You Know Your Opponent Never Bluffs

[luckyme]

In all life situations there are the rules/laws and there are social expectations/customs. Part of what you're reading in this thread is the melding of those in a poker setting.

Amirillo Slim wrote about a pot being taken from him in England because he spoke during the hand he was in. Trying to talk somebody in or out of a call would be grounds for lynching. So, if your asking a brit ( in those days) you'd expect a different answer from the one a Texan would give. Neither is right/wrong.

I've played in clubs where you didn't leave your chips to go to the bathroom without a friend to watch over them. do you think I had a valid expectation that somebody wouldn't use access to my poker notes against me, or take advantage if I showed them my cards?

I was raised with cards in my crib, my family played games, games and games. We played strictly by the rules and honestly ( no cheating type maneuvers) but if we said in a hi-lo pot "sure you can call, it's good for the both of us" it probably meant "It'll make me a winner and give you a nice clear spot to deal from". No Westminster burial for my granny, I 'spose.

Knowing somebodies playing style from whether they are winning or losing, whether you were in the game from the start or your friend nudged you when you got there and said " He's down 100 quid tonight" is not elicit knowledge in our games. If my friend said of a stranger ( to me) "I've played 1000 hours with him and he has never bluffed" likewise. It's not information that I gathered by observation but it's information he has no right to think I don't have.

If somebody loose gambler bets the farm and I have KK ( so easy call/raise), they show me AA accidently as I ponder ... at the poker table I fold, in the equivalent bridge situation I call.

Context matters. Poker is not bridge, bridge is not real estate selling or politics, politics is not marriage, ... what you do in one does not mean you short change blind people.

luckyme

[DBSpecial]

My thinking is that as soon as you sit down at the table you're a player, and the aim of the game is to win. You maximise your winnings by limiting your mistakes and exploiting the mistakes of others.
This may be playing the best poker, being adept at reading tells, or in the examples discussed it may be researching your opponents so you know they'll never bluff or taking advantage of a player who doesn't protect his cards.

[luckyme]

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My thinking is that as soon as you sit down at the table you're a player, and the aim of the game is to win.

[/ QUOTE ]

Games don't have aims. Games have rules and occur in a social setting. In business, I'd be nuts to play my A game if it jeopardizes bigger business deals, or if a fake sympathy talk lures an opponent into the hand and I'm looked at as a person that can't be trusted or as an emotional phoney. It doesn't matter what I think 'should' be the way we behave in the game.

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You maximise your winnings by limiting your mistakes and exploiting the mistakes of others.


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Sure. But in every setting there are boundaries and the above isn't unrestricted.

[ QUOTE ]
This may be playing the best poker, being adept at reading tells, or in the examples discussed it may be researching your opponents so you know they'll never bluff or taking advantage of a player who doesn't protect his cards.

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Yes, but the key is "may be". All options are not on the table at any given time and which ones are depends on the context.

luckyme

[DBSpecial]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
My thinking is that as soon as you sit down at the table you're a player, and the aim of the game is to win.

[/ QUOTE ]

Games don't have aims. Games have rules and occur in a social setting. In business, I'd be nuts to play my A game if it jeopardizes bigger business deals, or if a fake sympathy talk lures an opponent into the hand and I'm looked at as a person that can't be trusted or as an emotional phoney. It doesn't matter what I think 'should' be the way we behave in the game.


[/ QUOTE ]
That's debatable. All games have rules, true. But all games have an aim, an object or a desired outcome (*winning*). I'm not sure that all games occur in a 'social setting,' whatever that is. Do you mean all games have real-world consequences linked to the behaviour of the players? Or the outcome?

My point about maximising winnings still holds up though, of course you wouldn't take a small win in the short term at the expense of the long term, if (for example) it would jeopardize your professional reputation.
To maximise your win doesn't mean obviously screwing someone once but being unable to play with them again. If you knew your opponent would realise you were scoping his hole cards it probably wouldn't be the right play. But you'd have to consider risk/reward and if he was a moron, and you were able to disguise your advantage a little, it would absolutely be the best play in terms of profit.

If your only goal is to maximise profit, you should take any edge you can, so long as you can exploit it without hurting your game long-term.
If you have a different goal, say to maximise profit without compromising your moral standards, it wouldn't be the right play.

[luckyme]

[ QUOTE ]
All games have rules, true. But all games have an aim, an object or a desired outcome (*winning*).

[/ QUOTE ]

It may seem like nitpicking, and perhaps it is, but thinking of a game as having 'aims' is like thinking a gun wants to shoot. Games have rules because that is what makes it a specific game. It's almost like species.. you morph one rule at a time an eventually NLholem turns into chinese checkers.

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I'm not sure that all games occur in a 'social setting,' whatever that is.

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If you are playing a game of solitaire locked in your cell in prison, you are still in a social setting ( bleak as it is). There will be outside factors that influence how you play ... you may not SMACK the cards down like you would in your den at home, or you may :-)

Whether to smack the cards down isn't in the rules, it's in the social setting.

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Do you mean all games have consequences linked to the behaviour of the players? Or the outcome?

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Can be any of that and a bizillion other things.

luckyme

[Jetboy2]

I expect that *you* will kick their ass in that situation.

You don't propose that particular conundrum in any of your books. Seems like the point of your books on poker is to win...

Ehhhh

[Bez]

Everyone would surely use this information. You've innocently come across this information.

If he whacks in a big bet on the river and you know you MUST be beat you will fold. I don't think anyone can honestly say they would call a bet they KNOW they will lose in this situation.

<font color="blue"> </font> Can you really tell if someone is bluffing from the colour of their skin?

[Splendour]

Does anyone ever think that poker was just a game before it was "The Cheating Game"...sort of like a baby before the world gets ahold of him and corrupts him...Just an innocent game...
I think I would tell him on the side that critical information on his game was in print and I had come across it by accident...There's no reason why I should leave him to be a sitting duck for the rest of his life for any predator coming along...How he decides to change up his game is up to him..but I'd warn him...

[NotReady]

[ QUOTE ]

I snatch waiters tips off tables when I walk out of a restaurant too



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If I saw you doing that I would shoot you on the spot. No trial, no judge, no jury - instadeath. You are beneath scum.

[andyfox]

Would you guys answer differently in situation A than in situation B?

A) He is hideously wealthy, having acquired the wealth by inheritance, his father having stolen the money, literally, from orphan's mouhs. He is known far and wide as a selfish and uncharitable soul.

B) He is a working man, plying the trade at which he is most skilled, in order to feed, clothe, and educate his family. He is a very charitable man as well.