Math versus psychology
Dichotomous Thinking
Mathematics v. psychology
One of the most prevalent instances of intellectual comfort food among poker players is the idea that limit poker is about mathematics and no-limit is about people and their psychology. Such thinking basically gives the weak player an out. If you’re not doing well in limit poker games then you can tell yourself that you’re just not mathematically oriented, that you’re more of a people person and should shift your game to no-limit. Well, good luck.
The false dichotomy appears to come from people who think poker related math begins and ends with calculating pot odds. It’s true that pot odds doesn’t really come into play in no-limit games as often as it does in limit – and that even when it does come into play it’s importance is often just marginal. But, there’s a lot more to the mathematics of poker than pot odds. The distribution of possible hands your opponents might hold is a mathematical concept. Balancing your action against your opponent’s likely reaction is mathematics.
Poker is a mathematical game. The kind of mathematics that might be useful depends on the situation, often depending a great deal on your opponents. The whole point of the game is to exploit the mistakes of your opponents. Mathematics is an important tool in both identifying what kind of mistakes your opponents make, and in developing strategic responses to exploit those errors. If your opponents are making gross errors it’s probably enough to just sit back and let the money fall into your lap. But, if they’re just making ordinary errors you usually have to actively go out and get the money.
If you can’t do that in a limit game then you probably won’t succeed in a no-limit game either. In a talk Chris Ferguson gave right after he won the WSOP he said, “If you don’t think mathematics is important in poker, then you just don’t know the right mathematics.” He was primarily talking about game theory. Game theory is in some ways the mathematics of rational people. This isn’t a game theory text, but I talk about it a little in the chapter on strategic thinking. Other mathematics topics I’ll get into some are optimization theory, bayesian analysis, decision theory, and artificial intelligence.
Mathematics v. psychology
One of the most prevalent instances of intellectual comfort food among poker players is the idea that limit poker is about mathematics and no-limit is about people and their psychology. Such thinking basically gives the weak player an out. If you’re not doing well in limit poker games then you can tell yourself that you’re just not mathematically oriented, that you’re more of a people person and should shift your game to no-limit. Well, good luck.
The false dichotomy appears to come from people who think poker related math begins and ends with calculating pot odds. It’s true that pot odds doesn’t really come into play in no-limit games as often as it does in limit – and that even when it does come into play it’s importance is often just marginal. But, there’s a lot more to the mathematics of poker than pot odds. The distribution of possible hands your opponents might hold is a mathematical concept. Balancing your action against your opponent’s likely reaction is mathematics.
Poker is a mathematical game. The kind of mathematics that might be useful depends on the situation, often depending a great deal on your opponents. The whole point of the game is to exploit the mistakes of your opponents. Mathematics is an important tool in both identifying what kind of mistakes your opponents make, and in developing strategic responses to exploit those errors. If your opponents are making gross errors it’s probably enough to just sit back and let the money fall into your lap. But, if they’re just making ordinary errors you usually have to actively go out and get the money.
If you can’t do that in a limit game then you probably won’t succeed in a no-limit game either. In a talk Chris Ferguson gave right after he won the WSOP he said, “If you don’t think mathematics is important in poker, then you just don’t know the right mathematics.” He was primarily talking about game theory. Game theory is in some ways the mathematics of rational people. This isn’t a game theory text, but I talk about it a little in the chapter on strategic thinking. Other mathematics topics I’ll get into some are optimization theory, bayesian analysis, decision theory, and artificial intelligence.
posted by Gary Carson at 11:51 AM
1 Comments:
Hmm. It depends. Most people who say nlhe is all about pyschology refer to the specific situation when one player moves in on another.
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