How far has NL poker come? How far do we have to go? (abstract/long)
 

It is apparent to most people how much better the average poker player is getting. Everyone, from the average fish to the average high stakes pro, has improved drastically since online poker started. I don't think it's a stretch to say that there are hundreds of players today that would be top 10 in the world at cash NL online if they could travel back in time just five years.

Studying the changes in play over time has applications to poker theory. It follows logically that as play happens at high stakes, or more accurately at any game where the best players (who are also adaptable) are gathered, general play converges over time to become less exploitable. Also, players who are the best at not being exploited are likely to rise through the ranks into these games.

Measuring play statistics (ratios and factors of looseness and agressiveness for different situations, like vpip and %c/r river) of the best players in the world over time can provide clues as to how the frontier of applied poker science (ie the complete strategies of the best players) is moving towards the mean of unexploitable play. Lets call this progression of the best players' stats the poker science curve, or PSC.

There are lots of issues with PSC that limit its usefullness. Defining which players are good enough to be included in the final PSC is a very difficuly problem. Variance of specific stats are a gigantic issue. The presence of bad players dumping money into the games and adjustments by good players to exploit these weak players is also a big issue (when the best players are exploiting eachother, however, they are actually moving towards unexploitable play).

Each stat will have it's own PSC, but the PSC is the average of an infinite number of infinite curves (finite if time paramaters are given) for a given game or group of games. In that way, the PSC in a very abstract concept whereas the vpip PSC of 6max NL online from 2001 to present is easier to understand. For example, I think an obvious curve that would help players of ten years ago to see would be postflop agression in limit over the last 10 years. Some others would be looseness and agression in position preflop NL with medium to deep stacks (has increased a lot to my knowledge) and a number of cbet stats (I would guess these have been quite erratic but I think are finally settling down).

There are a lot of ways you could go with discussion of this topic, so let me try to provide a few questions to focus things. Assume all these questions pertain to 100bb buy in 6 max holdem from it's invention.

1. How far along are we on the PSC over infinite time? It's obvious we are in the early stages, but the final distance is much less important than the initial distance. In other words, how much will play change as people continue to get better? The variance of the PSC will decrease over time, because as we get closer to unexploitable play people will start to deviate less and less on average. Maybe we could use the rate of change of the rate of change of play to guess how far we are from "perfect", but we would need to account for factors like changing game popularity and availability as well as innovative poker minds who can help the community get over humps. Another imporant factor that is easy to overlook is the average understanding of poker theory. It is easy to mistake this for the curve itself, but one must understand that the PSC will continue to converge towards unexploitable even if understanding of theory stagnates.

2. Is it possible to use the PSC to predict future developments in playstyles? I think good players have gained edges by noticing small trends in other good players at their earliest stages, and incorperated them into their own game taking things a step further. A small example of this could be value bluffs, although this is still a somewhat contraversial subject. I think more players are making these thin grey bets now than ever before, and it has made certain players tougher to read. The converse of this is exploiting trends which are just hype or variance in the PSC. An example of this is some good players that make far too many value bluffs maybe because of stuff they may have read on here or from watching durrrr too much. Im not sure how accurate this is because I've only been playing mid stakes games lately (which react to but dont have much of an effect on the PSC), and because this is a stat that is hard to quantify (although you could quantify it) but there are other examples, like the various preflop trends that have happened largely on these boards.

3. How much variance is involved in the curve? The PSC can easily move away from unexploitable play in the short run because of many factors, but the nature of poker should always force it back. How likely is it that the PSC over a year actually moves in the wrong direction? Over one month? What about for individual stats? I would guess the answers as very unlikely, somewhat likely, and it depends on the stat and the time but generally they converge very slowly.

