The Mathematics of Poker

[captainwan]

[ QUOTE ]

But, I have problems applying the stuff in this book to my game.


[/ QUOTE ]

I feel the same.

[utility]

on pg 97 you say Y's MES should be to fold all the time if X'x bluffing frequency is < 20% und switch to calling all the time if X bluffs more than 20% of the time.

shouldn't it be 5% instead 20%?

the calculated ex-showdown equity values in the following table also correspond to MES switching at 5% which i think is correct.

[scarr]

I don't have a copy of the book, but I read the small chapter on online poker in my friend's copy. In that chapter the authors talk about using hand histories. They said that you really can't use other players hands because there is not enough data and the sample is 'biased'.

While I agree that you are not going to have much hand history for players you re-encounter online, I don't think the sample is statistically biased. If you only had a sample of hands the player won, or only from tournaments the player won, then I would consider the sample of hands played to be biased.

In a book on the mathematics of poker, I was disappointed they didn't dive deeper into the analysis of other players by observing their play. And, to misuse a statistical term like 'bias' weakened the book as a whole for me.

[AljdrA]

This is a text book.
Opposite of what is said inside the book.
This is a boring text book.

You need to be really interested for not throwing it through the window.

The title is good enough for keep it at the bookshelf.

[Jacques]

For someone with no interest in mathematics, it requires a lot of discipline to go over all of this in order to extract what is useful. The math is not hard but there is a lot of it.

There are a lot of games that have their optimal strategy derived in the text. Poker players are interested in the lessons learned from this and would expect all the calculations in an appendix. I have an interest in the concepts but the calculations are only relevant for the math geeks who want to verify that the proofs are correct.

This book could be rewritten and cover the exact same material in a way that would be appealing to poker players. I can't blame the math guys who wrote this but the editor should know better.

I would guess than less than 1% of players who buy this book will actually read it.

[Strickly Bidness]

To the authors of this book,

kudos on bringing up some great topics....HOWEVER, it appears that this book has some errors, specifically w.r.t how you try to lay out the Central Limit Theorem in Chapter 2. It appears that you guys are claiming that if you collect enough data, then it starts to follow a normal distribution and you attempt to use this throughout the book. The problem with this claim is that this is not what the CLT says at all. The data is the data, no matter how much of it you collect, and it is never guaranteed to follow any type of distribution at all. What the CLT says, in fact, is that sums/means will follow the normal distr, not the actual data. Its very confusing and makes the book very hard to follow in places.

Please address,

SB

[sputum]

[ QUOTE ]
They said that you really can't use other players hands because there is not enough data and the sample is 'biased'.


[/ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
And, to misuse a statistical term like 'bias' weakened the book as a whole for me.

[/ QUOTE ]
As a whole? [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img] How much did you read?
You're kidding, right? Maybe you read it quickly but the bias referred to is that the hands you have on other people all have you at the table. So you are missing their hands in which you do not take part. The paragraph was about estimating the 'true' winrate of someone in your database.

[sobefuddled]

Well, if you are not really a math person and you work your way through the math in the first chapter or two you should be OK for the rest of the book. I have this on excellent authority by the way...

[scarr]

Thanks for clarifying. I did skim thru it, and don't have the copy with me. That was the impression I got from reading that chapter, obviously I missed a key point.

Was there anything from book, especially regarding analysis of other people's play, which provided any useful insight?

[sputum]

[ QUOTE ]
Was there anything from book, especially regarding analysis of other people's play, which provided any useful insight?

[/ QUOTE ]
The meat of the book regards playing 'optimally' in poker-like toy games, rendering your opponent's play ev-neutral (ie his actions all have the same ev) so not a huge amount. The chapters on exploitative play vs hands and especially ranges are short but I found them helpful.
The book's not for everyone but it does what it says on the tin. I'm still rereading and absorbing it so insights may have to wait but it feels worthwhile.
I prefer thinking about poker to playing it so I'm biased [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]