project to collect handhistories [Archive] - Two Plus Two Older Archives

dchandler321

07-06-2005, 11:10 AM

I understand your concern. The project is being conducted by an academic economist, not a professional online poker player. If you go to our website Pokernomics.com (http://www.pokernomics.com) , you will see that one of the places where you can submit your hand histories is to a research center at the University of Chicago that is run by Professor Steven Levitt (the person running the project). Here is a link to the center Initiative on Chicago Price Theory (http://pricetheory.uchicago.edu). Among the faculty and Board of Directors of the Center there are 4 nobel prize winners in economics as well as other extraordinarily accomplished people.

dchandler321

07-06-2005, 11:20 AM

I had heard of the poker database that he is selling. However, to the best of my knowledge his database is only observing hands and does not participate in them. While there are many things that can be learned from such observational data, especially regarding table conditions over extended periods of time, much is left out. To really understand what determines success in poker it is crucial to see hole cards and how different hole cards are played by various player types against other various player types.

This is exactly why we are asking many different individuals to submit their own hand histories. In return, we are willing to provide people who submit a sufficiently large hand history for analysis with detailed advice about how to maximize their profits in online poker.

Derek in NYC

07-06-2005, 11:20 AM

Im satisfied that this is a legitimate research project. What credentials does the academic team have to give poker play feedback? Its not going to be stuff I could learn myself by poking through Pokertracker, is it, like: "You only manage to make money with middle connectors like J9s or 9Ts from the button, so stop playing them elsewhere." That would be really disappointing if that were the feedback. On the other hand, if the feedback were something more along the lines of a comparative performance (measured statistically) between how you do and how the total dB does in various situations, that sort of feedback sounds quite unique.

dchandler321

07-06-2005, 11:45 AM

You've got exactly the right idea. I am familiar with Poker Tracker's software and have seen the kind of advice that it can give. In fact, we are looking to mostly request hand histories from poker tracker, as these are the kind we best know how to extract data from.

While such advice is useful for some people, it is mostly just isolating along several variables where you make the most money relative to other places. The kind of analysis we will provide is going to have the benefit of comparing your playing style against many other peoples.

With a large database of people, it would not be difficult to identify which players are most similar based upon correlation between their play in many different situations. The beauty of statistics is that we can then classify player types in any which way. Based upon this classification we can then combine hand histories from similar players and extrapolate how any individual player would have fared in situations that player has never even played. The power of aggregated data is much greater than simplistic statistics based upon a sample size of one.

Another limitations of any one individual's database is that in most cases it will not be large enough to draw its own conclusions. For example, some situations even in the course of 25-30,000 hands might have only come up 10 times. You may have played them perfectly well but had bad beats and PT would tell you that you are bad at handling those situations and have a bad win rate there even if you had played your hand perfectly well. Thus, some of the standard statistics you might receive from pokertracker have shortcomings. We can account for this.

One final note. Though Steven Levitt and others working on the project have many ideas for analysis, our project is just beginning. Thus far only 3-4 people have submitted hand histories to us and have done this independent of the creation of the site pokernomics.com. These people were responding to a posting that Steven Levitt wrote in his blog: freakonomics blog posting (http://www.freakonomics.com/2005/06/wed-like-to-put-some-freak-into-game.html). The pokernomics site has more information than the posting, but the blog that he keeps (that has the same title of a recent book he's written) might also be of interest.

Derek in NYC

07-06-2005, 12:04 PM

I dont know how familiar you are with the way in which traditional Pokertracker data is used, but to give you a sense, most of us focus on a few key variables to profile our opponents. Those variables are VPIP (% the player voluntarily puts money into the pot), PFR (% the player raises preflop), AF (aggression factor, by street, defined as the ratio of %bet or raise divided by % call), etc.

These variables are fairly unidimensional, and basically if you define them into non-overlapping buckets, you can create crude profiles. For example, a high VPIP and PFR with high AF postflop, might be characterized as a "maniac". Then when playing this guy, one would tend to give less credence to his raises/aggression, etc.

But the method is so crude. It fails to answer for important questions such as: "How tricky is he?" "Does he raise his draws?" "How often does he fold to a river bet?" "How often does he bluff?"

I have always felt that if you were to look at a large data sample, it would be possible to conduct multivariate regressions that could yield much richer "profiles" about player types and styles. Much like a quantitative market research study defining market segments, such profiles would tend to be less like discrete "buckets" and more like semi-overlapping multifactor profiles whose overall contour was definable (and intuitively sensible), but whose exact boundary was uncertain.

