The Mathematics of Poker

[DPCondit]

[ QUOTE ]
How much of the concepts in this book can be applied to Small stakes NL Hold em (NL100-NL200) ?

[/ QUOTE ]

It is about concepts that apply to any game, not game or size specific, so I don't see why it wouldn't be good for NL 100-200.

[maurile]

[ QUOTE ]
How much of the concepts in this book can be applied to Small stakes NL Hold em (NL100-NL200) ?

[/ QUOTE ]
I think all of the concepts can be applied to NLHE 100-200, but none of them can be applied simply. The books is difficult to understand as applied even to the simplified toy games. It doesn't give any easy-to-follow advice at all for real poker games.

Ultimately, the book tells you how to answer questions such as "Given the range of hands I'd have played this way so far, and given my opponent's most likely range of hands, and given the pot size, how often do I need to bluff on the river with bet-size N in order to ensure that I can not be exploited?"

But it doesn't give you any pat answers. It just helps you set up the problem so that you'll have some idea of what factors move the answer in one direction and what factors move the answer in the other direction, etc.

[Oct0puz]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
How much of the concepts in this book can be applied to Small stakes NL Hold em (NL100-NL200) ?

[/ QUOTE ]

It is about concepts that apply to any game, not game or size specific, so I don't see why it wouldn't be good for NL 100-200.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well I doubt that things like Game theory is very useful in this softer games.

[megabit]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
How much of the concepts in this book can be applied to Small stakes NL Hold em (NL100-NL200) ?

[/ QUOTE ]

It is about concepts that apply to any game, not game or size specific, so I don't see why it wouldn't be good for NL 100-200.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well I doubt that things like Game theory is very useful in this softer games.

[/ QUOTE ]

I haven't gotten too far into the book yet, but I think Bill would disagree with you. One of points I have got to is adjusting as more information becomes available, so as you play on in a soft game you factor in how your opponents play to derive your proper strategy based on all of the data available to you. In other words the books goal is to help you with ANY game.

Mike

[BillChen]

On one extreme is the game where your opponents strategies are entirely known and they have no adaptive abilities. In this case it's relatively straightforward to calculate the best play. Jerrod dubs this the PlayStation (tm) approach to poker. We do go over several examples of this in Section II. Even though game theory is the biggest section in the book, the book is hardly all about game theory. It's just that in comparison the mathematics of playing against a known strategy is much easier. This is not to say that the sections on how to collect data against your opponent and Bayesian inference in tells aren't important--in fact, they are more useful against weak and unadaptive opponents.

But even in so called "soft" games the players are not this predictable. Even when it's claer someone plays badly because of a given play it's still unclear how badly they play. For example say you see someone make a bad call, do you know if it's the minimum hand they would call with or will they call with worse, or did they just make the call on a whim? There are certainly situations where game theory may still apply such as value betting on the end.

Even if you read your opponent perfectly for a mediocre hand--in the book we call this the clarvoyant game, if you don't have an idea of his calling frequency you may still want to play the optimal mix of bluffs and value bets at the end. This is the strategy that is the hardest for your opponent to play against.

Bill

[Shroomy]

Read the book.
The game theory discussed apply equally to any game.

I wouldn't be supprised if this book by itself gave us another forum here at 2p2 just for poker game theory.

btw It does give lots of simply stated no limit advice of great value. The problem is that each nugget is scattered throughout the book in the section of where it is explained, and it is rarely included in the end of section key points. It also gives you the reasons (usualy with "proof") behind many of the general guidelines you see quoted here and in many other books.

[morgan180]

I am just through the first 3 chapters and it is an amazing book. Those that have commented on the math and being pretty easy - it is, and they do an EXCELLENT job of explaining and re-referencing equations, etc. so that you can follow along and get the concepts if the formula looks intimidating.

Great read so far and can't wait to keep going!

[ianlippert]

[ QUOTE ]
I wouldn't be supprised if this book by itself gave us another forum here at 2p2 just for poker game theory.


[/ QUOTE ]

It would be nice if more of these topics hit the theory forum. All too often the theory forum reads like the poker 101 forum.

[CanadaLowball]

i must say that this growing errata list concerns me, especially if Chen says that they took their time with this.

[sobefuddled]

Whatever you do, do NOT click on the link this person provides in his profile.