4th grade math level good for NLHE? Is this a bit of an exaggeration?

[gregorio]

A book like Chen's Mathematics of Poker or lots of Sklansky's stuff are way more detailed and theoretical than anyone playing poker needs to know. You need to understand the basics like pot odds, but you don't need to know stuff like advanced game theory, or Chen's 2-page formula for Risk of Ruin of Normally Distributed Outcomes. If you could always see the other person's cards, and knew exactly how they reacted in each possible situation, then the person with lots of math would always make the optimal deicisions to maximize profit. But since you'll never have all that information, things you mention like picking up on peoples tendancies, etc., are more important that the advanced theory, jsut as long as you know the basics. You're time would be much better spent watching CR videos, playing poker, posting hands etc than trying to figure out what everything Chen is writing about in Math of Poker.