Poker question from alphatmw

[David Sklansky]

"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.

[snagglepuss]

sklansky,

are you capable of determining perfect game theory vs any opponents with dynamic stack sizes?

[gull]

1) Duh.

2) The house has an edge (rake).

[alphatmw]

since i don't know much about game theory except its basic concept, i'll have to ask someone to expand on this. what exactly constitutes perfect game theory in heads up poker, and what's stopping any game theorist from reaching this level? if such a level is unattainable (as i would assume is so, or else there would be lots of unbeatable heads up players right now, no?) then how would you change your answer to my question?

[ESKiMO-SiCKNE5S]

psychologist and its not close

all you maths wizz kids today i swear, back in my day we just looked a man square in the eye and made the right play

[Harv72b]

[ QUOTE ]
psychologist and its not close

[/ QUOTE ]

Obviously. The math expert would of course make all of the mathematically correct decisions in each hand. However, the psychologist/people reader will generally have a good idea of what the mathematician is holding, because of his area of expertise, and having average mathematics skills, will comprehend what the mathematically correct move would be for the mathematician. He could then bet, raise, or fold accordingly, setting the mathematician up to do whatever he desired. Being an expert in the field of psychology, he could also, if he wished, give off physical tells which would lead a person with average beharvioral psychology skills to believe whatever he wished them to.

In short, the mathematician will win the pots where he makes a big hand. The psychologist will win the rest.

[Xhad]

You guys are missing that the perfect game theorist would be unexploitable. The psychologist wouldn't be able to reliably put him on anything because the game theorist would be sufficiently randomizing his play.

It is true that a decent psychologist would often be able to decimate a decent mathematician in the fashion you mention. But that wasn't the question.

[Harv72b]

[ QUOTE ]
You guys are missing that the perfect game theorist would be unexploitable. The psychologist wouldn't be able to reliably put him on anything because the game theorist would be sufficiently randomizing his play.

[/ QUOTE ]

The point being that the world's best behavioral psychologist would still be able to get accurate tells, and successfully emit inaccurate ones, because he would understand the behavior and the psychology behind it of the world's greatest game theorist. Even if that behavior were perfectly randomized and ideal mathematically & game theory-wise.

The psychologist would know when the game theorist/mathematician was weak or strong, and could act accordingly and represent strength when desired.

[David Sklansky]

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

[abcjnich]

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.

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.