Collusive Entanglement

[Sredni Vashtar]

If there's a bustle in your hedgerow, don't be alarmed now, it's probably just Sredni Vashtar.

Collusive Entanglement:

In physics, the term "quantum entanglement" refers to actions between objects.(1)

What does this have to do with poker? Nothing (well nothing in the same sense that gravity has nothing to do with poker) but Sredni figured Ikke would like that.

The term 'collusive entanglement' refers to the interrelationships between poker players' strategies.

Let's state the following:

A) Player 1 has entered the pot and has an exploitable strategy.

B)You are acting behind him, have the knowledge and hand to exploit player 1.

C)Several players act behind you who all have exploitable strategies


Sounds like a good place to play? Right?

But of course your head is humming and it won't go, because you know very well that Sredni has let a rooster into the henhouse.

Let's go straight to an old thread called "Think about Shania." Here, long time poster Phat Mack brought up a situation which will help shed some light on collusive entanglement.

In that post PHat Mack wrote " I don't know Mr. AA, but I used to play PL with his cousin. Cousin would only play AA, KK and AKs UTG, and he would always bring it in for the max raise. I would make it a point to sit at his left. I'd keep track of his stack, and if it was suitably big, I would call his bring-in raises with almost anything. I had two reasons: a) I knew where he was, and if I hit, I had his stack; and, 2) my calls might bring other players in, and if I didn't hit, they would, knocking his chips loose and putting them in play. Cousin was a good example of a player with an outed Shania."



Notice here that we have a player with an exploitable strategy meeting condition A) above. Phat Mack has met condition B.

Now for condition C, we'll put several players with exploitable strategies behind. Ok, let's put a couple of maniacs back there.

So we have met conditions A, B, and C. So surely this is a profitable situation right?


Phat Mack is shaking his head, as he knows all that glitters is not gold.


To make this clear as possible let's have a remaining player make a raise for sure. This allows the AA to reraise, taking Phat Mack's price away. See?

We have multiple exploitable strategies that *combine* to produce a dire situation.


Obvious right? In extreme cases, yes.

Using simulations and thought experiments as well as empirical data, it has become quite clear to me that there are sometimes situation in shorthanded *limit* play where if certain combinations of patterns continue to play out, it is difficult if not impossible to beat over the long run. In spite of the fact the opponents seem to have flawed strategies.

This post has just touched the surface. This topic is huge and largely unexplored at least in publicly available literature. I may post more specific stuff later, but probably not.

So think about Collusive Entanglement, and Shania will love you for it.





Here's a post by Tom Weideman to think about:

(just goto google groups rec.gambling.poker and search for Weideman advantage stupidity)


http://groups.google.ca/groups?hl=en...gambling.poker




Sredni Vashtar, whose stairway lies on whispering wind.









(1)Quantum entanglement is a quantum mechanical phenomenon in which the quantum states of two or more objects have to be described with reference to each other, even though the individual objects may be spatially separated. This leads to correlations between observable physical properties of the systems that are stronger than any classical correlations. As a result, measurements performed on one system may be interpreted as "influencing" other systems entangled with it. However, no information can be transmitted through entanglement. See http://www.free-definition.com/Quant...anglement.html