Rick';s "Fundamental Theorem of Disagreement" (version 0.1)

[Rick Nebiolo]

My friend and budding superstar mike l. and his minions disagree with me regarding a post he made a day or two ago. The pivotal point in his post was his turn play (which we all loved), but while looking at the hand I questioned his flop call.

In reality I think his flop call would have been fine if he could have made it for about 60% of a small bet. He and most others who found the post think it was a clear call. For arguments sake let's say his supporters believe that his flop call has a positive expectation of about half of a small bet. The difference between our estimates is significant since knowing when to take one off on the flop after several callers is an important skill if you want to be a winning player.

Now in a day or two I hope to fairly restate the flop play in a lead post to solicit more opinions. Maybe that will resolve the question, maybe it won't. Which leads to my "Fundamental Theorem of Disagreement". Now the more astute among you may realize that this is neither fundamental nor a theorem (this line is stolen from an old Abdul Jalib post regarding Sklansky's "Fundamental Theorem of Poker") but that won't stop me. It is late, I'm wired, and I need to bore myself to sleep.

Anyway, an example might help explain my theorem.

Let's say Dynasty and Clarkmeister disagree on a poker problem for a given street where all the important parameters can be clearly stated. Dynasty thinks the correct play is to call and he believes it isn't even close. Clarkmeister believes the correct play is to fold but it is close between calling and folding (for this example let's pretend raising isn't a valid alternative). They post the problem and because they are both respected posters and Pooh Bahs (sp?) all the best minds (obviously not me) on 2+2 perform an analysis. The consensus is that the correct play is calling, but calling is only slightly better than folding. Now Dynasty thought that a call was the correct play, but he didn't recognize that folding was almost as good a play. Clarkmeister incorrectly thought folding was the best play, but he recognized the play was close.

Clearly, Clarkmeister was "more correct" in his analysis. My theorem of disagreement is "when two players disagree regarding the correct play, the player who comes closest to the correct answer is "more right"; even if he had the incorrect absolute answer" (I need to work on the wording for version 0.2).

I'm concerned regarding my opinion regarding mike l.'s flop play. Mike is beating the heck out of the bigger 40/80 to 100/200 games (while I beat the heck out of the 10/20 to 20/40). Because he plays bigger and is clearly smarter, his opinion should have more validity.

OTOH, he may be beating the bigger game despite his tendency to make weak flop overcalls (or because the chance to make flop overcalls doesn't come up often). Or I may be beating the games despite my reluctance to take one off (which comes up often at the lower middle limits, therefore the answer may be more important to me). We both seem to think our choice is clear, and we can't both be right. If it turns out that the expert consensus indicates that the correct play is to fold but it is very close, then mike l. and I are about equally right (or wrong). But it matters more to us lower mid limit players, because the situation comes up so often.

Which is why I plan to repost the problem in a day or so [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

~ Rick