One last important note before I end this post: There has been a fair amount of discussion on these boards about playing exploitably to exploit versus playing unexploitably, and I have a feeling a lot of people will respond to this with "who cares?". Well, they may have a point on this post, but I think it is absolutely crucial in today's high stakes games that people have a good understanding of playing unexploitably (as much as that is possible), even if they dont spend much time trying to play this way themselves. Every time you deviate from unexploitable strategy, you are opening yourself up to exploitation. More and more people are understanding how to make themselves appear exploitable when they arent, and also at exploiting players who are exploiting third parties. This game isn't like RPS where one player throwing rock every time has neutral EV against someone playing unexploitably. In any pot that is heads up at a given point, the person playing less exploitably will win more on average.

Anyways, thanks for reading this rambling post, and I am interested in reading commentary on anything but especially the three prompts.

Re: How far has NL poker come? How far do we have to go? (abstract/lon
 

ya

Re: How far has NL poker come? How far do we have to go? (abstract/lon
 

who cares?

Re: How far has NL poker come? How far do we have to go? (abstract/lon
 

1. It's all relative? I don't know how you could quantify it any other way besides "5 years worth" or whatever

2. I doubt it. You run the risk of overshooting the optimal frequency, so I'd guess that on average you will end up worse off than the 'pack'.

3. yeah I dunno

Re: How far has NL poker come? How far do we have to go? (abstract/long)
 

playing unexploitably is absolutely retarded and not the most profitable way to play, and its not even close. on the stt forum all they talk about is playing unexploitably, but who cares? all that matters is what is the most profitable. unexploitability is not it, even at the highest levels.

Re: How far has NL poker come? How far do we have to go? (abstract/lon
 

Define 'at the highest levels'. If you were up against player(s) who you know or suspect to be better than you, do you still deliberately try to do something different from unexploitability (I do realize that no one knows what that is ATM)?

And don't say 'I wouldn't play', we know you would.

Re: How far has NL poker come? How far do we have to go? (abstract/long)
 

[ QUOTE ]
all that matters is what is the most profitable. unexploitability is not it, even at the highest levels.

[/ QUOTE ]

Re: How far has NL poker come? How far do we have to go? (abstract/lon
 

[ QUOTE ]
playing unexploitably is absolutely retarded and not the most profitable way to play, and its not even close.

[/ QUOTE ]

for you maybe

Re: How far has NL poker come? How far do we have to go? (abstract/lon
 

[ QUOTE ]
playing unexploitably is absolutely retarded and not the most profitable way to play, and its not even close. on the stt forum all they talk about is playing unexploitably, but who cares? all that matters is what is the most profitable. unexploitability is not it, even at the highest levels.

[/ QUOTE ]

I actually agree with most of this post, but I think this is only because play is still so bad. I think that as we feel the affects of the UIGEA more and more, and if we don't get any legislative aid, a five years down the road this could start to become a main issue.

I also think though that knowing ways to play less unexploitably than your opponents is the key to exploiting them. How are you going to know when people are deviating? How are you going to exploit play if you don't know what is unexploitable? How do you know what you are opening up yourself to without knowing how you yourself are deviating? I think a lot of people figure this stuff out intuitively without ever really verbalizing or maybe even realizing it. But I think talking about it can be productive (and people do talk about it).

I think it's also intersting that really good players playing exploitably (probably) furthers the PSC more than when they try to play unexploitably.

Honestly, when I play I almost always assume I am the best player at the table and I only try to exploit people. But I try to be concious of the adjustments I am making so that I am more prepared when players adjust to these adjustments.

Re: How far has NL poker come? How far do we have to go? (abstract/lon
 

Way way way too many variables to have "PSC convergance"... as one thing changes it all changes.. kinda like economics, you can only analyze things when you keep A, B, and C constant, etc.. (I've only taken first year econ courses so don't bother cutting me up.. lol)

Re: How far has NL poker come? How far do we have to go? (abstract/lon
 

[ QUOTE ]
Way way way too many variables to have "PSC convergance"... as one thing changes it all changes.. kinda like economics, you can only analyze things when you keep A, B, and C constant, etc.. (I've only taken first year econ courses so don't bother cutting me up.. lol)

[/ QUOTE ]

I definitely agree its all connected, and I actually wrote something about that in the OP but it was kinda convoluted and the post was already long enough, so I deleted it.

