Re: Using Math to Beat Poker
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. . . Say with 4 people behind you you would raise any hand that is in the top 20% of hand possibilities. . .
Can you use just math to win. Only playing hands which are statistically more likely to be the best, given the number of opponents. . .
3 people are left behind you. . .
So I guess what Im really asking is ignoring tells, position, type of opponents, and all the other stuff just using strictly math can you beat low limit hold em?
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Your examples use position, and you ask if you can avoid it? Hmmm...
Position can help determine odds. Knowing your opponent can help you know whether or not their hand is in the upper limit of the range of possible hands for your formula...
an example: you know the Big Blind only calls/bets with high pocket pairs (he'd be an idiot to do that... but say you know him and he does) now when a flop comes with k 9 3, and he is in the pot, you have a better mathematical advantage in that you know he either has AA, KK, QQ, JJ, TT, so you could avoid considering him being on a straight or flush draw. You have AK. Therefore the math is against him having AA and KK since you have one of each of those. 3/5 times he would have Q's J's 10's, and your K's A kicker would beat that so you should bet (or induce a bluff depending on how aggressive he is). Even more so since you lower his chances of having AA-KK, increasing your chance to win. You get what I'm saying?
The profitability of your bets are even dependent upon the playing styles of your opponents, so the math of profitable plays needs to know that info.
Poker is a game of math and psychology combined. You use psychology to affect the math sometimes (bluffing math don't count).
But position, player profiles, style of play, size of bet, number of opponents, tells, etc. ALL help with the math, and it should be impossible to do math without some of them. Ie. position - you can't determine the odds of your hand being the greatest if you don't know how many people are in the hand.
So theoretically, you could win without some of them (ie. tells) but the rest should be key to whether you win or not.
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