betting or checking strong hands frequency) are more or less in line with what we want them to be. Do we use some tricks to randomize the process or just do it by feel?

Re: frequencies
 

I found this review on amazon.com

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

If this is poker, I quit!, January 2, 2007
Reviewer: S. Williams (Phoenix, AZ) - See all my reviews

Here is a quote from the book, "This is the general recursion that describes the relationship between successive values of Rp. To find specific values, we can use the fact that we know that Rp converges on r as P goes to infinity (since this is an approximation of the no-fold game as shown in Example 16.4). Hence, we can choose an arbitrarily large value of n, seet it equal to square root of 2 - 1, and work backwards to the desired P. As it happens, this recursive relation converges quite rapidly. Of course, we can see that for the no-fold case, Rp simply is r for all thresholds, and this game simplifies to its no-fold analogue."

Of course! Duh, who didn't know that! If you enjoyed reading that, there are 375 more pages of this stuff. Oh, and in case you get bored with such elementary level stuff, there are sections throughout the book, where the authors have "marked off the start and end of some portions of the text so that our less mathematical readers can skip more complex derivitions." I can't even give you a quote from one of these sections because I don't have those keys on my keyboard...

I have been buying poker books for a while now and I finally found my limit. While I did slug my way through this book, I doubt it will make any difference in my game. I don't see how knowing that, quote, "skew instead sums the cubes of the distances, which cause the values to have sign," will improve my game. Whatever the heck that even means!

My advice, save your money and time, unless you want to put this book on your shelf and use it to intimidate your opponents. If one of them asks for advice you could give them this book, tell that it is a "must read" if they ever want to be a good poker player, and say that you LOVED IT! If they read it, they'll never look at you the same way again, I guarantee it. And they might just quit poker all-together. Like I said above, if THIS is poker, I might quit myself!

Re: frequencies
 

Guess I need to go to Amazon and write a review. I was an English major umpteen years ago. I have very little formal math background but was quite strong in Algebra and that, so far, seems to be enough for me. Perhaps this reviewer didn't take enough English courses? [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img] The book, is after all, very well written.

Re: frequencies
 

[ QUOTE ]
I found this review on amazon.com

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

If this is poker, I quit!, January 2, 2007
Reviewer: S. Williams (Phoenix, AZ) - See all my reviews


...blahstupidblah...


Like I said above, if THIS is poker, I might quit myself!

[/ QUOTE ]

Better yet the first comment to the review:
"This was a very helpful review - it convinced me to buy the book!"

on the other hand: if this book really makes those fish QUIT they probably shouldn't have published it! [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

Re: The Mathematics of Poker
 

I find this book very interesting.

I have no problems understanding most of the math (Msc Finance), and in poker I am a half decent 10/20 fixed limit Holdem grinder.

But, I have problems applying the stuff in this book to my game.

A challenge for those of you having read the book:
What part of this book did affect your game the most, and how did you apply it to your game?

Thanks.

Re: The Mathematics of Poker
 

[ QUOTE ]

But, I have problems applying the stuff in this book to my game.


[/ QUOTE ]

I feel the same.

Re: The Mathematics of Poker
 

on pg 97 you say Y's MES should be to fold all the time if X'x bluffing frequency is < 20% und switch to calling all the time if X bluffs more than 20% of the time.

shouldn't it be 5% instead 20%?

the calculated ex-showdown equity values in the following table also correspond to MES switching at 5% which i think is correct.

Re: The Mathematics of Poker
 

I don't have a copy of the book, but I read the small chapter on online poker in my friend's copy. In that chapter the authors talk about using hand histories. They said that you really can't use other players hands because there is not enough data and the sample is 'biased'.

While I agree that you are not going to have much hand history for players you re-encounter online, I don't think the sample is statistically biased. If you only had a sample of hands the player won, or only from tournaments the player won, then I would consider the sample of hands played to be biased.

In a book on the mathematics of poker, I was disappointed they didn't dive deeper into the analysis of other players by observing their play. And, to misuse a statistical term like 'bias' weakened the book as a whole for me.

Re: The Mathematics of Poker
 

This is a text book.
Opposite of what is said inside the book.
This is a boring text book.

You need to be really interested for not throwing it through the window.

The title is good enough for keep it at the bookshelf.

Re: The Mathematics of Poker
 

For someone with no interest in mathematics, it requires a lot of discipline to go over all of this in order to extract what is useful. The math is not hard but there is a lot of it.

There are a lot of games that have their optimal strategy derived in the text. Poker players are interested in the lessons learned from this and would expect all the calculations in an appendix. I have an interest in the concepts but the calculations are only relevant for the math geeks who want to verify that the proofs are correct.

This book could be rewritten and cover the exact same material in a way that would be appealing to poker players. I can't blame the math guys who wrote this but the editor should know better.

I would guess than less than 1% of players who buy this book will actually read it.

question about the book and the CLT
 

To the authors of this book,

kudos on bringing up some great topics....HOWEVER, it appears that this book has some errors, specifically w.r.t how you try to lay out the Central Limit Theorem in Chapter 2. It appears that you guys are claiming that if you collect enough data, then it starts to follow a normal distribution and you attempt to use this throughout the book. The problem with this claim is that this is not what the CLT says at all. The data is the data, no matter how much of it you collect, and it is never guaranteed to follow any type of distribution at all. What the CLT says, in fact, is that sums/means will follow the normal distr, not the actual data. Its very confusing and makes the book very hard to follow in places.

Please address,

SB

Re: The Mathematics of Poker
 

[ QUOTE ]
They said that you really can't use other players hands because there is not enough data and the sample is 'biased'.


[/ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
And, to misuse a statistical term like 'bias' weakened the book as a whole for me.

[/ QUOTE ]
As a whole? [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img] How much did you read?
You're kidding, right? Maybe you read it quickly but the bias referred to is that the hands you have on other people all have you at the table. So you are missing their hands in which you do not take part. The paragraph was about estimating the 'true' winrate of someone in your database.

Re: The Mathematics of Poker
 

Well, if you are not really a math person and you work your way through the math in the first chapter or two you should be OK for the rest of the book. I have this on excellent authority by the way...

Re: The Mathematics of Poker
 

Thanks for clarifying. I did skim thru it, and don't have the copy with me. That was the impression I got from reading that chapter, obviously I missed a key point.

Was there anything from book, especially regarding analysis of other people's play, which provided any useful insight?

Re: The Mathematics of Poker
 

[ QUOTE ]
Was there anything from book, especially regarding analysis of other people's play, which provided any useful insight?

[/ QUOTE ]
The meat of the book regards playing 'optimally' in poker-like toy games, rendering your opponent's play ev-neutral (ie his actions all have the same ev) so not a huge amount. The chapters on exploitative play vs hands and especially ranges are short but I found them helpful.
The book's not for everyone but it does what it says on the tin. I'm still rereading and absorbing it so insights may have to wait but it feels worthwhile.
I prefer thinking about poker to playing it so I'm biased [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]