But basically I think that the interconnectedness makes studying individual stats tough, but there are some exceptions. Simple preflop stats like VPIP and PFR have certainly become more uniform over time, and definite trends have emerged. Also I always keep fold flop to cbet displayed, and while this used to be all over the place even for decent players on party, on stars this year it has been much more consistently in a certain range for my tough opponents.

Also, knoweldge about what stats actually mean could be gained by watching how they move together. And the way I defined PSC, it doesn't suffer from this problem anyways (debateably).

Re: How far has NL poker come? How far do we have to go? (abstract/lon
 

Really interesting read .

Re: How far has NL poker come? How far do we have to go? (abstract/lon
 

msnl perspective. This is fun stuff but I think we're very very far from unexploitable play.

The following is very hypothetical. But let's say 23/19, distibuted some particular way by position, is optimal preflop. So if you put six 23/19's who play optimally postflop at the same table, they break even (minus rake), and if you replace one with a 30/20 or a 20/10 who plays optimally postflop, the new guy gets exploited into going broke or becoming 23/19.

Fine. That's what it might look like. But even if preflop numbers are mostly converging somewhere among decent players, that hypothetical optimal ecosystem is really delicate. And if you disturb it with a couple fish and a couple mini-fish, like people who play 23/19 but suck (they're everywhere! - I'm one of them), not to mention a [#$%@!, etc] shortstacker.. well, even just for preflop, profitable play and optimal play diverge really fast. And that doesn't even touch on the "optimal play postflop" assumption being ridiculous. Maybe people are approaching something like optimal cbet% for a given pfr, etc, but there's no way it extends much further, like into double-triple barrel frequencies; if anything, the number and type of possible boards makes this sort of thing very unlikely.

I'm not sure what the right scale is, so these numbers are just made up to illustrate a point, but if, say we've gone from an unexploitability factor of 10/100 to 20/100 in the last year, I think the only way we get close to/over 50 is by taking a bunch of really good players, putting them in a closed system - no new fish, and when some of them turn into fish and go broke, they can't reload - and let them battle. With new money flowing into the system it'll never get close.

Re: How far has NL poker come? How far do we have to go? (abstract/lon
 

One other thing is that whatever optimal play is for a six max table where everyone has 100bb, it's different for the same table where everyone has 150, or 200, or for five-, four-handed, etc; so the actual situation we have, where every table has a unique distribution of stack sizes, and the stats we're looking at are split over different numbers of players, makes it even less likely we can find convergence toward optimal stats. Too many variables, and in a lot of cases outcomes are very sensitive to small changes in the variables.

Re: How far has NL poker come? How far do we have to go? (abstract/lon
 

raptor,

"playing unexploitably is absolutely retarded and not the most profitable way to play, and its not even close."

Not once PSC gets to 11, baby!

Re: How far has NL poker come? How far do we have to go? (abstract/lon
 

[ QUOTE ]
playing unexploitably is absolutely retarded and not the most profitable way to play, and its not even close

[/ QUOTE ]
just found a huge hole in my game

i try to hard to be unexploitable

Re: How far has NL poker come? How far do we have to go? (abstract/lon
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
playing unexploitably is absolutely retarded and not the most profitable way to play, and its not even close

[/ QUOTE ]
just found a huge hole in my game

i try to hard to be unexploitable

[/ QUOTE ]

QFT raptor is a genior

Re: How far has NL poker come? How far do we have to go? (abstract/lon
 

[ QUOTE ]
msnl perspective. This is fun stuff but I think we're very very far from unexploitable play.

The following is very hypothetical. But let's say 23/19, distibuted some particular way by position, is optimal preflop. So if you put six 23/19's who play optimally postflop at the same table, they break even (minus rake), and if you replace one with a 30/20 or a 20/10 who plays optimally postflop, the new guy gets exploited into going broke or becoming 23/19.

