Old School, New School

I notice that in the AKo debate all the players who disagree with David have something in common.


The following is a bit of an exaggeration, but let's say we had two sides in a debate. One are the professional players, a la David, Mason, Roy Cooke, etc who must have some clue about what they are doing because they have survived playing professionally for so long. Additionally, their logic skills appear to be pretty sound, so we can probably buy that they haven't just done so by sheer luck.


On the other side of the debate, we put a bunch of non-professional players, but computer geeks who are running their turbo sims that tell them xyz, so brash young'ns that they are, they are jumping into the fray against the experienced masters.


Most readers of this board, even those who might be sympathetic to the young geeks crew, would say well Turbo isn't a good program and these old-school masters are probably right.


The problem with this little characterization is that these young upstarts, in addition to being computer savvy, ARE strong professional players. MikeM, Abdul & Angelina are welcome to play my money anytime they want in the 80-160 at the Bellagio or Commerce.


But in addition to playing professionally, the new school have availed themselves of many tools (not just Turbo -- that's a bit of a strawman) in improving play in a professional manner. At what point does the old school move over for the new school?


In every field, there are those that are pushing the envelope of knowledge using the latest technologies. I'm not just talking about the always-dismissed simulations[1]. Data mining is a powerful tool as well. But the ability to track with 100% accuracy every hand you play has been something available to poker theoreticians for only two years or so. And just as in any other scientific endeavor, eventually you have to look at the data. If a million hands of data tell you that AKo utg is worth double what the old-school expert says, that is too big a difference to slough off as experimental error. It might be time to take notice.


JG


[1] Dismissing computer-based results isn't solely endemic to poker. The same thing happened in the early 90s when computer research rewrote Scrabble theory. And as far back as the fifties, a simple algorithm(what could barely be called a program nowadays) predicted recidivism rates in parolees better than any parole board. Nowadays, the top cardiologists lose to the programs in fathoming ECG data. Poker isn't that hard, but those professional players who are also trained computer scientists are probably keeping it pretty closely guarded for the obvious reasons. But a few of them have decloaked for this thread.

I'm not as old school as you think. I have used simulations many times in my gambling research. For example, I was the very first person to program a dealer bias in a blackjack game. This was something that some propoents of the dealer bias said was impossible and I even received a letter from Don Schlesinger (in 1986 I believe) telling me that he wished people like myself would go away.


(For those interested there use to be a claim from some suspect blackjack authorities that because of card clumping you should not play against a newly shuffled shoe. They also claimed that no computer program could show this since computer shuffles were all based on randomness. Well, I managed to program a very simple shuffle in an attempt to prove them wrong and to my amazement produced a shoe that the house had a 2 percent advantage on if perfect basic strategy and Las Vegas Strip rules were used. My write up of this work appears in my book Blackjack Essays.)


My argument in this affair is that you really don't know how good a job TTH is doing or what exactly it is you are getting. Thus I am very leary of drawing conclusions from some sort of model when I have little idea how the model is working.


The area where I believe I differ from your examples is that people who used the programs you mention in your post above probably understood exactly what it was they were getting. When David and I have used hot and cold simulations in our research we knew exactly what we were getting and based on our playing experience felt we knew how to realistically relate these results to real play. The problem again is that I don't know how to do this with TTH results. Ironically I believe that TTH results are in fact superior to hot and cold simulations, but I have no idea how to adjust them or relate them to real world play. Thus I am very suspicious of any conclusions drawn from them.


In my years working as a professional statistician it was always important to error on the conservative side if an error was likely to be made. So this is why I advise against using these type of results. And, until it can be shown that TTH plays much better than I currently believe that it does, I will stick by this advice.


By the way, there are plenty of people who are using this program who post here. I'm sure that when the it progresses to the level where we can all agree that it is doing a pretty good job of emulating real poker, we'll hear about it.

I have three problems with this post.


1. There is no poker simulation anywhere near as good as computer progams that play chess or scrabble.


2. The nature of poker makes a great poker playing computer harder or impossible to achieve.


3.My opinions on the EV of certain poker situations is not merely based on experience but also on roughly calculated PROBABILITIES. A simulation that disagrees with me is thus more likely to be wrong (because it is playings hands differently than real life), than if I wasn't calculating as well as estimating.

I think that Sklansky is simply saying


A) so far as sheer probabilites, there is little difference between what the simulator is doing and what I can do,


B) there is an asymmetry in the results of our analyses,

therefore


C) since neither of us are likely to be making "errors", the asymmetry must be attributable to something we are doing differently, or something extra I am doing the simulator is not.


In fact, you could approach it from another angle, and use any variance to "prove" that, since they are using the same input data, Sklansky and the simulator must be doing something different. Then, you have to ask the question, is what Sklansky is doing right, or is what the simulator is doing right?


