MeanGene, my favorite poker blogger, posted a great one today. It speaks to my fears and general feeling of mathematical inadequacy (which is my sole focus of study now, FWIW), so I'm curious to get your reactions.
The OP is
here.
[ QUOTE ]
Read two very discouraging blog posts today. First, from Matt Matros, writing about a conversation he had with a friend:
[ QUOTE ]
...and about half an hour into our conversation it occured to him that he'd never explained to me why it's optimal to bet Pi/4 of your hands in the infinite pot hi-lo [0,1] game with no check-raise. (Bill, along with his poker-thought partner Jerrod Ankenman, has spent a lot of time studying variants of this game. You can check out some of their results here.) Yes that's right, the ratio of a circle's diameter to its circumference comes into play when determining what fraction of your hands to bet in certain poker situations. Bill found a piece of paper and a pen and drew out the whole proof for me.
[/ QUOTE ]
Terrific. I pretty much have addition and subtraction down pat, and multiplying and dividing only occasionally give me a headache. But [censored] all if I have to start doing calculations involving Pi at the poker table. Forget it. Matros and Paul Phillips often talk about how they calculate the EV of situations and whether they're mathematically correct to call, fold, or raise. And I can follow the math. I understand where they're coming from. But I would need a ream of paper, several sturdy pencils, an eraser the size of my fist, and a towel for wiping my brow before I could run the numbers myself. And even then there's no way in hell I'd actually think that I got the numbers right, certainly not well enough to risk my chips.
At the poker table I'd be like those kids you used to see on TV long ago advertising some weird manual calculating system--you know, they'd give this adorable 7-year-old Korean girl nine 4-digit numbers to multiply and she'd thump her fingers on the table in some bizarre pattern and, four seconds later, come up with the answer. I'd have to learn that system to have a chance. Or have my friend Jim sweat me so I could flash my cards and let him crunch the numbers for me. I think it's time to put whatever dreams I had of being a world class poker players (or fighter pilot, or President) to rest.
[/ QUOTE ]