Theory of Poker: Chapters 1-4 Discussion

[MEbenhoe]

Well this is the start of the Theory of Poker discussions. This is the overall heading and underneath I put 4 subtopics (1 for each chapter). The idea is to have all general discussion for the first 4 chapters under this heading and have chapter specific discussions under the chapter headings. For each chapter I tried to start the discussion out with some questions. Some of these questions are ones you should be able to easily understand and answer after having read these chapters. Other questions are meant to be a little more challenging and make you really think about and apply what you read. Hope what I came up with is sufficient to start this out.

[MEbenhoe]

These first two questions are concepts that should be simple, but often are forgotten by even experienced players:

Why will a good player experience more bad beats than an average or poor player?

Why are you usually not out to win the most pots in a poker game?

Applying what you’ve read now try to answer this:

Sklansky states on p. 6 “You may occasionally be in a game where the best strategy is to win as many pots as possible, but such games are exceptions.” What type of game conditions would make this strategy optimal?

[Smokey98]

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Why will a good player experience more bad beats than an average or poor player?

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Because bad/poor players will draw out more on you than you will on them

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Why are you usually not out to win the most pots in a poker game?

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If you chase to try to win too many pots you will loose. The bets you save are as important as the bets you win. The goal is to maximize your wins and minimize your loses. Each pot is just part of the overall “game”, your not out to win the pot, but to win the game.

[ QUOTE ]
Applying what you’ve read now try to answer this:

Sklansky states on p. 6 “You may occasionally be in a game where the best strategy is to win as many pots as possible, but such games are exceptions.” What type of game conditions would make this strategy optimal?

[/ QUOTE ]

Not sure.

[sethypooh21]

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Sklansky states on p. 6 “You may occasionally be in a game where the best strategy is to win as many pots as possible, but such games are exceptions.” What type of game conditions would make this strategy optimal?

[/ QUOTE ]

Good question. My initial impression would be in an extremely weak-tight game where pots are small, and the players will lay down marginal hands. Seems like the only way to be profitable in this game is a to of blind stealing. Sounds like a wretched game to me.

It is also possible that he meant very loose games with very large pots. However, I think that going for "pots" in that game (as oppossed to sklansky $) may lead to overly LAGggy play. I think this is probably the part of SSH that people having problems with the application of that work are misusing. People just might be going a bit overboard on in their quest to get pot equity. Just because betting T [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]9 [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] on the river on a board of 2 [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]3 [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]9 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]j [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] 6 [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] is your only way to win the pot, doesn't make it a good play, but if your goal was to simply win pots, you'd end up making this drastically -ev (in most circumstances) play often.

Of course, I could be hugely wrong.

[pipes]

Shorthanded large ante game with weak tight players?

[sbalzac]

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Sklansky states on p. 6 “You may occasionally be in a game where the best strategy is to win as many pots as possible, but such games are exceptions.” What type of game conditions would make this strategy optimal?

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If you're playing shorthanded with weak/passive players.

[jdl22]

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Why will a good player experience more bad beats than an average or poor player?


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Good players get the money in as a favorite more often than bad players. That's what makes a good player good. Since a bad beat is defined as losing when you were the favorite you will suffer more if you are good than otherwise.

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Why are you usually not out to win the most pots in a poker game?

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Normally it will cost you too much to chase pots you have little chance to win. If you try to chase too many pots you will lose too much on pots you lose to make up for the money gained in pots you lose.

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What type of game conditions would make this strategy optimal?

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Huge ante games.

[BugsBunny]

What type of game conditions would make this strategy optimal?

Having a huge ante isn't enough, in and of itself. The right conditions would have more to do with game texture than ante size. The only type of game where I can think of that it would make sense to try and win the most pots is a game where all the pots are roughly the same size, and small as well.

If you have large pots (either constantly or at least semi-frequently) then winning 1 large pot can give you enough ammo to wait for a long time to wait for another opportunity to take another large pot. You're investing a small amount per round (be it antes or blinds) in comparison to the size of the pot.

If the pots are all small though then the per round cost starts to eat at your stack, and the only way to make money is to win lots of the small pots. If all the pots tend to be small then the opponents are all probably very weak-tight, making it relatively easy to steal lot's of antes/blinds or the initial pot.

High antes/blinds or small antes/blinds it doesn't really matter. What matters is the pot size in relation to the size of the antes/blinds.

[Yod]

My understanding concurs with jdl22.Huge ante means you must scoop your fair share of pots or be anted to death.

[jdl22]

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High antes/blinds or small antes/blinds it doesn't really matter. What matters is the pot size in relation to the size of the antes/blinds.

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This is the key I think. If the ante is enormous relative to the bet size then it's pretty much optimal to try to win every pot. Imagine two crazy situaions:

1. ante of a million bucks with $.5 bring in and 1/2 betting in stud. Obviously playing this game you are best trying to win every pot.

2. "rack attacks" where the house drops a rack of chips into the pot randomly. If you were in a game where every hand the house juiced the pot by a huge margin relative to bet sizes then you would also want to win pots.