[skp]

As the following post made by Tom Weideman at RGP several years ago shows, there is no such thing as "math poker" vs. people poker". It's all math based.

Tom's wonderful post starts here:

I'll say it one more time: Unless you know how to "use a math formula to determine whether or not to call", you are in no position to to claim that acting in another fashion is better. Hint: the "people poker" you speak of
is a method of gathering numbers to plug into the s00per seekrit math formula, but the formula is ALWAYS there. These skills are not mutually exclusive of each other.

I'm experiencing deja vu, as I've had a similar discussion with Badger some time ago. Maybe I should just give up and let people go on believing there are two distinct ways to play poker. Sigh, let me try one last time with a
simple example of a different game:

Let's say I offer you 4-to-1 odds on a $1 bet that you can't guess the number I am thinking about between 1 and 10 (I'll write it on a sheet of paper if you don't trust me). Here are the two schools of thought that we have to choose from:

I. Math egghead - "Hmm, I have only a 1-in-10 chance of guessing right, so my ev in this case is:

ev = 0.1*(+$4) + 0.9*(-$1) = -$0.50.

I stand to lose 50 cents on this bet, so I will decline."

II. People player - "Well, I remember one time when Tom was talking to someone I overheard him say that in these situations he ALWAYS picks one of the endpoints, because guessers never seem to guess the endpoint. This
means I'm 50-50 to guess right if I guess either 1 or 10, and with him offering 4-to-1, this is a good spot, and I will accept."

Sound about right? WELL, THIS IS FALLACIOUS DICHOTOMIZING. (Is this verb really a word, Geary? Never mind, too many letters for you to know, heh.)

What I mean is, one is not given a choice between these two options and told to select one. Though it is hidden the way I wrote it above, there is a mathematical formula in option II, just as there is in option I. The ONLY
difference between these two options is the information gathered. The information in the second case leads to the following ev calculation:

ev = 0.5*(+$4) + 0.5*(-$1) = +$1.50

The ev is positive, so you play the game. If you look at the two ev equations, you'll see that the only changes are the 0.9 became 0.5, and the 0.1 became 0.5, and this changed the sign of the ev, and therefore changed
the decision made. What changed these two little numbers? The INFORMATION you gathered with your "people skills".

So you see, the game is ultimately mathematical, because the only thing that matters in your decision making is which choice provides the greater ev, and this requires a calculation in the end. But the numbers plugged into the
calculation can be altered by using your people skills, so using that as a method of gathering information, followed by the math calculation is what makes you a good player. This all becomes interesting (to me) to discuss when someone THINKS they are making the correct decision based on the information they have, but in fact they lack the math skills to determine which decision really is proper.

Oh, and btw, this is all part-and-parcel of what is known as "exploitive play". This means that you are a better information gatherer than the other players, and you are able to use this and the math that underlies it to make
better decisions. But there is another type of play, known as "optimal", defined by playing game-theoretically correct, in which you can ignore all of this information gathering and just play purely mathematically. If
anyone was capable of doing this, they would beat every game in existence, no matter how good the opponents are at "people poker". [The current World Champion of Poker Chris Ferguson is actually one of the world's leading
experts on this subject (as applied to poker). I don't mean to imply that he knows all the game theoretically correct decisions to make at every turn, but he can approximate them, and if he feels an opponent can be exploited, he certainly shifts into that method, as it provides more ev.]

So please, let's hear no more nonsense about how we have to choose between "math poker" and "people poker".

Tom Weideman