The reason why what Sklansky is doing is right is because, unlike a board game where ALL the data can be input in sets of three coordinates - XYP - poker-playing computers have an information-acquisition problem. So, in summary, you could use any difference between the results of Sklansky and the computer to "prove" the economic value of the missing information.


But if you are not David Sklansky - and that is why you are using a simulator - the value of the missing quantity is unknown or unknowable - like that +C in an integral. So using the simulator you just create a new, equally-complex problem for yourself, and one which not even Mason Malmuth has much idea how to solve.


Assuming all tight players who play equally well, any positive-expectation mirage put out by the simulator is more likely an estimate of the size of your error - since you should at best break even if you lack any creative play - and paradoxically, therefore, is probably better statistically correlated to the amount you can expect to LOSE against good players.


But of course, you cannot simulate good players, only fool yourself, so the weight you put in the simulator, multiplied by its distance from Sklansky, is nothing more than a measurement of the degree to which you are able to convince yourself of things which are not true.


So they have inadvertently constructed a machine for the precise measurement of human foolishness! Amusing...


- the guy

The fact that TTH failed to raise with the low hand in what was obviously a freeroll situation in Stud/8 or Better, means that the playing errors it makes may favor certain types of hands over others in terms of producing bottom line $ results in the sims. In that type of example, failing to play the low hand aggressively when it has a clear freeroll should favor the bottom line results of high hands at the expense of the low hands. It is possible that there are errors built into the Hold'em version of TTH which may also favor certain types of hands in the playing sense. For instance there could be a flaw in the playing strategy which somehow favors the bottom line results of either made hands or drawing hands at the expense of the other. This in turn could affect the results when running a $ sim with AKo UTG.

Yes, I think its just a bunch of computer geeks that are just running there turbo sims that tell them xyz. And running there turbo mouths. All you guys seem to be obnoxious and very full of yourselves.


I bet all of you are a bunch of railbirds. Your mouths are so big, why don't you go play David at the bellagio in his games and see if you can survive.


One of you had the nerve to say Mason's utg strategies are flawed. How do you know its flawed? Are you saying you play poker better then David and Mason? You learned to play poker from Mason and David. They have been playing poker professionally when you were still in diapers. Have some respect. You didn't mind there work when it helped you to learn how to play poker. Now you spit in there faces?


Its one thing to debate certian strategies and such. But do you need to be obnoxious and rude about it. You people make me sick!

I'm pretty sure Mason and David will assert that I know something about poker. Also, my compliments on your reading comprehension skills.

One of us does have a problem with comprehension skills. You didn't answer my question. Let me say it simpler for you to understand.


Do you think its wrong for you and your other people to be so insulting to the people who have helped you to become better players over the years?

I haven't been paying much attention to these threads, but I very much doubt, if anybody was being insulting, that it was Jim. He would be near the top of my list of regular posters least likely to resort to insults.


Later, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)

Greg,


You don't think these guys are being disrespectful? C'mon.


Maybe there are others worse than Jim. Like Mike M. saying Mason utg strategies are flawed. Whether he really believes that or not is not the point. He is intentionally being a wise ass with that remark. Otherwise he would say it in a different way.


All these guys just wait for Mason or Dave to say something to put there foot in there mouths. When most things they say will be right on and you won't here from them. But the few times they might be off a bit these guys are down there throats.


My point is I'm sure we have all learned alot from these guys you should have a little more respect for them. You can debate there statements but do you have to do it in such a way to be a smart ass? They probably taught most of them how to play poker, now they spit in ther faces.

Another example of when Jim is being disrespectful is when he talks about Mason, David, and Roy. He says they must have some clue to be able to last as long as they have playing professionally.


You don't find that being insulting? Saying they must have some clue? Like he thinks there idiots, but must know something otherwise they would be broke. When they have probably taught him alot about the game. I don't care how long he's been posting. What does that have to with it?


Even if he was better than them now, which I have no idea, he should have a little more repect for them for what they have done in the past.

I was not being rude to Mason, in my opinion. They wanted to have a discussion about utg strategy... how am I being rude when I state that the strategy that he has described is flawed, if that is my opinion?


With regards to my being indebted to them, I don't think so. What I have learned from them, I paid for at the bookstore. If I happened to get more than $50 worth of information for the price of their books, I am only balancing out some of the people that did not get a decent return for their investment. They have made plenty of money selling their books; they did not produce these books to do me a favor. I owe them nothing.


Now here I am trying to give them free advice, and they are being about as open-minded as a Badger. And then I've got you telling me how rude I am, when all I have done is offer an opinion that differs from their own. I've said nothing rude at all.


Why is it when they disagree with somebody, they are sharing their wisdom, but when somebody disagrees with them, we are being rude?