Fine. That's what it might look like. But even if preflop numbers are mostly converging somewhere among decent players, that hypothetical optimal ecosystem is really delicate. And if you disturb it with a couple fish and a couple mini-fish, like people who play 23/19 but suck (they're everywhere! - I'm one of them), not to mention a [#$%@!, etc] shortstacker.. well, even just for preflop, profitable play and optimal play diverge really fast. And that doesn't even touch on the "optimal play postflop" assumption being ridiculous. Maybe people are approaching something like optimal cbet% for a given pfr, etc, but there's no way it extends much further, like into double-triple barrel frequencies; if anything, the number and type of possible boards makes this sort of thing very unlikely.

I'm not sure what the right scale is, so these numbers are just made up to illustrate a point, but if, say we've gone from an unexploitability factor of 10/100 to 20/100 in the last year, I think the only way we get close to/over 50 is by taking a bunch of really good players, putting them in a closed system - no new fish, and when some of them turn into fish and go broke, they can't reload - and let them battle. With new money flowing into the system it'll never get close.

[/ QUOTE ]

While I think a lot of this post is correct, and I'll be the first to acknowledge that this whole thread has very limited applicability to day to day play, I think you are forgetting something.

That vast majority of high stakes poker decisions online are made heads up post flop between good players with 100bb+ effective stacks. As I said in the OP, mid stakes games usually have a (often delayed) reaction to but dont have much of an effect on the PSC.

Re: How far has NL poker come? How far do we have to go? (abstract/lon
 

it does not logically follow that strategies will converge toward game-theoretic optimal play or intrinsic unexploitability. the selection pressures acting on the player pool are not such that this is true. relatively speaking, there isn't a huge gap between your average 50nl grinder and the best players in the world when it comes to grasping the game-theoretic properties of the NLHE strategy landscape. none whatsoever. the computational limitations of the human brain, even the best human brain, do not allow anyone to explore the terrain without a blindfold on.

what is a logical necessity is that strategies will become less exploitable given the parameters defined by: a) the cognitive limitations of the players, and; b) the decision-making biases, both emotional and cognitive, of the players.

the best players probably: a) have frequencies that jive because of their own decision-making biases and quirks; b) a superior ability to exploit the decision-making biases of other people by out 'leveling' them; c) better emotional control than everyone else - information processing and decision making aren't as adversely affected when under stress (or are affected in a non-conventional adaptive way).

i'm sure as time goes on people will get a bit better game-theoretically and they'll probably get a bit better at exploiting the weaknesses of other people. how much room is there to go? who knows. eventually the skill level at the top will pretty much max out and thereafter strategy variation won't trend in either direction - it'll be random until someone either starts crunching #s (and using those #s to do more and better trial-and-error tests) or they invent super smart/emotional equanimity pills.

Re: How far has NL poker come? How far do we have to go? (abstract/lon
 

[ QUOTE ]
playing unexploitably is absolutely retarded and not the most profitable way to play, and its not even close. on the stt forum all they talk about is playing unexploitably, but who cares? all that matters is what is the most profitable. unexploitability is not it, even at the highest levels.

[/ QUOTE ]

So true.

Sometimes I will make a certain play (usually a fold), and I will think "Wow, this is so exploitable." That usually turns into "I should not make an exploitable play".

Obviously, the problem is that your opponents dont see hands you fold. They will never be able to exploit that because they dont even know that exploitation exists. Very apparent, but might be something a few people still overlook.

I dont play HSNL, and I'm a shortstacker. That probably means my thoughts have 0 credibility, am i right?

Re: How far has NL poker come? How far do we have to go? (abstract/lon
 

"Is it possible to use the PSC to predict future developments in playstyles?"

strategy evolves almost entirely through trial-and-error and imitation, with thoughtful forum-based analysis only providing signposts to guide people away from (likely!) crappy strategies and toward good ones.

the simple answer to your question is 'no, we can't'. evidence? no one has done it before. almost every good player thought Bld was a donkey when he first arrived. many think cts is a donkey, or that durrr can't play omaha. thus far i'd say the track record is pretty bad.

that said, one prediction i will make is strategies will tend to become more complicated over time. pure 14/12 strategies with unchanging and simplistic criteria to evaluate hand strength are not going to result in big monies anymore. more variability in preflop ranges, more variability in bet sizes, more variability in post-flop ranges.. this is what will happen. strategies can only get so complex, though, because we're all so dense. how complex they'll get is anyone's guess, but we're prob not quite there.

pretty cool article on a related topic.

