TOP: Fundamental Theorem discussion.

[fanmail]

"I'll give an example that might clarify the difference. I was watching a re-run of the 2004 WSOP ME last night. Down to 3 tables and the last 19. 1 more player had to go before they could finish the session. Josh Arieh raised J [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]9 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]
UTG pre-flop and got a couple of callers. Flop is A [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]K [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]Q [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]. Josh pushes for an over bet of about 200% of the pot. An English guy on the BB calls all-in with AJo. Josh had him just covered.

Josh is openly disgusted with the call. "You called with Ace-Jack?!? What you look down and see Ace-Jack and think 'Wheeeeee let's go'?". Manners aside, I think he had a right to disgusted. Now maybe Josh had a tell and the dude put him on a draw. Maybe he had been psuhing people around all session and the dude decided to take a stand, but for the sake of argument suppose Josh had just sat down at the table."

People don't usually open bet the flop for 200% of the pot with a hand that's really strong here, such as AK, a set or a straight. The bb most likely realized that and can then call with AJo expecting to be ahead frequently.

[mikechops]

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"I'll give an example that might clarify the difference. I was watching a re-run of the 2004 WSOP ME last night. Down to 3 tables and the last 19. 1 more player had to go before they could finish the session. Josh Arieh raised J [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]9 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]
UTG pre-flop and got a couple of callers. Flop is A [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]K [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]Q [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]. Josh pushes for an over bet of about 200% of the pot. An English guy on the BB calls all-in with AJo. Josh had him just covered.

Josh is openly disgusted with the call. "You called with Ace-Jack?!? What you look down and see Ace-Jack and think 'Wheeeeee let's go'?". Manners aside, I think he had a right to disgusted. Now maybe Josh had a tell and the dude put him on a draw. Maybe he had been psuhing people around all session and the dude decided to take a stand, but for the sake of argument suppose Josh had just sat down at the table."

People don't usually open bet the flop for 200% of the pot with a hand that's really strong here, such as AK, a set or a straight. The bb most likely realized that and can then call with AJo expecting to be ahead frequently.

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Hmmm. With all those straight and flush draws out there, I'm damn sure not giving anybody a free card. A PSB commits Josh, so pushing with a made hand isn't out of line.

[bizaff]

KK calls a push from AA on an AKx flop.

1) KK made a +EV call.

2) KK made a mistake according to the FTOP.

The above two statements are both correct and not mutually exclusive.

The FTOP does NOT say it is a bad call, it says it would be a mistake if you knew what your opponent held.

I don't have the book in front of me, but there's a section that talks about it being a "special kind of mistake". Reread that section.

[gabbahh]

To start the fundamental theorem says
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Every time you play a hand differently from the way you would have played it if you could see all your opponents' cards, they gain; and every time you play your hand the same way you would have played it if you could see all their cards, they lose. COnversely, every time opponents play their hands differently from the way they would have if they could see all your cards, you gain; and every time they play their hands the same way they would have played if they could see all your cards, you lose.


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Read page 25 of TOP about "Mistakes" According to The Fundamental Theorem of Poker:
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If I have a royal flush and someone has a king-high straight flush, that player is making a mistake to call me. But a player surely cannot be accused of playing badly by calling or, as is much more likely, raising with a king-high straight flush. Since he doesn't know what I have, he is making a mistake in a different sense of of the word.


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So yes, David agrees with calling the push:
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KK is right to call a push vs AA on an AKx flop. Saying it's a bad call (and according to FTOP it is) is results-based thinking.


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And on page 232 of chapter 22: Reading hands
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Reading hands well is a powerfull poker weapon because it allows you to play correctly more often, according to the Fundamental Theorem of Poker. The better you read your opponents' hands, the less likely you are to play to play your hand differently from the way you would play it if you could actually see what your opponent had.


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This agrees with:
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But you don't know he has AA and you can never know for sure. It is a good call in the sense, that out of the range of hands he might have, you are ahead.


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On page 25 David says:
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According to to the FToP, you play winning poker by by playing as closely as possible to the way you would play if you could see all your opponent's cards; and you try to make your opponents play as far away from this Utopian level as possible. The first goal is accomplished mainly by reading hands and players accurately, because the closer you can come to figuring out someone else's hand, the fewer Fundamental Theorem mistakes you will make,


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This together with the quote from page 232 about reading hands, almost agrees with:
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You need to consider ranges of hands and ranges of possible reactions to play optimal poker.


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Almost since DS states that playing optimal poker is Utopian, you can only play near optimal.

And above quotes from TOP agree with:
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The starting point to optimal play is correctly putting your opponent on a range of hands. From there you chose the course of action that maximizes your EV. I'd bet that's what you try to do when you play.


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and
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If I were writing something I called the FTOP, I'd include hand ranges and EV.


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And then again, it is fundamental, thus basic and needs to be extended. Hence a 301 page book called the Theory of Poker. (The extension of the FToP)


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By contrast, I find the FTOP an attempt to state in pseudo-mathematical terms what poker is about.


