TOP: Fundamental Theorem discussion.

[mikechops]

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mikechops[ QUOTE ]
Poker comes down to putting people on a range of hands and playing optimally from there. You need to make correct estimates of the relative probability of your opponents' holding(s) and their likely reactions to your possible actions. Then you select the action that gives you the highest EV. That's fundamental.

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Assigning hand ranges and playing accordingly is a fundamental skill that a player uses to play good poker. But its not a fundamental way of describing what the ideal course of action is.

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Well I wouldn't want to argue semantics with anyone, but I would say that IS a fundamental way of describing the correct decision process for arriving at the ideal action. I think that paragraph says more clearly what we should be trying to do than the FTOP. The ideal action is the one that wins you most in the long run, not the one that happens to be right because you opponent happened to have a particular hand.

Another example. Heads up. AA vs KK. KK raises, AA calls trying to set trap. Flop comes AKx rainbow. Both players end up all-in. Did KK make a mistake? Of course not. If you posted this hand and said you folded KK, people would rightly call you an idiot. You had no way of knowing you were up against AA.

That is the whole point of poker. It is a game of imperfect information. So-called fundamental theorms that don't take this into account aren't fundamental in my book.


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Guess Sklansky was trying to be all sciency by trying to set out principles of poker. So it doesn't feel to poker players that this is what they are doing when they play poker. But I think that it is a reasonable way of describing what optimal play is.

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I disagree. Optimal play is making the best decisions we can with the information available to us. It isn't what we could have done, had we known for sure what the opponents cards were. If we start trying to do that, we may as well try to play as if we know what the turn and river cards are going to be ahead of time too.

[mikechops]

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I think the whole theorm is a over-rated. It certainly isn't what I'd call fundamental. Talking about inducing a 'mistake' from an opponent, when he doesn't know your cards and you don't know his, is a bit silly.

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<font color="blue"> PLEASE everyone, argue the theory, not the assumptions, it's way more productive. Don't play semantics. </font>



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Poker is a fundamentally a game of imperfect information. I would respectfully suggest that pointing this out is not playing semantics.

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The Fundamental Theorem is indeed fundamental, it is not simple. It is not the introductory theorem. It's incredibly complex and far reaching.

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Dictionary.com
Fundamental - Of or relating to the foundation or base; elementary


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[7stud]

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The Fundamental Theorem is indeed fundamental, it is not simple. It is not the introductory theorem. It's incredibly complex and far reaching.

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Hmm...well maybe I don't understand it fully then, but to me it seems true by definition. It says(or "should" say) that there is an optimal way for your opponent to play his hand if he could see your cards. If he doesn't play that optimal way, then he loses AND you gain.

That doesn't appear to be earth shattering news, and it makes intuitive sense: opponent bungles his hand, he loses, you win. Imo, the only reason the ftop is at all interesting is because of what Morton showed. He showed that in multiway pots, there are times when an opponent can play sub-optimally, i.e. he chooses an action that has -EV, yet you don't gain from his mistake. In fact, not only do you not gain from his mistake, you are hurt by his mistake i.e. your EV decreases. What happens is that a 3rd opponent is acquiring EV from the both of you when your opponent makes a mistake.

[fiskebent]

The Fundamental Theorem of Poker (TFTOP) is incomplete I think. It doesn't take into account that bluffs are profitable when you do them at the right interval. At least according to a later chapter in TOP.

When I make a stone cold bluff, I'm definitely making a mistake according to TFTOP since I'm putting more money in the pot while I'm behind. If my opponent played correctly according to TFTOP he'd always raise my bluffs and I'd pay for my mistake. But I'm making a mistake willingly in the hope that I can get him to make an even bigger mistake by laying down the better hand.

[Pocket3's]

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But I'm making a mistake willingly in the hope that I can get him to make an even bigger mistake by laying down the better hand.

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Bingo!

The FTOP makes complete sense in a vacuum, but sometimes you make incorrect plays intentionally that increase your EV on later hands. You make a stupid play, and now your opponenet thinks your a donk, not realizing it was a set-up.
Also, the FTOP does not account for all aspects of poker. If it were only a mathmatical game, the FTOP would stand on every paly. I think it has to be used as a guideline, and a concept, not as a rigid way of play. In the long run whoever makes the least mistakes wins. Sometimes you have to make your opponents make mistakes, ie the bluff, and sometimes they'll make them on their own. The only way you win this war is by hand reading and player reading, and trying to make the most optimal play after deductive reasoning.

[4_2_it]

One other aspect of bluffing that I haven't seen mentioned is that if you never bluffed then you will make it easier for opponents to play correctly (i.e. you will always bet when you have a hand and always fold when you do not). Bluffing the correct % of time is perfectly aligned with the FTOP.

[evilempire]

I don't get how you can call a bluff a mistake if you know he would lay his cards down. You know his cards, and how he would play them. We are behind and we know the only way to win is to bluff. Bluffing in this case is obviously the optimal play.

Yes someties we bluff to increase our EV in later hands, but do you bluff if you know hes going to call? The optimal play would be to bluff when he might lay it down so that if he does call not all is lost.

[vulturesrow]

The FTOP absolutely applies to the bluffing scenario. You induced your opponent to play differently than he wouldve had he known what you were holding. You cant get a more direct correlation than that.

[fiskebent]

Maybe my interpretation of TFTOP is too narrow. I think bluffing - if done correctly - is +EV. But the TFTOP says you should play as if you could see your opponents cards. Putting money in the pot when you're behind is not the way to win if you read TFTOP literally. That's why I think it's incomplete.

I had a hand yesterday when someone tried an all-in bluff against me when I had the nuts. That was a definite mistake by him according to TFTOP - and in practice.

My interpretation of TFTOP - which I'll be the first to admit is on the narrow side - leads to strict ABC poker. Bet when you're ahead. Fold when you're behind. No bluffing. No slow-playing. No table image considerations.

I think TFTOP lacks something about your opponent as a poker player. A wider formulation might be "Play as if you know your opponents cards and what he thinks you have". As it stands, TFTOP only relies on the cards. It doesn't include the players at all.

[vulturesrow]

Think about the meaning of the word fundamental, which someone has actually posted. This is the axiom of correct poker play, from which everything else proceeds. Now the issue of optimal play arises. Take the bluffing scenario. Clearly, if he knows your cards, he calls, you lose, he wins. Very straighforward. Now, you know his cards. Now you know that the only way you win is to bluff. Now we have to calculate how often we make him fold by bluffing. If we know he folds enough time to make this profitable than we bluff. We cause him to make a bigger mistake than our bet theoretically was. Yes you didnt play optimally, but you moved your opponent further away from the optimal play.