November General Thread

[vmacosta]

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Has everyone just realized the extreme -EV nature of discussing advanced concepts in a public forum?


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When i first read this statement i got angry and wanted to write a long post about how awful this thinking is. But after thinking about what i wanted to say, i'm actually wondering the same thing myself.

I would have thought that working out the math and writing software to solve hands would work much better in an open public forum (much as sharing ideas in an academic setting is useful). But the catch seems to be the freerider problem whereby very few ppl are taking the time to work out the problems but any lurker gets to benefit from the results. It gets frustrating so eventually the ppl doing the hard work get sick of sharing results. Of course when they don't share the results with a sufficiently large audience, the results are less legitimate and lower quality.

Perhaps the solution is smaller working groups where if ppl don't pull their weight they get cut?

[Enon]

Just finished one of those awesome hu matches at 1/2 where I started off -8k against a horrible station who started match by snapping off my bluffs with k and q high over and over but then rebounded and busted his last buy to end up +8k overall, just in time to go to the store and make dinner.

I am realizing the key to beating 1/2 these days is getting the fish hu to yourself instead of justifying sitting in a 6 max stars 1/2 just with 4 experts and one fish.

[piggity]

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I would have thought that working out the math and writing software to solve hands would work much better in an open public forum (much as sharing ideas in an academic setting is useful). But the catch seems to be the freerider problem whereby very few ppl are taking the time to work out the problems but any lurker gets to benefit from the results. It gets frustrating so eventually the ppl doing the hard work get sick of sharing results. Of course when they don't share the results with a sufficiently large audience, the results are less legitimate and lower quality.

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Yeah, I agree that open, collaborative efforts can be useful in general. The key distinction between discussing poker and working out more academic problems is that in the latter case, the work *is* the reward. That is, the reason to prove some obscure math conjecture would largely be for the sake of solving it. The incentives in the case of poker are obviously quite different, especially now that people can make real money playing LHE as a pro (vs say 7+ years ago when online multi-tabling was not an option).

I think an analogy can be made to pretty much any field where expertise results in money. In my line of work (quantitative finance), the people generally have backgrounds in math/physics/CS and are constantly working on interesting theoretical problems as they relate to the financial markets. But there is no way in hell we are sharing any of our results with anyone, since every other market participant is a competitor.

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Perhaps the solution is smaller working groups where if ppl don't pull their weight they get cut?

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That's essentially what a corporation is, and perhaps a natural result given the economic incentives. Like the secret Slovenian group that produced DERB. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[Heisenb3rg]

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Is it me or has their been a slight resurgence in LHE lately?

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I don't play online, so I don't know about this, but there certainly doesn't seem to be a corresponding resurgence in this forum. [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

Has everyone just realized the extreme -EV nature of discussing advanced concepts in a public forum?

It seems an "active" high stakes LHE discussion group should have plenty to talk about, given nobody even knows where optimality lies...

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My guess is its more arrogance and lazyness than secret witholding.

[gehrig]

no its secret withholding

arrogance, boredom and ego are the only reasons the forums have any input from great players

[stigmata]

fwiw i just noticed party added a 250/500 lhe tab, although they haven't opened any games yet.

[bicyclekick]

yeah, what a weird limit to have. Definitely should be 200/400 or 300/600. 250/500 just seems so weird.

[stigmata]

it is party [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

[johnnyrocket]

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Is it me or has their been a slight resurgence in LHE lately?

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sorry if not appreciated, i play lower limits (5/10), i switched to NL for a while and jumped back in these games, they are super soft compared to the old days

[piggity]

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no its secret withholding

arrogance, boredom and ego are the only reasons the forums have any input from great players

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As the fourth best LHE player in the world, do you find that you've out-grown these boards and can find all the results you need on your own? Are you part of a closer-knit closed community where super secret hold'em concepts are discussed?