Re: How far has NL poker come? How far do we have to go? (abstract/lon
 

Very apparent, but might be something a few people still overlook

yes, that is very apparently wrong, or at least your stated reasoning is.

i just had a genius idea! hire a bunch of my friends to sit around and shortstack all day! i'll pay them $15/hr so i'm competitive w/local call centers. sweet.

Re: How far has NL poker come? How far do we have to go? (abstract/lon
 

There will never be a "perfect" way to play.

That's what makes this game so great.

Re: How far has NL poker come? How far do we have to go? (abstract/lon
 

[ QUOTE ]
There will never be a "perfect" way to play.

[/ QUOTE ]

I disagree. It's just that the "perfect" way to play is constantly changing.

Re: How far has NL poker come? How far do we have to go? (abstract/lon
 

[ QUOTE ]
it does not logically follow that strategies will converge toward game-theoretic optimal play or intrinsic unexploitability. the selection pressures acting on the player pool are not such that this is true. relatively speaking, there isn't a huge gap between your average 50nl grinder and the best players in the world when it comes to grasping the game-theoretic properties of the NLHE strategy landscape. none whatsoever. the computational limitations of the human brain, even the best human brain, do not allow anyone to explore the terrain without a blindfold on.

what is a logical necessity is that strategies will become less exploitable given the parameters defined by: a) the cognitive limitations of the players, and; b) the decision-making biases, both emotional and cognitive, of the players.

the best players probably: a) have frequencies that jive because of their own decision-making biases and quirks; b) a superior ability to exploit the decision-making biases of other people by out 'leveling' them; c) better emotional control than everyone else - information processing and decision making aren't as adversely affected when under stress (or are affected in a non-conventional adaptive way).

i'm sure as time goes on people will get a bit better game-theoretically and they'll probably get a bit better at exploiting the weaknesses of other people. how much room is there to go? who knows. eventually the skill level at the top will pretty much max out and thereafter strategy variation won't trend in either direction - it'll be random until someone either starts crunching #s (and using those #s to do more and better trial-and-error tests) or they invent super smart/emotional equanimity pills.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think you are overlooking some key point here. You are acting like players need to understand all the theory behind all the adjustments, when really they don't need to know anything.

In fact, if they all make random changes to their game, or enough new players arrive with random deviations from common strategy, play will still converge towards optimal.

It as an evolutionary process, and as long as the best players get the money and new players learn styles from old players, things will advance whether people understand it or not.

Re: How far has NL poker come? How far do we have to go? (abstract/lon
 

[ QUOTE ]


So true.

Sometimes I will make a certain play (usually a fold), and I will think "Wow, this is so exploitable." That usually turns into "I should not make an exploitable play".

[/ QUOTE ]

I think another big misconception about unexploitable play involves players having a very limited view of what is exploitable. I think people often fail to see the whole picture when thinking about unexploitable play.

For example, things can happen in a hand where you get put in a situation where your opponent makes a bet and you realize that you would be folding nearly your whole range in this spot, and your opponent knows it. You might think you are playing exploitably in this spot by always folding, and try to fix it by bluffing or floating. But in reality it is just an unfortunate and rare situation caused by luck and earlier actions, or you might have made a mistake on a previous street that precipitated this situation, but you need to fold.

Another time where I think people make mistakes is thinking that playing unexploitably involves a boring or mundane style. If anything, I would guess the solved form of poker involves even more crazy agression then we are used to seeing. I am pretty sure that things like semibluff 3 and 4 betting preflop especially on agressive squeezes and resteals, floating oop, and check raise bluffing with air are all parts of an unexploitable game.

