improving at poker v. improving at chess

[siegfriedandroy]

lately i've been learning chess, and also have been thinking about the best and most efficient techniques for improving at poker (i play shorthanded limit). while i think chess is by far more difficult at become 'proficient' at (interpret 'proficient' how you will), i also believe the process for improving at chess is fairly straightforward. there are tons of quality books, and through extensive study, dedication, etc, anyone with reasonable intelligence can definitely improve (although it does take much effort).

with poker, the path to genuine improvement does not seem anywhere near as clear cut. there are a couple of okay books out there, but imo there is likely a ton of pertinent and critical info that simply is not sufficiently addresed anywhere in the relatively sparse (compared to chess) poker literature that exists. i am speaking primarily of limit, since that is my primary game, but i suspect the same is true of no limit, based on what i have read so far (HOH and SS - haven't yet read theory and practice). i enjoyed thfap and sshe (and patterned my game after these). but playing strictly according to these texts will not likely make you a winning player imo, especially if you play short. neither deals in depth with blind play, which is obviously the most important aspect of the shorthanded game. postflop, these books will provide a good foundation, but will not make you anywhere near expert. hopefully the new shorthanded/hi limit books will be very good.

anyway, just trying to formulate a good plan for taking my game to the next step, and frustrated b/c the road to improvement seems so nebulous, especially compared to my chess studies. i have read tons of hand posts here, made some of my own, but don't really see all that much value in them. while there are surely some extremely good posters, there are also many mediocre ones, and imo it's often seemingly impossible to discern the difference. i guess there is some merit in reading gazillions of hand posts, just to get you thinking a bit about the different arguments and theory on important situations. but overall, it seems inefficient to me. i have not had coaching yet, but definitely intend to in the near future. guess that is my plan for now. coaching, plus intensive study of the new sh book. anyway, that's enough for now. just thought i'd post my thoughts.

[jjpregler]

I played chess for 30 years before I got turned on to poker last year. I have won a few small chess tournaments before I switched. I agree with you on the literature part of chess vs. poker books.

One of my strategies that I took from chess was post mortem analysis of my play. I take one key hand from every session and critically assess every thing that went on with that hand. Sometimes, after the tournament or at a later session, I may ask the player about the hand. I would ask why he did what he did, what kind of hand he put me on and any other questions i had about the hand. Some won't do this, but some will and some will lie.

In chess, you try to learn one new thing from every game. I look at poker the same, learn at least one new thing from every session. Sometimes when i go over plays, I try to remember where I may have read something similar in the books I have and go back re-read that section of the book as well.

[Leader]

ok briefly, I see playing poker at a high level as a combination of two things. Strategy and tactics.

Strategy is the things you do away front he table.

-Choosing the right site
-Choosing to play when you're mentally sharpest
-Spending as much time as you can learning about the game and reviewing your play
-Taking care of the other things in your life like your physical and mental health.

Tactics is how you play at the table. It's those individual decisions that make you money or lose you money.

You get better at strategy from thinking about those factors that allow you to be most successful, which often involves self examination. A good place to start would be with Barry Greenstein's book Ace on the River.

Tactics is a different story. You get better at tactics first by playing. Poker theory can only take you so far. You need experience. Secondarily, you improve your tactical game by discussion. This should help hone your instincts and exposes you to other good players ways of thinking. In the end, understanding the tactics of poker is about assimilating concepts into your game not memorizing how to play in individual situations. There are simply to many different events that can occur in poker for you to understand them all. So you must understand reasons behind your plays so that you can apply those reasons broadly to all similar spots.

[Mike]

There really is not often much value in hand posting dissection once you reach a certain level nor is there a lot of value in poker discussion generally once you reach that magic level.

What you are going to read in books or public discussion - here for example - is filtered material if it comes from those who who play well. Sometimes it is intentional sometimes not. What they spent years learning and paying (by losses) is not something they are going to give away for free - why should they. What they know is also very situation dependant.

In chess there are no secrets. You can see the army your enemy has, and you can form a plan to defeat it.

Obviously in poker, the game is made up of secrets, strategy, tactics, and psychology. This is not to say that people playing are always aware of what they are doing, but they use these tools in some form all the same.

What I would suggest...if you are fortunate enough to have the opportunity to play often with someone you see as a good player, is play at the table with them and study their play. Get inside their head and determine why they are doing what they do and in what situations and/or table personalities.

When you are not at a table with them try to emulate what you have learned and check your results against theirs. You will not win much if at all, but learning, not winning is your goal doing this.

[siegfriedandroy]

[ QUOTE ]
ok briefly, I see playing poker at a high level as a combination of two things. Strategy and tactics.

Strategy is the things you do away front he table.

-Choosing the right site
-Choosing to play when you're mentally sharpest
-Spending as much time as you can learning about the game and reviewing your play
-Taking care of the other things in your life like your physical and mental health.

Tactics is how you play at the table. It's those individual decisions that make you money or lose you money.

You get better at strategy from thinking about those factors that allow you to be most successful, which often involves self examination. A good place to start would be with Barry Greenstein's book Ace on the River.

Tactics is a different story. You get better at tactics first by playing. Poker theory can only take you so far. You need experience. Secondarily, you improve your tactical game by discussion. This should help hone your instincts and exposes you to other good players ways of thinking. In the end, understanding the tactics of poker is about assimilating concepts into your game not memorizing how to play in individual situations. There are simply to many different events that can occur in poker for you to understand them all. So you must understand reasons behind your plays so that you can apply those reasons broadly to all similar spots.