Multivariate regression is a strong tool in market research, and if it were applied to online poker, you could learn a lot about what truly "makes" a winning player.

dchandler321

07-06-2005, 12:22 PM

You've hit the issue right on the head.

Poker Tracker is the leading software for online play and with good reason. For making quick decisions during actual play, a few simple variables are what you work with. I'm not going to input data into SPSS or Stata and run a new regression everytime it's my turn to bet. By the time i calculate a confidence interval, i'll be sitting alone at an empty table.

Many variables from PT are useful while playing. Still, our project can do better. We will be able to, as you said, develop much richer profiles and ultimately measure how they would all fare against each other. It is astounding how little of poker theory has actually been tested. With the advent of online poker, theories can be tested and debunked and ultimately better ones can arise in their place.

iluzion

07-06-2005, 12:36 PM

[ QUOTE ]
You've hit the issue right on the head.

Poker Tracker is the leading software for online play and with good reason. For making quick decisions during actual play, a few simple variables are what you work with. I'm not going to input data into SPSS or Stata and run a new regression everytime it's my turn to bet. By the time i calculate a confidence interval, i'll be sitting alone at an empty table.

Many variables from PT are useful while playing. Still, our project can do better. We will be able to, as you said, develop much richer profiles and ultimately measure how they would all fare against each other. It is astounding how little of poker theory has actually been tested. With the advent of online poker, theories can be tested and debunked and ultimately better ones can arise in their place.

[/ QUOTE ]

This still sounds fishy..

sfer

07-06-2005, 12:56 PM

1. I think it's very likely you underestimate the data necessary to do a project like this well.
2. If you are sincere, you are going to need hundreds of books to give out.
3. You should offer a Confidentiality Agreement to contributors.

dchandler321

07-06-2005, 01:05 PM

You raise a good point about the amount of data needed. For some questions we do not believe we will need that much data. Others will as you say take a great deal of hand histories from many people. Steven Levitt is prepared to give away copies of his book to people who help him with the project. Moreover, despite permanent wrist injuries from his several years of data entry as a graduate student, he will also sign them.

We understand that players have good reason to be cautious of sharing their hand histories with anyone. We have written on our webpage in several places that no data will be shared with anyone not working on the project. But we should probably make this more explicit and prominently displayed on the webpage. People who are suspicious that we are even academically affiliated can mail their hand histories directly to the Initiative on Chicago Price Theory at the University of Chicago.

mosta

07-06-2005, 01:07 PM

the project sounds cool. I would presume that the most interesting results would be concerning the very biggest winners. that would be the guys making over, and well into, 6 figures from poker. I don't know just how many people that is on this site, but I'm quite confident that it's more than a handful. here are some problems:

1. poker income often causes people concerns about legality, taxes, undeclared offshore accounts, social disapprobation--and there's also just simple personal privacy about income in general.

2. these players have a lot more than 20-30,000 hands in their databases. they have hundreds of thousands of hands. they may not feel they need help with their analysis.

3. these players don't want to give away their secrets, or educate their customers, or be figured out by someone else.

my prediction: you probably won't get the best data.

mosta

07-06-2005, 01:22 PM

concern #4: you may have to know something (or a lot) about poker to even ask the right questions. (I remember in my stats class in soci grad school the hard core quant professor made some disparaging comment about not needing theory--just run "all" the variables in the regression. I don't think it works that way. and I don't know if you can come up with the really interesting combinations of betting/position/hand _type_/etc without a high level of knowledge. but then poker is a pretty small game in terms of number of combinations, so maybe you can. there are important variables outside the content of a single hand, though. your image as it develops over the course of an individual session is important, eg. anyway, it's your project...)

Bascule

07-06-2005, 01:29 PM

I'm interested enough to submit my pokertracker database, but the upload page doesn't seem to be working...

sfer

07-06-2005, 01:30 PM

I guess it really depends on the design of the intended paper. There are questions that are just about impossible to determine without nearly overwhelmingly large chunks of data, and some of those questions are exceedingly basic (i.e., Am I a winning player? Is 87s a profitable hand in the CO in a standard online mid-limit game?). That plus you really want to try to control for things like game texture and relative position, which adds up to something like maybe 0.5 BB/100 but is significant enough for most players such that they will spend hours datamining to take advantage of it.

The Confidentiality Agreement gives contributors confidence that the data will not be redistributed, sold, etc etc etc.