I alsot think its easier to see these plays that make your game unexploitable when thinking about the game from a purely exploitive paradigm.

Re: How far has NL poker come? How far do we have to go? (abstract/lon
 

[ QUOTE ]
Very apparent, but might be something a few people still overlook

yes, that is very apparently wrong, or at least your stated reasoning is.

i just had a genius idea! hire a bunch of my friends to sit around and shortstack all day! i'll pay them $15/hr so i'm competitive w/local call centers. sweet.

[/ QUOTE ]

Wow, only 2 posts for someone to flame me.

Maybe I should phrase it like this: "Villain can only exploit me if he saw my hand in this situation" or "I could exploit my play in this spot only because I know my hand".

Re: How far has NL poker come? How far do we have to go? (abstract/lon
 

[ QUOTE ]
the simple answer to your question is 'no, we can't'. evidence? no one has done it before.

[/ QUOTE ]
I think this is a very naive statement. Even if it were true, how could you possibly know? And just because noone has done it yet doesn't mean it isn't possible. The math of poker, as a feild, is still in its earliest stages. On the back of The Mathematics of Poker (which I haven't read yet), he compares modern poker to the bond and options markets of 30 years ago, dominated by intuition and experience. By the mid 90s, advanced math and analytical skills where overwhelmingly applied in these jobs. While this may be an extreme example, I think we are moving that way. So even if this isn't possible now (which isn't a point I'm willing to cede), as more hands are collected and the statistics of poker are better understood, who knows?

[ QUOTE ]
almost every good player thought Bld was a donkey when he first arrived. many think cts is a donkey, or that durrr can't play omaha. thus far i'd say the track record is pretty bad.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is proof of my point, not yours. I think Bld is one of the best examples of this happening. Here is a player that people didn't understand, but was definitely one of the top on party from and objective standpoint. So the PSC was being influenced by him even if people weren't realizing it. As people started to realize the method of what he did, people adapted some of it or fixed leaks. I think today, as a whole, there are way way more players playing a style like bld than there used to be. If someone figured out right away what exactly he was doing and why it worked, they could have benifited from it before the poker community at large, if only very marginally.

Thats not to say that Bld had a profound affect on the PSC. But even a the smallest drop in the bucket adds volume and makes waves.

Re: How far has NL poker come? How far do we have to go? (abstract/lon
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Very apparent, but might be something a few people still overlook

yes, that is very apparently wrong, or at least your stated reasoning is.

i just had a genius idea! hire a bunch of my friends to sit around and shortstack all day! i'll pay them $15/hr so i'm competitive w/local call centers. sweet.

[/ QUOTE ]

Wow, only 2 posts for someone to flame me.

Maybe I should phrase it like this: "Villain can only exploit me if he saw my hand in this situation" or "I could exploit my play in this spot only because I know my hand".

[/ QUOTE ]

Your specific hand is irrelevent; your range of hands is all that matters.

Re: How far has NL poker come? How far do we have to go? (abstract/lon
 

[ QUOTE ]
There will never be a "perfect" way to play.

[/ QUOTE ]

While this may be true from a practical perspective, all signs point to poker being solvable. It will take a long time to happen, but it is possible it happens this century. This is another debate entirely though.

It doesnt matter if it ever will happen, my OP just needs it to be possible, and I think the majority of people think it technically is.

Re: How far has NL poker come? How far do we have to go? (abstract/lon
 

[ QUOTE ]
playing unexploitably is absolutely retarded and not the most profitable way to play, and its not even close. on the stt forum all they talk about is playing unexploitably, but who cares? all that matters is what is the most profitable. unexploitability is not it, even at the highest levels.

[/ QUOTE ]

It's very important against perfect playing robot cyborgs, if that happens to be your standard opponent.

Re: How far has NL poker come? How far do we have to go? (abstract/lon
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
There will never be a "perfect" way to play.

[/ QUOTE ]

I disagree. It's just that the "perfect" way to play is constantly changing.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think this is exactly the case.