[/ QUOTE ]

great post. thanks for the response. i like the strategy/tactics parallel [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[siegfriedandroy]

[ QUOTE ]
There really is not often much value in hand posting dissection once you reach a certain level nor is there a lot of value in poker discussion generally once you reach that magic level.

What you are going to read in books or public discussion - here for example - is filtered material if it comes from those who who play well. Sometimes it is intentional sometimes not. What they spent years learning and paying (by losses) is not something they are going to give away for free - why should they. What they know is also very situation dependant.

In chess there are no secrets. You can see the army your enemy has, and you can form a plan to defeat it.

Obviously in poker, the game is made up of secrets, strategy, tactics, and psychology. This is not to say that people playing are always aware of what they are doing, but they use these tools in some form all the same.

What I would suggest...if you are fortunate enough to have the opportunity to play often with someone you see as a good player, is play at the table with them and study their play. Get inside their head and determine why they are doing what they do and in what situations and/or table personalities.

When you are not at a table with them try to emulate what you have learned and check your results against theirs. You will not win much if at all, but learning, not winning is your goal doing this.

[/ QUOTE ]

why/how do you think good players UNintentionally filter their replies? what does this mean?

as for your last advice about emulating a good player, makes sense. it's virtually impossible, though, for me to truly know who is really truly great at the table. w/o millions of hands on a particular player, i don't really know in reality. i am a poker agnostic!

[siegfriedandroy]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
There really is not often much value in hand posting dissection once you reach a certain level nor is there a lot of value in poker discussion generally once you reach that magic level.

What you are going to read in books or public discussion - here for example - is filtered material if it comes from those who who play well. Sometimes it is intentional sometimes not. What they spent years learning and paying (by losses) is not something they are going to give away for free - why should they. What they know is also very situation dependant.

In chess there are no secrets. You can see the army your enemy has, and you can form a plan to defeat it.

Obviously in poker, the game is made up of secrets, strategy, tactics, and psychology. This is not to say that people playing are always aware of what they are doing, but they use these tools in some form all the same.

What I would suggest...if you are fortunate enough to have the opportunity to play often with someone you see as a good player, is play at the table with them and study their play. Get inside their head and determine why they are doing what they do and in what situations and/or table personalities.

When you are not at a table with them try to emulate what you have learned and check your results against theirs. You will not win much if at all, but learning, not winning is your goal doing this.

[/ QUOTE ]

why/how do you think good players UNintentionally filter their replies? what does this mean?

as for your last advice about emulating a good player, makes sense. it's virtually impossible, though, for me to truly know who is really truly great at the table. w/o millions of hands on a particular player, i don't really know in reality. i am a poker agnostic!

[/ QUOTE ]

as for the last part of my response, it's especially difficult to know a great player is really great when you seem him making many creative, tricky, unconventional and seemingly donkish (at times) plays.

mason says in his essays that to beat the highest limits requires a certain degree of creativity, trickiness, etc. basically, i want to employ such qualities in my game, but have no idea really when/why to be tricky and creative w/o simply becoming a donk who uses tricky plays at illogical times (although perhaps the illogical plays have a place in random spots, for no real reason once in awhile, just to remain as random as possible).

bottom line: i want to be tricky-good and not tricky-bad!!, but have no idea how, and don't really know if you can learn this from simply reading thousands of random hand posts. when i began playing poker in hi school 12 years ago or so w/ buddies, my game was totally different (and the forms of poker i played were much different) and definitely a lot less predictable. i fear my poker growth has been stunted to some extent by the books i've patterned my game off of, and that i've allowed my creativity to be quite stifled. just not sure when, where and why to successfully deviate from 'the theory of poker'. pete

[Shandrax]

The problem in Poker is that you can do everything right and still get screwed by the cards. Then you make adjustments based on this outcome and start to play incorrectly which will hurt you in the long run.

It seems to me that in Poker you need to be stubborn for a while until you have a big enough sample to draw conclusions. Unfortunately this can become quite expensive.

Another difference to poker is that there is not a single correct play, because it all depends on the situation. It is usually correct to fold a bad hand, but on the other hand raising with it may win the pot...

[Mike]

[ QUOTE ]


why/how do you think good players UNintentionally filter their replies? what does this mean?

as for your last advice about emulating a good player, makes sense. it's virtually impossible, though, for me to truly know who is really truly great at the table. w/o millions of hands on a particular player, i don't really know in reality. i am a poker agnostic!

[/ QUOTE ]

As far as filtering replies, first the dynamics of the game are so varied that it is almost impossible to comment correctly on a hand someone describes other than the mechanics of hand play, and even then the advice could be wrong.

If you are having difficulty determining who the better players are at your table - slow down. The primary reason this is difficult, is you are not watching, but playing.

Play in the same group to really learn anything from them. It does not take millions of hands, perhaps an hours really watching their play and you should at least have it down to half the table being poor players. A second hour and you should be able to divide it down more. Then you have a base to work from.

Better than average players do this every time they sit down and usually within a few rounds, it is a learned task that every player should be doing.

Unlike chess every hand in poker is about $$, not just the ending. The financial line between break even and winning is very thin, why would I want to make the game I play in harder than it is? I paid in time and $$ for what I know, so did everyone else. Why should I freely share with anyone the little tricks I learned that help me take your money?