Finally, unless someone on the team is already a mid-limit player, there are probably several regular posters you want to consult (i.e. buy a beer and pick their brain) before you go down the road of a 6-month stint compiling and programming SAS code that never gets used.

mosta

07-06-2005, 01:31 PM

to get a chance at the really juicy stuff you would probably have to promise to strip all references to the player from the data--ie, screen name, hand number, date. you might agree to submit your analysis to the player by email, but then promise to delete that email address and message. the point is that a player would want to be confident that if the DA seized your data (and all your hard drives and email accounts) there would be NOTHING to tie it to a player.

dchandler321

07-06-2005, 01:37 PM

We're currently working on a progress bar for the uploading part of the website. It could definitely be more user-friendly. I have just tested the mechanism and believe that the uploading mechanism does work, you just don't know it does until the upload completes. Sorry about this.

Bascule

07-06-2005, 01:49 PM

Internet explorer gives me this error:

Action canceled
Internet Explorer was unable to link to the Web page you requested.

I've tried several times; if it is really working, you've got about 10 copies of my database /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

Derek in NYC

07-06-2005, 01:51 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Finally, unless someone on the team is already a mid-limit player, there are probably several regular posters you want to consult

[/ QUOTE ]

Isn't Nate in the Chicago area?

cbfair

07-06-2005, 02:08 PM

[ QUOTE ]
I'm interested enough to submit my pokertracker database, but the upload page doesn't seem to be working...

[/ QUOTE ]

I tried too and had the same problem "The document contains no data".

I've got about 60,000 hands and see no real harm in sharing them. In fact I'm pretty curious to hear your feedback.

dchandler321

07-06-2005, 02:16 PM

While we had tested the uploading capability for small files. It appears that larger files are causing this difficulty. I've already contacted the tech guy running that part of the website and hope to get this fixed as soon as possible. I will keep everyone updated.

Ginso

07-06-2005, 02:29 PM

I saw Levitt when he was on "The Daily Show" a few weeks back. seemed pretty interesting and legit.

Guess i'll upload my 20k hands, might be interesting to hear what he has to say.

bigalt

07-06-2005, 02:58 PM

man this guy is popping up everywhere. i think Levitt's a buddy of my brother's from college (Vassar I think, my brother went to a lot of colleges!).

He's supposed to be pretty much a shoe-in for the nobel prize, also. Count me in!

edit: I think it was high school, actually. They just had a reunion and the alumni trivia bowl team beat the pants off of the current team. The alum team had like 4 ph.d's including this guy.

sthief09

07-06-2005, 03:00 PM

yeah and Nate_Likes_Beers apparently

BradleyT

07-06-2005, 03:00 PM

Tell your web dude to put this in the web.config <system.web> section to get rid of the timeouts, etc.

<httpRuntime
executionTimeout="900"
maxRequestLength="10000000"
useFullyQualifiedRedirectUrl="false"
minFreeThreads="8"
minLocalRequestFreeThreads="4"
appRequestQueueLimit="100"
/>

bigalt

07-06-2005, 04:35 PM

although--

do you guys think it's possible that he'll "solve" the game of limit poker? wouldn't that be a Bad Thing?

This is not a tool like "poker tracker" or "the fold button" that can elude most of the online poker playing masses. This is a guy who had a best selling book aiming to publish his results (i assume--or else he'll be writing a mega bot to hunt down everyone whose hand histories they have and pick them apart).

Though online poker may indeed be dead by the time this study gets done, wouldn't it be bad for the game? Ever since I found out connect 4 had been solved I have a tough time picking it up again.

sfer

07-06-2005, 04:57 PM

[ QUOTE ]
do you guys think it's possible that he'll "solve" the game of limit poker?

[/ QUOTE ]

No.

belloc

07-06-2005, 05:04 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Ever since I found out connect 4 had been solved I have a tough time picking it up again.

[/ QUOTE ]

Connect 4 has been solved? Crap.

cbfair

07-06-2005, 05:08 PM

[ QUOTE ]
although--

do you guys think it's possible that he'll "solve" the game of limit poker? wouldn't that be a Bad Thing?

[/ QUOTE ]

"solve" the game? how many hundreds of books have been written about poker? SSH is on an island display facing the front door of my local Barnes and Noble. If someone is unwilling to pick up and learn from any of the books already available on the subject, I don't think one written my a best selling pop economist will make any difference to the games we play.

I, OTOH, am interested in the analysis an intend to make the most of it.

BradleyT

07-06-2005, 05:09 PM

And if you need any free help with your form submission (which allows people to submit without filling in any fields and tells them thanks) give a holler, I do asp.net web forms 8 hours a day and I'm a Top 100 poster on www.asp.net (http://www.asp.net) forums /images/graemlins/laugh.gif

rhizome

07-06-2005, 07:10 PM

I also got "The document contains no data" error while trying to upload.