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Funny. Somehow I have the feeling that either:

<ul type="square"> [*]You haven't read Theory of Poker [*]You do not fully understand it.[/list]
That's my 0.02 Sklansky Buck.

[RussianBear]

If what I say is wrong, as I have only leafed through my copy of TOP, please don't flame me, just correct me.
I must agree with you. For example, especially at the smaller stakes, you will run into people that won't lay a hand down to save their life. They'll call down to the river with A high or a small piece of the board, even bottom button. You're firing at them precisely because you know what they hold, that is, they have a very weak hand and you can only win by bluffing, however, they refuse to believe they're beaten.
As concerns your preflop raising, I would suggest, once your opponents realize that you're so tight, gradually loosen your preflop requirements for raising. If they get wise to it, tighten back up. I normally change gears like this many times throughout a session (ring games). This, of course, is player dependent, don't reraise a rock with pocket 99 or 88.

[RussianBear]

How does Doyle recommend playing AK like AA-KK? He advises to open raise with it in EP but to open limp with AA-KK in order to reraise. He will always get his money in preflop with AA-KK if given the opportunity, such is not the case with AK. In MP, if someone had brought it in he'd just call with AK, whereas he'd raise with AA or KK.
In fact, in discussing how to play Ak on page 474 of Super System (page 585 in SSII) when there are three to a straight or flush, etc. "You might have noticed that this is quite different from the way I'd play two Aces or two Kings." I'll let you read on.

[dardo]

[Sorry if I repeat something]

Watching the pot always, is something as a newbie, I have recently learned, before, I could miss this crucial information, usually.

So, I definitely agree that this concept is a great weapon against bad / average SSNLH player.

regards,

dardo

[dd323]

[ QUOTE ]
How does Doyle recommend playing AK like AA-KK? He advises to open raise with it in EP but to open limp with AA-KK in order to reraise. He will always get his money in preflop with AA-KK if given the opportunity, such is not the case with AK. In MP, if someone had brought it in he'd just call with AK, whereas he'd raise with AA or KK.
In fact, in discussing how to play Ak on page 474 of Super System (page 585 in SSII) when there are three to a straight or flush, etc. "You might have noticed that this is quite different from the way I'd play two Aces or two Kings." I'll let you read on.

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Come on, the discussion was regarding pre-flop re-raising, not post flop play.

[Manta]

Hi y’all,
I’m new here, and have benefited tremendously from 2+2, so I’ll try to contribute something here by trying to explain the way I think about FTOP. My perspective is heavily influenced by the scarring too much math studies have caused. To me, it is a game-theoretical/mathematical statement that is true under the assumptions that it includes.

I'll give a post-flop example.

So: assume that we know mine and my opponent’s cards. We also know the three flop cards.

Now we can write down all my possible plays with some kind of code, for example b1 if I bet, f if I fold r3 if I raise $3, etc. If I'm second we can write Or3-c to mean that if my opponent raises $3 I will call. Because we have finite stacks this can be done (although the list will be very long).

We can do this for all combinations of turn and river cards (45*44=1980 combinations). The list will be huge, but it can still be done.

We then do the same for my opponent, and then create a HUGE table with my actions as the headings of the rows, and his as the headings of the columns. The last step is to fill in how much I won or lost in all the cells in the table. Now we have a complete description of everything that can happen in this game.

At this point a theorem from Game Theory* says that there is a row that is my optimal play against all of my opponent's columns (both his moves and the turn and river cards). He also has an optimal column.

FTOP's way of saying this is that if I play according to my optimal column and my opponent doesn't, I will gain more than I would have if he did.

That's all that it says to me. It can definitely be applied to a number of situations and extended like in TOP, but FTOP itself doesn’t say more than that.

For example, it doesn't talk about what to do if my opponent doesn't play optimally: in this situation there might be plays that increase my outcome more than if I had been playing optimally.

Neither does it directly say anything about what to do when we don’t know the opponents cards, since that isn’t included in the assumptions. However, it definitely has useful implications for thinking about that situation.

Also note that if everyone plays optimally (in this sense), the only one who will win in the long run is the rake.

That's my interpretation. I apologize for the length, but hope this at least helps somebody.

* Discovered by Nash, the guy from A Beautiful Mind.

[mikechops]

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Funny. Somehow I have the feeling that either:

<ul type="square"> [*]You haven't read Theory of Poker [*]You do not fully understand it.[/list]
That's my 0.02 Sklansky Buck.

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Well something else is funny. You seem to have written a very long post picking out quotes from TOP that agree with what I said. Then you accuse me of not understanding it!

I didn't say the whole of TOP is bad - it has some great stuff about semi-bluffing. I didn't say DS doesn't understand what optimal play is - he is too smart not to. I didn't even say FTOP is wrong. I just said it was over-rated and not a good starting point for getting to optimal play.

But I'm starting to repeat myself and have said more than my $0.02 on the subject.