Phil Ivey say Math not as important!

[Smoothcall]

Not sure if anyone wrote about this before but from last week's wsop circuit event. Phil I say math isn't as important as most people think. He says it's more about instincts and reading the players. This is very different than what most of the math guys think. The math guys seem to think the math it critical to success. Yet Phil Ivey(who to some is considered one of the best players in the world including sklansky i believe, if i'm wrong about that let me know. but i thought i have heard him praise Phil I before) says math isn't as important as most think.

So whose right? Phil I. or the math guys that say its all about the math?

[onthebutton]

Like most answers in life, it depends.

Most of the guys that play consistently well at this level don't even think about the math, but only because it's second nature. At that level, reads are much more important than at the level most of us play at.

There are about 10 people in the world who can really read people like Phil Ivey, maybe even less.. so to every other normal player (and even most pros), math is more important..

[Piers]

Maths might well be less important than I think, and maybe less important than Phil I thinks, I very much doubt however that it is less impolertant than most people think.

[UATrewqaz]

The most hillarious thing about that clip is that in the start he says math isn't important and he in the end he says something along the lines of "Get your money in with the best of it" and "having the best of it" is usually a mathetically reference to +EV

[Voltron87]

everyone overestimates the math you have to do in holdem, its a bunch of fractions and pot odds, not very hard.

[UATrewqaz]

Agreed, once you know the basic odds of hand A vs hand B preflop and how to calc pot odds that's really it for pure math.

Then you get into the more complex "I think there is a x% chance he has this hand and if I raise there is an x% chance he folds, y% chance he calls, z% chance he bluffs" etc.

[einbert]

In small stakes games, the math is how you win because your opponents make huge fundamental mathematical errors. So you can have enough edge just from playing mathematically correct to beat the game. And, in multiway pots the math of the situation is going to dictate most of your play, regardless of specific opponent reads.

At higher levels, the opponents don't frequently make fundamental mathematical errors. They aren't going to draw to a hand they're not getting odds to, because they understand the basic math of the game. Of course at these levels simply knowing the math isn't going to give you any edge, and you will have to use other skills to beat them--namely deceiving them into making FTOP errors by convincing them that you have a hand that you don't really have.

So I would say that math does matter at the higher levels, but it's just a fundamental. You can't really beat high level games without the basic knowledge of the math of poker, but at the same time that knowledge alone isn't going to give you an edge at that level.

[maryfield48]

Do you think he was being entirely honest?

[pokergripes]

[ QUOTE ]
Not sure if anyone wrote about this before but from last week's wsop circuit event. Phil I say math isn't as important as most people think. He says it's more about instincts and reading the players. This is very different than what most of the math guys think. The math guys seem to think the math it critical to success. Yet Phil Ivey(who to some is considered one of the best players in the world including sklansky i believe, if i'm wrong about that let me know. but i thought i have heard him praise Phil I before) says math isn't as important as most think.

So whose right? Phil I. or the math guys that say its all about the math?

[/ QUOTE ]

I think Phil I is making a point that is analogous to the following.

A few years ago I read (in some science journal) an article about the chances of us earthlings making contact with an alien race. The article ran through a ton of variables (number of planets, solar systems, M-type planets, chances of life on any one of them, etc.), and attempted to put percentages and other numbers around each variable, so that they could all be plugged into one grand formula.

Then, the final variable was something like "chances that any one such species would have developed communication technology (radio in the spectrum we use, etc.) that we can detect", and it was 0-100%. In other words, the whole complex formula was worthless without that particular input.

I think there's a tendency when math is discussed in any poker forum to over-estimate (by a lot) the quality of the inputs you're likely to actually have when sitting at the table. Sure, every once in a while you're in a mid-limit stud game where the third street heads up raising between a guy with a deuce door card and a guy with a five door card makes it pretty clear (since you saw a folded ace) that one of them has pocket rockets and the other one has the kings. Then, you can plug your inputs into a formula with a high degree of accuracy, and produce a poker probe result.

But much more often, it's the inputs that are in doubt at the table (what does he hold, what will he do x% of the time if he holds that and I do y, etc.), not the formula itself.

And when playing big bet poker (where the implied odds are much more important relative to the pot odds early in the hand), making good reads of situations early in a hand (that is, having solid input for your formula when it counts the most from a leverage perspective) is of particular importance.

So, Phil I is (not surprisingly!) right. The math basics are all well and good, but being able to detect the situation accurately (aka, "reading" it) is much, much more important, assuming you can do the very basic math.

Of course, if by "getting your money in when you have the best of it" one means the EV (which is the math applied to the inputs), then it just becomes a tautology. But I suspect he meant that the "reading the situation" point is more important than the "number of decimals of calculation, given those inputs" point (even though EV obviously picks up both of those aspects in the broad sense).