Why winning players really win. - Page 2

Marc Ingenoso · #11 03-06-2005, 10:35 PM

What do you mean by a winning player? Are you asking about somebody who can beat their friends in small buy-in home games and can beat the low limit games online or about somebody who can make a nice living playing cards? I suspect you can accomplish the former with decent math skills and little else.

Am I mistaken?

maldini · #12 03-06-2005, 11:55 PM

he said 30/60. i assume that's limit. i agree you dont need much of a brain to beat that game. what are they looking for? like 1BB/decade? oh, i forgot about rakeback.

PotatoStew · #13 03-07-2005, 11:02 AM

[ QUOTE ]
I once bet a set of deuces into a 4 flush board (misclick), got called and overcalled and won the hand. How in the world could that happen against reasonable opponents?

[/ QUOTE ]

Everybody else "misclicked" too? [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

Mike · #14 03-07-2005, 01:04 PM

I think using the word 'opportunistic' is highbrow :-)), predatory and vampiristic are words I would have chosen. I agree with the rest of your thoughts, great post!

Craftyandsly said it pretty well, players like that and the gamboolers are the bread and butter of players who want to win.

In any game that is face to face, not online, if I had to choose between a player with high IQ and one with good people skills, I would pick people skills every time. The math part of the game as has been mentioned can be memorized, once you learn it that is all there is.

High IQ's are generally specialized, speaking from personal experience. Look at the physics or math professor who can not relate to 'normal' people. Or the pocket protector crowd, who would rather be alone with their pc, than go to a social function.

One of the science channels did a show on a British Savant and his American counterpart the Rainman a few weeks ago. Absolutely astonishing what they can do, one repeated pi to 22.5k places and the show alluded to him beating 8 deck bj in Vegas in one test. They shoed him splitting 7's against a Ten and making three 21's on his three splits! On the down side these folks can not determine whether or not I may fold on the river. It is all relative, I think but my money goes with the people orientated player.

My biggest wins come from correctly picking the right victims for whatever ploy I pull out of my tool box. My biggest long term profits come from understanding that betting with little or nothing against these players knowing they will fold at the river is far more important than the proper odds for a flush draw or making my boat from two unmatched cards in my hand. If I had to wait for cards I could not make much of a profit.

When I play I do not put as much thought into what my hand will be at the river as I do about what I can get the opposition to do by the river if I play my hand.

Truthfully when I notice I am spending more time thinking about the probability of my cards making the winning hand than I do considering if I can manipulate the round, I know I am in a bad game. Once again, good post!

Victor · #15 03-07-2005, 02:43 PM

by effort alone nearly anyone can get very far in nearly any field. poker is no exception.

TStoneMBD · #16 03-07-2005, 03:06 PM

this is a poor arguement. you argue that people skills are more important than mathematical skills when it comes to poker, and your evidence is by displaying an extreme example of a mathematical genius who cannot respond to people very well. what about the extreme example of his counterpart, the person who can get along with everyone but cant understand a damn thing?

personally, i have poor people skills. im not very good with socializing, yet i have a high iq.

WriterBoy · #17 03-07-2005, 03:32 PM

[ QUOTE ]
by effort alone nearly anyone can get very far in nearly any field. poker is no exception.

[/ QUOTE ]

HEAR! HEAR!

Mike · #18 03-07-2005, 06:18 PM

Okay, how about this? I have taught eight year olds all they needed to know to play Holdem well and I did it without math.

They did not know any math beyond simple addition and subtraction, but they knew outs and whether any betting action was good or not and why. Really we can't argue that math is really needed in poker, it's not, just some rote memorization is all that is needed today.

Before internet and books, you either figured it out yourself or you payed bundles in table education to get to the same point. All that is needed today to play solid poker can be found easily and learned rather quickly without doing any math. You do not need to be a mechanic to make a sound car purchase or an electronics whiz to buy an ipod, just as you no longer need any real math skills to play poker well.

On the other hand a person with good people skills, say a good salesman is a much better people person and can better make decisions about the game and their hand than many folks with a science degree of some type can. Someone like a cold calling salesman who makes his or her living from the telephone or door to door, or a good car salesman, or the Avon lady, the list goes on. They all have good people skills or they find new work.

I feel these people are in a better position to play the people when the cards are not there than someone who has high math skills and low people skills. The person with high math skills is at a disadvantage when the cards do not come because they aren't able to make the best choices of when to attack with a weak hand as they are prone to look at their situation from more of a numbers side and not the player side.

I play with some very good players who have to really think about every action of every hand while many posters here multitable and still get bored. Neither of these players has any real advantage on what is important - which is how they play the game.

I too have a high IQ, In the '80's I tested and I could have joined Mensa if I had wanted to, knowing I could was enough for me. Yet, I do not think a high IQ is of any importance to play good poker in general. I am not overly fond of math, I am very good at managing people and other endeavors that few here would care about. I do not find I use any math to play poker, but I think my people skills are invaluable for how I choose to play and how I manipulate people and situations while at the table.

Going back to yourself, as you are successfully playing and winning, may I suggest your people skills are actually better than you have determined them to be?

PokrLikeItsProse · #19 03-07-2005, 06:51 PM

Winning players win by being better poker players than their opponents (not necessarily the best at the table, but better than enough of them to show a profit). They can be better by having studied more (or at all in some cases). They can be better by pure native talent. They can be better by mathematically understanding the game. They can be better by having a "feel" or intuition for the game.

The great thing about poker is that there are multiple ways to be a winning poker player. There are high level pros who arguably would make the "mathematically wrong" decision if David Sklansky went around with his little poker quizzes. (Not to say that the non-math players are actually right, just that you don't have to be perfect on the math to be a good player.)

SmoothCaller · #20 03-07-2005, 07:04 PM

Add to that that many of the top tournament pros today will tell you that 'feel' plays more of a factor than math, and you have your argument.

I believe you have to know the basic odds on the draws, and your pre-flop holdings. However, once you've determined whether it's mathematically correct to chase, then the reading comes in. And I could write down those odds for someone on a cheat sheet - but would that make them successful? At low-limit cash games, maybe. In tournaments? No way. I think that instincts and reading players make up the bulk of a top-notch player's arsenal, and they can only be strengthened with lots and lots of table time.