[Jerrod Ankenman]

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In real poker there are card removal strategies and in order to balance for new public information (like the community cards to come) there is probably a little mixing for several hands around. But almost certainly many hands use pure strategic options. (this means they do one thing or another 100% of the time)

In general, when a player deviates from a strategic option that is pure, he will often lose value.


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Jerod, aren't you equating real poker with something like your 0-1 games which result in pure strategies? In actuality aren't there groups of hands that are broadly equivalent - e.g. all flush draws? If this is the case, then real poker is similar to the AKQ game which requires a mixed strategy.

Or were you talking about pre-flop play specifically.

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Flush draws aren't equivalent. Some have showdown value, others have almost none. Some have stronger pair draws than others. Some block the opponent from having random gutshots and some don't, etc. All of these are selection factors for playing them in different ways - if it's necessary to do so.

It's probably true that there is a little bit of blurring near the threshold hands, to prevent the opponent from exploiting cards that come on future streets. This is probably limited to just a few hands. But my opinion is that the bulk of hands throughout the tree are pure. The reason is that if a hand is mixed, then playing it both ways has to have equal equity, and I just don't think that broad swaths of hands are indifferent between two actions.

jerrod