Poker question from alphatmw

[Harv72b]

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I specifically assumed no physical tells in my answer. Say they were playing online.

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Okay, non-physical tells then. The initial question doesn't specify which form(s) of poker are being played, but the psychologist should still be able to guage and represent strength/weakness through bet sizes, timing, table chatter, and all the other information still available to him. He would be inside his opponent's head from hand one and would remain there for the entire match (this, of course, assumes that each knows the other's area of expertise before-hand).

Although an interesting side question would be how much, if at all, it would affect the outcome if the game played was strictly limit vs. no-limit.

[Xhad]

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You do say in your NL book that someone who plays perfect game theory but lacks other skills will lose to someone who is proficient in the other skills but lacks game theory.

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Where?

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So I suppose the psychologist would win. However, the perfect game theory person would have a superb understanding of poker, not just a good understanding.

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I have a feeling most of the people in this thread don't understand what a game-theory perfect strategy would actually entail.

[alphatmw]

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I have a feeling most of the people in this thread don't understand what a game-theory perfect strategy would actually entail.

[/ QUOTE ] i don't, and i was hoping someone would explain.

[Xhad]

A game-theory perfect strategy for a game is by definition impossible to beat even if your opponent knew your entire strategy. To do such a thing would require that either your opponent cannot make any set of decisions that would allow him to win under any circumstances, or (applicable to poker) you would have to randomize your decisions in such a way that he cannot anticipate your decisions in such a way that allows him to counter them.

One thing to realize though is that it isn't a matter of more game theory = proportionally more EV; it is entirely possible that an almost perfect game theoretic strategy is actually horribly exploitable because some small deviation exposes it to a devastating counterstrategy.

As an example, consider a game in which you play rock-paper-scissors for several hours, and at the end of every single match the loser pays the winner a set amount. Obviously the game-theory perfect strategy is to play rock, paper, and scissors each 1/3 of the time, but randomly. But now take someone who plays each 1/3 of the time, but he does so by making sure that of every 18 plays, exactly 6 of them is rock, 6 of them is paper, and 6 of them is scissors. Obviously a skilled psychologist would be no better than breakeven in the first game, but would have a clear edge in the second (assuming he realized what was going on). Now make it a player that does the same thing, but in cycles of 9 matches and the psychologist would eat him alive.

[kdotsky]

I think most of you don't fully understand game theory.

Still assuming there's no physical tells, and assuming the math guy plays a perfect game theoretic strategy, there's no such thing as giving away information with betting patterns, and it would be worthless to "be inside his opponent's head". The mathematician would not be making decisions, he's just following a set randomized strategy which is *provably* unbeatable. He could even tell the opponent what the overall strategy was, if this was possible, and his opponent could still not beat him. In addition, the game theoretic strategy has absolutely nothing to do with how your opponent behaves, so the psychologist words, betting patterns, raising percentage, etc. would have no effect on the mathematician's decisions.

Without tells, the *only* questions is how close to game theoretic optimal can a mathematician play (computers can solve game theory problems, but poker is too large of a game).

So can the psychologist take advantage of the difference between the mathematicians play and game theoretic optimal play? Absolutely not. Since the mathematician is making all decisions *trying* to approximate game theory strategy, he is therefore not making decisions based on psychology. If he's not making decisions based on psychology, the psychologist has nothing to exploit.

PS. I've also assumed the psychologist can't significantly degrade the quality of the mathematicians decisions by being ridiculously annoying.

[pete fabrizio]

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"the world's greatest mathematician and game theory expert goes heads up against the world's greatest behavioral psychologist / people reader. both have average skills in the other person's expertise, and both have a good understanding of poker. who has the edge, and how much is it?"

If you use perfect game theory and have no physical tells, no one can have an edge on you head up.

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I don't think the world's greatest mathematician and game theory expert would be anywhere close to being capable of playing game-theoretically perfect poker, even assuming he understood poker very well.

[Eaglesfan1]

The main thing here is the guy is a mathematician AND an expert game theorist. If it were just expert mathematician vs mr. psychology, Mr. psychology would absolutely destroy the mathematician, he would be extremely easy to read and would have no chance.

Though he's up against a mathematician AND a Game Theorist. An expert game theorist definately factors in varying his play by straying from the numbers JUST enough so mr. psychology can't figure him out.

So the point here is Mr. Math will play a much more mathematically sound game than Mr. Psychology, but, Mr. Psychology will not play THAT much of a better psychological game than Mr. Math. He will have an advantage, but Mr. Math's - math advantage is much stronger than Mr. Psychology's psychological advantage.

So the main point is the mathematician/game theorist has a huge advantage over mr. psychology because the psychological aspect of the game is a huge part of game theory... and he is a game theory expert.

[alphatmw]

keep in mind that i asked for the world's greatest game theorist, not a hypothetical perfect game theorist (unless this level of game theory is attainable).

[WelshMackem]

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PS. I've also assumed the psychologist can't significantly degrade the quality of the mathematicians decisions by being ridiculously annoying.

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From that, I assume you've not met many psychologists :-)

[tabako]

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keep in mind that i asked for the world's greatest game theorist, not a hypothetical perfect game theorist (unless this level of game theory is attainable).

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This point is quite important and has been overlooked by most of the people in this thread so far.