HOH "outdated"

[JustCuz]

MrX5000,

A comparison between poker and chess can, as your post illustrates, yield some interesting similarities. I would, however, warn against too close a comparison, particularly since you are from an obvious chess background. So, for the sake of this discussion, I would like to introduce a third game, backgammon, as a sort of "in-between" to reference the divide between chess and poker.

In chess, there is absolutely no "hidden" or "unknown" information. Everything that is true, or can possibly become true, is able to be determined by either or both players based on what is visible on the board. Sure, one player might trick another one into thinking that the will do one thing and then do another, but that possibility can always be surmised by a true master.

Backgammon, on the other hand, is similar in that both players know, at all times, exactly the same information about where the game stands; one player hides nothing from the other. However, there is an unknown in backgammon: the roll of the dice. So, players respond to situation based on a marriage of what they both know to be the facts of the game (the situation on the board) and the probability of what is unknown (what opportunities the "random" rolls of the dice are likely to afford to either player). In the case of backgammon, the known information is shared equally and fully by both players, but the unknown information (the roll of the dice) is also equally mysterious to both -- netier know for sure what the dice will bring, but predictions can be made about liklihoods.

Poker, however, is a much different game strategically. In hold'em, for example, the board is known to both players, just as it is in chess and backgammon. Yet, the unknowns are two-fold: 1) The other players' hole cards (which are known to only the player holding the cards -- a type of information not present in chess or backgammon) and 2) What opportunities are likely to be realized based on the turns of the cards (turn and river as opposed to rolls of the dice).

So, we, as poker players, have to manipulate many, many more variables as they relate to the knows and unknowns of the game, and, on top of that, we have to know that our opponents, who hold unknown cards, are doing the same.

The point to all this is that a huge part of playing winning poker is the ability to navigate our way through those unknowns that are so unique in our game. And here's where I must disagree with you: Harrington has not arbitrarily set call/fold variables; he has merely given us guidelines. Just as I have my preferred counter to Bird's opening in Chess, for example, I will not use that counter every game, nor does Harrington suggest we play every hand in every situation the same way. Like you say, however, the mathematical core is still the same, and it's interesting to see how others propose playing in light that one constant in our game.