Streib article
 

I think this article is brilliant and packed with information. I know Tysen from the bridge community and have seen some of the articles he has written for bridge. He let us know about this magazine over in a bridge forum. After seeing this, I felt I had to chime in and say watch out for this guy! If he writes as well for poker as he did for bridge, you guys are going to see some great work. Keep it up Tysen!

Re: Streib article
 

I agree. I think his work is excellent. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Re: Streib article
 

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I agree. I think his work is excellent. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

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There appears to be a bug in the basic (cash game) solution. It doesn't agree with my solution, or the sample case which eastbay posted a few weeks ago.

- Andrew

Re: Streib article
 

There appears to be a bug in the basic (cash game) solution. It doesn't agree with my solution, or the sample case which eastbay posted a few weeks ago.

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You are correct that the solutions are not exactly correct, but they are very close. The reason is that the method I was using to solve these problems can't deal with mixed strategies. Unfortunately I'm not a programmer, so I don't have as powerful resources as I would like. So I did the best I could and came up with the closest approximation, which isn't too far off. For most people reading the article, it won't matter if a few hands are off a tiny bit.

Besides, the point of the article isn't the exact numbers, but rather to observe how the answers change as the circumstances change.

Tysen

Re: Streib article
 

There appears to be a bug in the basic (cash game) solution. It doesn't agree with my solution, or the sample case which eastbay posted a few weeks ago.

You are correct that the solutions are not exactly correct, but they are very close. The reason is that the method I was using to solve these problems can't deal with mixed strategies. Unfortunately I'm not a programmer, so I don't have as powerful resources as I would like. So I did the best I could and came up with the closest approximation, which isn't too far off. For most people reading the article, it won't matter if a few hands are off a tiny bit.


It's pretty important, if you're going to present solutions to problems, that you properly state what problem you are solving. You didn't present a game theory optimal solution, so presenting it as such is a bit confusing. As far as how close the solutions are to the game theory optimal one, they look like they are off by quite a bit, especially for small stacks.

- Andrew

Re: Streib article
 

Besides, the point of the article isn't the exact numbers, but rather to observe how the answers change as the circumstances change.


I'd like to mention that I think it is a very good illustration of that.

- Andrew

Re: Streib article
 

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You didn't present a game theory optimal solution, so presenting it as such is a bit confusing.

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I'm sorry if you felt decieved. Unfortunately, working with a 1000-word limit per article has it's limitations. I describe the method I used (as well as its shortcomings) with more detail in next month's (Dec) article, where I expand this to a 3-player solution. I didn't describe it in detail here since:

1) People interested in the exact solutions probably have figured it out themselves
2) Most people probably don't care enough about the differences to hear it all spelled out

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I'd like to mention that I think it is a very good illustration of that.

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And I thank you for that... [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

Re: Streib article
 

This was a terrific article. I've read all of the magazines thus far and yours is the only article I have printed out, so I could spend more time rereading and considering.

Very, very good stuff.

Re: Streib article
 

I wrote:

There appears to be a bug in the basic (cash game) solution. It doesn't agree with my solution, or the sample case which eastbay posted a few weeks ago.

I went back and took a closer look at Streib's solution for non-mixed strategies, and the game theory optimal jam/fold solution, and part of the discrpency has to do with the fact that some key hands (63s, 53s, 43s) fall into and out of playability. Streib chose the higher stack sizes to define playability. His solution is correct for small stack sizes, but slowly diverges from the game theory optimal solution, At 10xBB the solution is only different by a half dozen hands or so.

- Andrew

Re: Streib article
 

I also liked this article a lot. But I think there is an area for possible improvement -- it could have gone above 10BB! From the solutions, it is obvious that a lot of hands should push with 10BB stacks. It stands to reason that a smaller, but still large, number of hands should push with (say) 15BB stacks. It would be helpful to have information on this.

Re: Streib article
 

Very good article, indeed. It is so good that I wished it had not been published. The last thing I need is this sort of information out in the public.

I am amazed that it hasn't been discussed a lot more.

Re: Streib article
 

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It is so good that I wished it had not been published.

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T3ch wants to be free.

Barron Vangor Toth
BarronVangorToth.com

Re: Streib article
 

The public seems not to care so much about this type of information.

Re: Streib article
 

It is interesting to compare this article to the one by Dennis Bragg called "Short Stack Play From the Small Blind". Bragg found that in HU if your opponent calls only with top 25% of the hands than you should push any two cards profitably (in terms of CEV). And he calculated the table for 50%, 75%, and 100% as well. The addition of changes in profitability in terms of $EV from the CEV and how that changes over time weren't in Braggs article and is a big benefit of this latest article (as everyone in STTF should know from various ICM posts and raptor challenge type posts).

Re: Streib article
 

Can I still find this Braggs' article?

Re: Streib article
 

Andrew Prock:

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It's pretty important, if you're going to present solutions to problems, that you properly state what problem you are solving. You didn't present a game theory optimal solution, so presenting it as such is a bit confusing. As far as how close the solutions are to the game theory optimal one, they look like they are off by quite a bit, especially for small stacks.

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I agree that honesty is the best policy, although I think we can cut Streib some slack given that he was publishing in a magazine, not a scholarly journal.

In the same vein, I would similarly suggest that anyone comparing their solution to his should fully explain how they arrived at their solution and why they believe it to be correct.

I've seen a number of solutions that claim to be optimal, but they don't all agree. It seems to be time for a public discussion of methods of solution so that the peer-review process can take place.

I'm more than happy to talk about how I arrived at my (very good) approximate solution.

For those worried about losing EV, don't. The willfully ignorant will remain blissfully so.

Re: Streib article
 

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I've seen a number of solutions that claim to be optimal, but they don't all agree. It seems to be time for a public discussion of methods of solution so that the peer-review process can take place.

I'm more than happy to talk about how I arrived at my (very good) approximate solution.

For those worried about losing EV, don't. The willfully ignorant will remain blissfully so.

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I got my solution by using ficticious play (as did Streib). I checked my solution against one that was constructed independently using the same method and they agreed. My solution agrees with the sample solution posted by eastbay, who used the simplex method to solve the problem directly. If I remember correctly, both methods produce the same optimal solution. The simplex method produces it directly, whereas ficticious play slowly converges to the solution.

Streib used ficticious play, but didn't allow for mixed strategies, which meant that his final solutions probably oscillated around the optimal solution, but never converged. My guess is that he just picked one of the solutions when it started to oscillate.

I certainly didn't mean to impune Streib's honesty. I was just looking for clarity in my heavy handed manner. And to be fair, the main point of the article isn't the solution per se, but how deviating from the solution affects your EV.

In truth, because it's the solution to a toy game, it's not vital that it be 100% correct, because it doesn't map directly to true play.

- Andrew

www.pokerstove.com

Re: Streib article
 

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The public seems not to care so much about this type of information.

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They would much rather talk about plants or how to play AA. Do you see why?