Tapin

07-06-2005, 07:51 PM

No offense, dchandler321, but being suspcious of the motives I went looking for links from anything else associated with Dr. Levitt back to the pokernomics.com website (the blog on freakonomics, his U of Chicago site, etc). I didn't find any, so I've emailed Dr. Levitt directly to ask him if he's really associated with the project, or if they're just using his name without his knowledge.

If anyone else is interested, I'll post here if/when I hear back from him.

(If the project is in fact associated with Dr. Levitt, I'll be contributing a fair amount of hands; if not, I'm somewhat less interested /images/graemlins/wink.gif )

bigalt

07-06-2005, 08:38 PM

that's good thinking, but i'd have to give props to anyone who devised a scheme convoluted enough to involve an economist's name and offer free t-shirts!

cbfair

07-06-2005, 09:14 PM

[ QUOTE ]
that's good thinking, but i'd have to give props to anyone who devised a scheme convoluted enough to involve an economist's name and offer free t-shirts!

[/ QUOTE ]

lol

djack

07-06-2005, 11:04 PM

The offer really is legit. Levitt posted about it on his blog awhile back.

Tapin

07-07-2005, 12:59 AM

Looks good to me.

[ QUOTE ]
My involvement is for real. [dchandler321] is
a U of C undergrad, who works as my RA. My goal
is to do exactly what we say at pokernomics.com.
The only reason we haven't linked it to freakonomics.com
yet is our page for doing downloads has been balking
at transferring really big data sets like yours and
we don't want to waste people's time. I was told
by my tech guy it would be fixed by tomorrow.

[/ QUOTE ]

bigalt

07-07-2005, 01:03 AM

nice. don't tell him he could get extra funding for the government by turning in people's winnings figures to match to their 1040s.

djack

07-07-2005, 04:06 AM

I'm considering doing this. I'll send them a few thousand hands from some low limit games and see what I get back. I'm not too hopeful that I'll get back anything constructive, but curiosity kills this cat.

I do want to know what kind of confidentiality policy this will have, though I'm not likely to send this in under my real name anyway.

Furthermore, does this Chicago undergrad know anything about poker? Does Levitt?

StacysMomsDad

07-07-2005, 05:25 AM

Sounds like this project could easily be turned into bot making, and that is -EV

OrcaDK

07-07-2005, 05:27 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Sounds like this project could easily be turned into bot making, and that is -EV

[/ QUOTE ]

Depends on the point of view.

djack

07-07-2005, 07:28 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Sounds like this project could easily be turned into bot making, and that is -EV

[/ QUOTE ]

Dude. It's the University of Chicago. I'm not too worried.

Tapin

07-07-2005, 09:52 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Furthermore, does this Chicago undergrad know anything about poker? Does Levitt?

[/ QUOTE ]
I'm sure dchandler321 can set the record straight on this, but from the website it sounds like they're doing a straight behavioral analysis -- you're much more likely to get back advice that says something like "you tend to win small and lose big. Try to stick around longer when you're up, and realize you're tilting faster and stand up before you lose a bundle" than you are to get something like "You overplay KQo from early position."

Serious, in-depth, Sklansky-like poker strategy knowledge isn't strictly necessary for what they're doing.

SackUp

07-07-2005, 10:48 AM

I'm having problems uploading my HH.

And I say definitely give him the data. Free shirt and book here I come!!!!!!!111

mosta

07-07-2005, 12:20 PM

what I think they're likely to come back with is: people who raise all the time and people who raise none of the time lose. so raise a medium amount. don't expect any kind of poker-sophisticated techincal insight. my impression from discussion about his baseball writing is that he's very aggressive and arrogant with very facile ideas.

bigalt

07-07-2005, 01:18 PM

[ QUOTE ]
my impression from discussion about his baseball writing is that he's very aggressive and arrogant with very facile ideas.

[/ QUOTE ]

that's the same with just about every famous writer in the last couple centuries though. if you don't sound as though you think you're hot [censored], who will?

I'm thinking there will be a fair amount of number crunching in this project. It may or may not put forth anything meaningful but I can see them figuring out what kind of table environment is ideal for which types of players (e.g. your best table might be at 35% VPIP but it starts to decline at 40).

dchandler321

07-07-2005, 01:44 PM

Thank you very much to everyone who has unsuccessfully tried to upload a file.

Those of you who emailed support@pokernomics.com will receive an email when we are 100% confident that the server will be functional. Anyone who has experienced trouble uploading who would like to be added to the current list of people who will be notified when it works can send an email to support@pokernomics.com with the subject header "Notify Me".

Sorry again for any inconveniences. Our tech people are continually working on this and we hope to have it operational as soon as possible.