Tit and Tat

Ed Miller wrote an interesting article on what he calls "Macro and Micro Poker".

He defines macro as a set of winning principles.

He defines micro as a process of optimazation within the framework defined by the macro principles.

Then he goes about explain that it's more important to think in macro terms than in micro terms.

Well, duh?

Of course it is. The macro terms is what defines the micro process. In his definition the macro is the model that the micro is going to optimize. Should you know what the model is before you try to optimize that model? Well, I guess so.

These aren't two seperate approaches that are to be contrasted. They're one in the same. The way he defines it the macro is the overall model and the micro is the computational details of getting an exact solution to the model. I recently wrote a couple of posts in my mathandpoker blog on the contrast between general mathematical ideas and computational math. Although not exactly the same as Miller's Micro and Macro distinction, it's similar.

And it's got the same kind of "duh" to it. Of course formulating the overall mathematical model is more important than finding an exact solution.

Interestingly enough though a lot of people don't agree with Miller and I about that. A lot of people think it's better to formulate a model that's easy to solve because it's important to be able to have that exact solution. I happen to think it's more important to formulate a model which captures the essence of the situation than it is to be able to solve it.

This is starting to get more philisophical on the topic of math modeling than I intended for this blog. I'd started out this post intending to go in an entirely different direction. I had intended to actually say something specific about no limit hold'em. Maybe I'll pick up on that other direction some other day.