Poker is a game of accidents

[Kirkrrr]

For the most part, I think I would have to agree with aejones. LAG vs TAG is not really a matter of profitability, but simply a matter of personality. I could not more play a "solid TAG" game than a 16/6-type player could play a super LAG game. It's not in me, or in him.

So to say that nowadays everyone has adjusted to the typical LAG game and playing TAG is more profitable is incorrect, imo. Once you start playing against a pool of regular players, the game becomes simply who can adjust to who faster, much like an average HU match. Whoever re-adjusts to their opponent first, wins. If someone is playing to tight (TAG), the LAG will run him over. If someone is playing too loose (LAG), the TAG will keep snapping him off until something breaks. So your individual playing style is simply a matter of personality and isn't really subject to change, but you MUST be able to adjust to your opponents and table conditions in order to win consistently.

Kirk

[IRICHeyes]

I'm not so sure about this. I think it would be better to try and fart a chainsaw.

[isapistola]

its impossible to get a simplified answer to the question "what is the most profitable way to play poker (TAG/LAG)?". i think aejones' point of adjusting to your opponents game is the answer closest to "right" we can get.

nice thread, raised some thoughts.

[HedonismBot]

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i didn't find this post all that insightful.

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i dunno i think the only semi-interesting tidbids are that i thing a tight player in the current state of online poker has the ability to be more deceptive and effective than an equally talented player playing loose. i prefaced the entier post with the fact that everything i was going to write was pretty basic...

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Apparently not only are the games still very good but people can't help sucking you dick either. Congrats!

[wtfsvi]

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strassa,

Very good post that I largely agree with, but I think that a player who played like Hat or Buddy at their best without tilting would be a tougher and more profitable opponent than GoG or aba.

[/ QUOTE ] When a ridiculous bluff works it's brilliant, when it doesn't you can blame it on tilt.

[MDMA]

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I agree. There is a tendency on 2p2 to declare any verbose 'meaning of life/poker'esque post by a super respected player as genius. Saw similar with Gigabet.

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This was my first thought as well. I'm always excited when I see that strasser has taken time to write some new rantings on poker, but this one gave me nothing at all, unfortunately.

[luegofuego]

still enjoyable read, nits!

[Kermit]

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Great post Jason.

I have encountered numerous players who i believe have been incredibly successful by "accident". For the most part it maddens me to no end. One example would be one of the very top SNG players back in the party days. He had an insane amount of sucess but if you tried to talk theory with him the reasons behind his plays made absolutely no sense. Obviously they were still good plays but for totally different reasons than he thought.

Another example would be a guy I met early on in my college career. I was very excited to meet someone who was so into poker but after talking to him for a few minutes and hearing about "moving up to where they respect his raises" (seriously!) and such, it became really obvious that he did not understand very basic things about poker theory. Last I talked to him he was playing 200/400 on stars and he still thinks that ppl like sklanksy dont know what they are talking about.

Anyways, i know stories like that werent really the point of this thread but i cant wait to hear others' thoughts on this topic.

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NLSolier,

I met one of the old 25/50-50/100NL regs from UB one night and tried to talk a little poker. 30 seconds later, I was like, "wtf, is this really the same person?."

**He's busto now, but thats a different story.

Strassa,

Thanks for making this post.

[Melchiades]

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still enjoyable read, nits!

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Yeah.

[LearnedfromTV]

Nice post. I don't know why people seem to think it has to be either genius or useless.

I've read a lot of excellent posts over time here that cover this ground: exploitive strategies maximize profit given a set of parameters, but often those employing them don't understand optimal strategy or why they profit from their non-optimal strategy. 2p2ers were posting about this stuff here and there way before Chen/Ankenmann's book, but of course their book contributes a great deal to the discussion.

Three things help disguise winning play and keep money circulating in the poker economy: short-term luck, the fact that winning exploitive strategies may be accidental, and the fact that exploitive strategies can themselves be exploited. What I find most interesting about the accidental nature of poker is that at any given time, some significant percentage of the money in the poker economy is in the "wrong" place, distributed according to factors outside a player's control. It's not just that there's a randomizing element in the luck of the cards or in tournament payouts, there is also a randomizing element built into the interaction of strategies, particularly mixed strategies. Poker is a chaotic system, and any strategy necessarily has unintended consequences. The first analogy that comes to mind is multi-body gravity; everything affects everything in too many ways to track.