The impression I get is you guys have disdain for Mason and David. Like your just waiting for them to make a mistake, so you can shove it down there throat. It doesn't sound like a friendly debate. It sounds like war. There's the Mason and Davis side. Then there's the Abdul side. Am I wrong in this assumption? Thats the vibe I'm getting.


What about all the stuff with Abdul insulting Mason in the past? Is that not being rude?


I don't expect you to be indebted to them. Yes, you payed for the book. But you should respect the fact if it wasn't for them you probably wouldn't be where you are now. Or at least not as quickly? Do you not agree?

> There's the Mason and Davis side. Then there's the Abdul side.


I am not with Abdul. If I agree with things that he's stated, then we've come to these conclusions via totally different roads. I have not defended his use of simulations, though I do think that he has been very reasonable in his use of sims, and not blindly applying them in the manner that DS-MM seem to imply. I am certainly not a disciple of Abdul.


> Or at least not as quickly? Do you not agree?


I completely agree. And I hope I never reach the point in which I think there is nothing more that I can be taught about the game. DS and MM have shown some signs of that.

But in addition to playing professionally, the new school have availed themselves of many tools (not just Turbo -- that's a bit of a strawman) in improving play in a professional manner. At what point does the old school move over for the new school?... Poker isn't that hard, but those professional players who are also trained computer scientists are probably keeping it pretty closely guarded for the obvious reasons. But a few of them have decloaked for this thread.


An intriguing post. But I'll quibble in saying the new school can't have it both ways. Secrecy and acknowledgement tend not to occur together. You can't expect the old school to move over unless the new school decloaks whole lot more. Secrecy is an understandable option, but while a quick flash may be titillating, it ain't no penetration.


This is not to ignore Abdul's public efforts to uncover new truths.

Well, you and I read that statement by Jim in completely different lights.


If I recall correctly, Jim said that in response to somebody's post knocking S&M and Roy. Jim's comment was meant to make that person understand that they obviously aren't as ignorant as that other person thought, or else how have they made a living at poker all these years. I didn't read any insult into it at all.


Don't paint your opinions with such broad strokes, would be my suggestion. Some people disparage S&M while disagreeing with them. Others just disagree with them (on one or more issues). Don't presume the latter must also be the former.


Later, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)

Maybe I'm misjusdging Jim and grouping him with a group that he is not involved in. If I am, and I'm wrong about him I apologize.


When someone writes a post about old school, new school. When will old school move over for the new school, surely you can see how I would surmize that he is being insulting. Why would he say move over if he wasn't being insulting? If his goal was to advance and gain more knowledge of poker wouldn't it be better to join forces, old and new, to actually acheive what we want.


His comments sound like, get out of the way old men before we run you over!

Your mouths are so big, why don't you go play David at the bellagio in his games and see if you can survive.


I have never run for cover when David sat down at my table. I respect him very much, but when I think he is wrong, I will say so in his face, he certainly does that to me.


I believe David is very wrong on AK utg.


If he gets offended now, then he's not a man I think he is.


Angelina Fekali

Studying People Inc.

Ljubljana, Slovenia

http://www.fekali.com/angelina

and read it more carefully. And, just to make it more clear, assume that Jim is being respectful while you read. Then, decide again whether his post was disrespectful or not.


If you still think so, then I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree.


Later, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)

Okay, I reread it and agree that he is not being insulting. And I should not have included him in with the others. I stand corrected.


I read his post right after I read some of the other threads, and assumed he was a part of this group that seem to wait for David and Mason to slip up so they can slam them. And read it fast not realizing what he was actually saying. Feel honered, I don't admit I'm wrong very often.


Are these other poeple doing as I am suggesting, or am I seeing that wrong also? I heard someone saying something about Abdul has made several personal attacks on Mason? Are these fabricated? I've only been looking on this forum for less than a week or so and was wondering why there is so much resentment?

Sorry to be so harsh to a sensitive guy like you...but your reading comprehension has problems. The message wasn't insulting at all but rather bringing up an interesting point. If Doyle Brunson reacted like you did, David Sklansky would have took all his money playing stud hi/low. To his credit Doyle adapted. Is this one of those situations? Not necessarily, but it's certainly not an insult to bring it up.

I see that your comprehension has problems as well, since your responding to something I just agreed on. And that you didn't answer the rest of my question. sorry was never good at reading comprehension in school, I was waiting for that 3:00 bell so I could get together with my computer geek buddies(you) and take their lunch money for tomorrow in a friendly game of poker.


I live a very successful life all attributed to poker. So I must be doing something right. I wonder if you can say the same? You might, but it probably would be a lie. Good thing I didn't have to count on that comprehension stuff!


Btw you really did hurt me with those harsh comments! I don't know if I'm gonna have the will to get up and go bust some more computer geeks today?