Good Probablity and Statistics Beginners Book

[Brian]

What is a good Probablity and Statistics book for someone with only a basic knowledge of P&S? I've read the math section in "Getting the Best of It" many times, but would like to get a fuller understanding of things. I don't have anything beyond high school math education, i.e. geometry, algebra, etc., so nothing too complicated. /images/graemlins/grin.gif Thanks,

-Brian

[Tom Bayes]

My recommendation for a person looking for a book for self-study in probability and statistics is to find a previous edition of one of the standard textbooks. Once a new edition of a college textbook comes out, the value of the previous edition instantly plummets although the information is virtually the same. You should be able to find previous editions of these books on E-bay for cheap:
"Introduction to the Practice of Statistics" by David Moore and George McCabe (currently in 4th edition)
"Elementary Statistics" by Allan Bluman (currently in 3rd? edition)
"Elementary Statistics" by Mario Triola (currently in 8th edition)
and many other similar textbooks.

As a poker player, the main thing of interest to you is the probability chapter (especially combinations/permutations, independent vs. dependent events, conditional probability). Unfortunately, most of the elementary college stat textbooks that are meant for people with a high school algebra background have de-emphasized probability. So it might be the case that some 30-year old stats book is probably better for a poker player!

You will also want to study up on expected value and variance. Any book will cover these topics. Eventually you might also look at the chapters on sampling distributions, confidence intervals and hypothesis testing.

Those with a stronger math background (i.e. calculus) would want to find an old edition of a mathematical statistics text. The main books out right now are:
"Probability and Statistical Inference" by Hogg & Tanis (currently 6th edition)
"Mathematical Statistics" by Freund (currently 8th or 9th edition)
and many others.

Alternatively, you can go googling (http://www.fuckinggoogleit.com) ( /images/graemlins/wink.gif) and find all of this stuff on the web.

Here are a couple of good links to start:
Chas Friedman (http://www.ma.utexas.edu/users/friedman/prob.pdf)
Brian Alspach (http://www.math.sfu.ca/~alspach/)

[benfranklin]

If you can stand the humiliation, the Idiot's Guide series and the Dummies series generally provide good, nontechnical introductory treatments for people looking for an overview on various subjects. Or look them up on Amazon and see what other books on the subject are recommended. For something like this, I generally prefer to start with a nontechnical intro, rather than a textbook. Textbooks are usually too dry.

[Rick H]

This one has my vote: HOLD'EM'S ODDS BOOK by Petriv, Mike

[Bernas]

Game Theory and Strategy (New Mathematical Library)

Good for beginners and experts.