"What decision do I make now?" : Math will not get you there

[raisins]

Hi Utah,

I followed this over from the Politics thread. For a long time I've found these questions to be some of the most vexing to answer. Math does give you an answer, but it is dependent entirely on the assumptions you make about multiple variables and most of the time they are completely made up.

I also remember an old post of Tom Weideman's on RGP noting that the ability to predict an opponents' actions on future rounds was a vastly underrated skill.

If I was working on this type of software project, here is how I would go about soving it. First I would datamine the game. Then I would fit the data into profiles. Determining what made a profile would be subjective and would be dependent on the ability and intuition of the developer. I would build collections of lines with the assumption that players who take the same line in a given situation would resemble each other in a different one. If this worked out you would know not only how often a PF raiser who was 3-bet PF and then check called the flop folded the turn versus check raising but also the likelihood of having the opportunity to check raise the river knowing the opponent intends to bet rather than take a free showdown when the overcard or fluch card rivers.

Probably the most important variable to focus on in creating the profiles would be not just the betting patterns but the flop textures that accompanied the patterns. If this or something close to it is what you did, congratulations, it must have been quite difficult.

However, I am a bit skeptical. The assumption that players who play one situation the same will also play other situations the same is necessary but I'm not convinced it is reliable. If it is, then I would think this would work best at low stakes games with opponents who at the most think about the hand you might have but they are not thinking about what you think they might have. In other words, the more of a thinking player they are the less patterned their decisions are going to be and the more attention they will be playing to you and their responses will be more spontaneous and irregular. Has your program been of benefit to you at levels where there are some tough players like 10/20 SH limit? I would also suspect that this approach would be of less value at NL where opponents will change up their lines depending on what they and their opponents have been doing in the recent past or what they suspect about their opponents mood. Have you used your program at NL? If not, do you think your subjective analysis would work there?

I've been paying some attention to your discussion of the software the past few months and I'm glad you chose to discuss your thinking about it a little bit. If nothing else, it was interesting to think about.

If you can respond to any of the areas I brought up while maintaining some dicretion about your work I am interested in hearing your thoughts.

regards,

raisins

[Utah]

We tried profiles to start but they were a disaster. You cant really profile someone well and they dont always play the same. If I recall, we tried doing some cluster analysis or something but we gave up.