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Old 11-05-2007, 06:03 PM
WiltOnTilt WiltOnTilt is offline
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Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: formerly KowCiller
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Default Re: The Mathematics of poker by Bill Chen & some dude...

I just started reading this book. I consider myself above average at "poker math" -- specifically EV calc type stuff. I graduated with a comp sci degree so i'm not too foreign to formal math...

I think it's hilarious how many greek symbols and equations they have in first section marked "Basics". I'm understanding the book so far, although I had to re-read a few pages when i got momentarily lost, but I can't imagine how joe-average poker player could possibly understand the concepts starting off in the "Basics" section.

They should have done a better job dumbing it down and/or removing many of the equations/greek symbols/math lingo until at least later in the book. I know being math guys they feel the need to build the "foundation" of ideas so they can build on it later, but if you want to reach a wide audience it's simply not a good strategy to keep people interested. I have one friend who tried to read this book and threw it out 2 chapters in because of all the graphs/equations/and "foreign letters" that people w/o a math background don't understand.

That said I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the book for myself so I can translate it to others.

WoT
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