If you have a table of 5 other players, and you knew every single stat on them, you knew their hand ranges in every situation, you knew their perception of you, their perception of everyone else at the table, how they think you perceive them, etc etc, then there would be a "perfect" way to play. It would kind of be like if you secretly knew their cards at all times then there is a "perfect" move in every situation.

If you are at a table with 5 very solid players then the perfect way to play would be vastly different then if you were at a table of morons.

Re: How far has NL poker come? How far do we have to go? (abstract/lon
 

Here's a question for everyone:

Suppose some guy figured out how to play HU NL in an un-exploitable fashion (or at least like, very, very close to un-exploitable)

Now suppose he sits at FTP 300/600 for 8 hours a day playing anyone who sits with him

what's his daily rate? how many of you are making more than this currently?

Re: How far has NL poker come? How far do we have to go? (abstract/lon
 

NL strategy is lightyears behind limit strategy

Re: How far has NL poker come? How far do we have to go? (abstract/lon
 

Sir, you are underestimating the power of the donkey. There are new donkies playing everyday.

Re: How far has NL poker come? How far do we have to go? (abstract/lon
 

Nobody is unexploitable.

Re: How far has NL poker come? How far do we have to go? (abstract/lon
 

tendencies of players open doors to exploitable play. The best of players just mix up their tendencies that leave their opponent to make the right and wrong play with the incorrect frequencies.

Re: How far has NL poker come? How far do we have to go? (abstract/lon
 

[ QUOTE ]
Here's a question for everyone:

Suppose some guy figured out how to play HU NL in an un-exploitable fashion (or at least like, very, very close to un-exploitable)

Now suppose he sits at FTP 300/600 for 8 hours a day playing anyone who sits with him

what's his daily rate? how many of you are making more than this currently?

[/ QUOTE ]


It would be huge, higher than the winrate any actual current players have.

The best NL players are extremely far from optimal with respect to bluffing and to a lesser extent with respect to snapping off bluffs and have big potential leaks here.

Obv, I have just made assertions here. I am pretty confident in them but I'm not sure it's worth seriously trying to argue this.

Re: How far has NL poker come? How far do we have to go? (abstract/lon
 

no, it will not converge towards game-theoretic optimal play because the selection pressure acting on the population do not favor those who deviate the least from theoretical optima. the onus is on you to demonstrate otherwise. strateges are selected for their efficacy at exploiting imperfect, irrational, and heuristically-inclined humans with decision-making biases out the ass. that is trivially true.

even if strategy evolves randomly (it does) our limited powers of cognition circumscribe the area of the strategy landscape we can explore. are you picking up what i'm laying down? given the sophistication and complexity of the game itself no one is capable of even sampling the overwhelming majority of 'strategy space', even by chance. there are countless millions of strategies that cannot even be conceived of, not even by the most prehensile of minds. you'd need a badass computer that's still all theory.

let me make it clearer: everyone playing casts about for an overall strategy that works. some can cast farther than others. some cast farther and faster and can test more strategies. the entire group of strategy seekers, however, all bumble around the same area of strategy space because they're all constrained by the same computational deficiencies. stupid people, small circle. smart people, somewhat larger circle enveloping the smaller. smartest, larger still. area relative to total area? still totally insignificant. there is thus a ceiling to how much progress can be made.

the devil is in the details. most of the real 'game-theoretic' progress (avoiding errors that are salient enough to be reliably exploited) that's going to be made is already done.

this post is a lot like my first one. i don't think you read it!

Re: How far has NL poker come? How far do we have to go? (abstract/lon
 

[ QUOTE ]
Here's a question for everyone:

Suppose some guy figured out how to play HU NL in an un-exploitable fashion (or at least like, very, very close to un-exploitable)

Now suppose he sits at FTP 300/600 for 8 hours a day playing anyone who sits with him

what's his daily rate? how many of you are making more than this currently?

[/ QUOTE ]
It would be very close to 0ptbb/100 if not exactly that. Figuring out the NE strategy (ie. perfect unexploitability) is not about turning a profit, it's about breaking even.