Why Poker?

[Guy McSucker]

[ QUOTE ]

Why do you think you do not kill the games?


[/ QUOTE ]

Didn't I mention the sucking? Oh, you want it more specific?

Essentially I have zero natural flair. I'm bad at picking up on patterns (this is also why I suck at chess). This means I don't read hands well, and I don't have a good feel for things like "flop texture" and "steal situations". I also find it hard to apply things I've worked out away from the table in new but similar situations because I don't realise they are similar.

Guy.

[rory]

It is pretty interesting to me that you know what you are doing wrong but are not able to fix it. Do you multitable? Play quickly? I read your posts all the time and you have good critical thinking skills about what to do during a hand-- are you acting really fast in your hands and not giving yourself time to think things over? You can obviously do the thinking out away from the table-- why not at the table? Do you feel pressured to act quickly and confidently and not slowly and deliberately?

[Guy McSucker]

[ QUOTE ]

Do you multitable? Play quickly?


[/ QUOTE ]

I play one or two tables. I've tried three but my brain can't keep up. I do think I make too many moves too quickly rather than stopping to think. Given that I know I'm not a good autopiloter, this is dumb. I will try to slow down.

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I read your posts all the time


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I apologise for wasting your time.

Thanks for this discussion, rory: it's helping me and I hope it might be helping others too, if only because they get to laugh at my pathetic attempts to improve...

Guy.

[IGMorton]

what sort of math do you work with?

i'm a graduating (soon) math senior. i have found that my mathematical 'intuition' is a great bonus when playing this game. i have always been a creative problem solver, fairing better in the abstract maths like topology and geometry where inductive thinking matters. i find i'm developing a 'feel' for betting patterns.

i'm also a chess geek and lifelong gaming fanatic. however, i'm a bit mistake prone at algorithmic problem solving like diff-eq and analysis. whereas my intuition sees patterns and abstract positional ideas, i often get lost in deep calculation. my poor deductive logic clearly hurts me on the chess board.

[Guy McSucker]

[ QUOTE ]

what sort of math do you work with?


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Nowadays I'm a "theoretical computer scientist", whatever that means. My work is mainly algebraic, with bits of topology-like stuff. Oh yeah, and game theory, but not that sort of game theory.

My trouble is that I don't think visually at all. In chess, this is a complete handicap. In poker it's a bit of a handicap because most of the information you get is presented visually initially, but I can convert it to my kind of information before I need to use it... if I give myself time. Props to rory for waking me up to that.

Guy.

[Monty Cantsin]

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My trouble is that I don't think visually at all.

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Very interesting. I often see poker situations in visual terms, like I sort of vaguely picture a geometric shape that represents all the hands my opponent can have and it's divided up into sections the size of which is determined by their likelihood, that sort of thing.

But different people have different methods of mental representation and manipulation of abstract information. There doesn't seems to be anything in poker that would require visual thinking.

Anyway, regarding you sucking, I think it's possible that while you believe you're being brutally honest and objective there's also a possibility that you have a weird negative, self-defeatest attitude that is hurting your game. Just a thought!

/mc

[kiddo]

[ QUOTE ]
what sort of math do you work with?

i'm a graduating (soon) math senior. i have found that my mathematical 'intuition' is a great bonus when playing this game. i have always been a creative problem solver, fairing better in the abstract maths like topology and geometry where inductive thinking matters. i find i'm developing a 'feel' for betting patterns.

i'm also a chess geek and lifelong gaming fanatic. however, i'm a bit mistake prone at algorithmic problem solving like diff-eq and analysis. whereas my intuition sees patterns and abstract positional ideas, i often get lost in deep calculation. my poor deductive logic clearly hurts me on the chess board.


[/ QUOTE ]

Wow, this is excatly my approach to math. When I started at the university (in Sweden) I didnt know what to do so I started reading math and philosophy. But after a while I discoverd I was only good at the kind of math where u can visualize it somehow (the opposite of McSucker), diff. eq. was a real problem because I suddenly saw other guys doing it with a form of intuition (or whatever because they did it fast and without misstakes) that I didnt have.

I also understood that when I couldnt visualize the mathproblems anymore (seeing patterns) I totally lost interest. It was also very clear that I was good at math, but not that good, there were some guys from russia that were younger then my little sister that were as good as our professors. Its impossible to think u are good at math if u arent, its hard facts.

Now Im writing and phd in literature (fiction literature) so Im doing something totally different.

[stripsqueez]

[ QUOTE ]
Essentially I have zero natural flair. I'm bad at picking up on patterns (this is also why I suck at chess). This means I don't read hands well, and I don't have a good feel for things like "flop texture" and "steal situations". I also find it hard to apply things I've worked out away from the table in new but similar situations because I don't realise they are similar

[/ QUOTE ]

thats a great insight - i play bridge in a local club and 2 of the most dedicated guys are middle aged maths lecturers - neither of them are great bridge players - i rank them as excellent club standard - for the 12 years i have played against them the standard hasnt changed much despite the fact that they work at their games and can analyse bridge hands better than me (i crap on these guys at bridge) - these guys are common in bridge - sensational minds and capacity to analyse but awful at playing games

its an interesting conundrum why they arent better but i think you nailed the answer

i play with one of these guys regularly - i tried to think of ways of addressing his short comings as a bridge player and what we eventually came up with was what i call a reduce the rules program - if you know about bridge that meant we removed 75% of the system - stripped it right back to basics - the idea was to force him to think about the game at a very simplistic level rather than worrying about the detail - the logic being that whilst the detail was easy for him it caused him to lose the big picture

dont know if this working yet as its a long term project - not sure what the poker equivalent is but i do think the last thing someone such as yourself should do is study the analytical aspects of the game harder

stripsqueez - chickenhawk

[kiddo]

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dont know if this working yet as its a long term project - not sure what the poker equivalent is but i do think the last thing someone such as yourself should do is study the analytical aspects of the game harder

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I think this is very good advice. A lot players are totally focused on understanding how to do but not very good at telling why they do it. I do some coaching in poker and I think what is valuable is not telling someone how they should do but why, the structure behind it all.

Have a question for another post u did in this thread. U said u always loved games u cant master, but they day u understand how to do it, u stop doing it. What do u think about games that a computer can master or games where there is a correct answer to the question: "How do I do in this situation?"

I played a little backgammon and find it very interesting. I read some books and the strategy behind it is very much like poker. But I really dont like the idea that at every given moment I can put it all in a computer and it will play it to the end and tell me what is the best move. (like in poker, this is of course only the best move as long as the other guy is as good as the computer and always doing the correct countermove).

(I would say the same is true of poker, if a computer knew every hand Phil Helmuth ever played it wouldnt be to hard writing a program that would crush him headsup.)

[stripsqueez]

i love backgammon - never been really good at it but i have spent enough time doing it to be good - about 2 years ago i went through a sustained bout of playing backgammon on-line - probably 2 hours a day for 6 months or so - i eventually stopped and part of the reason was that i probably cant beat the computer and i figured it wasnt much use playing on-line if my opponents could simply download some stuff and beat me - i'm not sure but i imagine that the best in the world at backgammon would struggle to beat the computer and if they could it would only be a tiny edge - it definately detracts from a sense of achievement for me if the game can be reduced to something a computer can do almost as well as it can be done - i still play every couple of weeks but only live

i have seen several bridge programs and i'm confident that an expert bridge player still holds a big advantage - i doubt that a computer can yet hurt an expert poker player

stripsqueez - chickenhawk