Caro Article

[PokerHorse]

Our brains problem solve using math naturally. is that simple enough for you? good luck

[PokerHorse]

besides worrying about to whom he was reffering, i believe his article opens up a debate about online multi-tabling poker. The question is, Is it cookie-cutter poker, since you really (in most cases) dont have time to read players as well as live poker. imo opinion its formula poker with very little long term edge.

[HatesLosing]

You can mathematically model someone's psychological state based on their actions or previous events. It is not "purely psychological" if I collect a bunch of statistics on my opponent and know that after he loses a big pot he has a 5% chance of going on tilt if noone says anything but has a 25% chance of tilting if the guy who won the pot makes fun of him and engages him in conversation. There is psychology and mathematics mixed together there. If you want to say that is "purely psychological" or "purely statistical", then fine, but you call it what you want to call it and I'll call it what I want to call it. It's still what it is, and I like to refer to that as a psychologically inspired statistic, and I will use that knowledge to affect my future actions in specific scenarios.

[HatesLosing]

Psychology: The science that deals with mental processes and behavior.

If you can admit that certain behaviors can be quantified mathematically (every Psych major is required to take a statistics course these days), then why try to make the claim that no behaviors at the poker table can be quantified? I think it's obvious that they can be. Therefore, if we are mathematically quantifying different types of behaviors, we have an interplay between mathematics and statistics. I'm not talking about answers to the question of "What is the % chance I'll make my flush?" or "What is the pot laying me if I call all-in here?". I'm talking about a different form of mathematics useful in poker, especially NL, where you are mathematically modeling different players and modeling how they interact and behave with other types of players in different scenarios based on previous events, both long and short term.

Caro doesn't seem to acknowledge that such mathematical models even exist, and seems to mean the average ordinary straightforward mathematics involved in poker when he uses the term "mathematics" in that article.

[HatesLosing]

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There were so many bad players around that making the best mathematical play would actually win less than exploiting their specific weaknesses in other ways.

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I think this is a semantic problem, because any true mathematician would claim that the best plays mathematically are those that win you the most money. Game Theory, which strives to define the optimal strategy one should take when involved in a game of some sort, is a subfield of mathematics, not psychology, even though certain mathematical models must necessarily incorporate psychological aspects in order to yield an optimal strategy.

I've never used math in life playing poker except for calculating pot odds and I've done just fine. I could care less if a man is 25% likely to go on tilt or 75% likely, what I care about is whether or not he's on tilt. Do you have any idea the amount of times you'd have to observe a particular player get beat to make an accurate estimate of his likeliness to be on tilt?

"Psych major is required to take a statistics course these days), then why try to make the claim that no behaviors at the poker table can be quantified?"
Never made that claim, however, you are making it much more complicated that it is. First of all, you would have to do a hell of a lot of observation to know what percentage of the time a person will reraise your button steal attempts, for example. Yet, the answer to your question really is not mathematical. The answer is, whenever the man gets tired of you constantly raising his blind. In which case his frequency of reraising the steal attempts is likely to rise if you keep doing it. Also, his range of reraising hands will now change.
There are a lot of players that, if you try to peg them mathematically, you'll fail. A good player never plays a hand the same way twice. What's important is how they play their hands at that moment, in that game. For example, I may limp in UTG with KK if I know someone behind me will raise me so I can put in a reraise. Although, I don't always play it that way, I like to change it up a bit, I may just lead with it from that position. Usually if I flop the big full, I'll check it, give my opponent a free card before betting, however, not always, sometimes I'll put a bet out, especially if I think someone will interpret that as a sign of weakness and reraise me, then I can get their money in the middle. I'm not applying math, I'm applying psychology, i.e. what is my opponent thinking, what does he think of me? I'm not basing my decision on "well, he reraises continuation bets 100% of the time", I'm basing it on, "will he fall for my trap this time?" For that to happen, I have to make him believe something that is not true.

[HatesLosing]

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I've never used math in life playing poker except for calculating pot odds and I've done just fine. I could care less if a man is 25% likely to go on tilt or 75% likely, what I care about is whether or not he's on tilt. Do you have any idea the amount of times you'd have to observe a particular player get beat to make an accurate estimate of his likeliness to be on tilt?

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I don't understand what you are trying to argue with me about here. My stance is very simple and you aren't saying anything that contradicts it: Psychological aspects of poker can be mathematically modelled. It doesn't matter if you model them or not. I never said that you can't play winning poker without doing such things, simply that it is possible to do such modeling, and that Caro is using the term "mathematics" to refer to other simple forms of mathematics that are different than these types of models.

I really think this is obvious and I don't understand what point you are trying to make here because I agree with you that a ton of players play winning poker without doing explicit calculations. I know a lot of people don't care about advanced statistics that model individual players. A lot of people don't care about pot odds in tournaments and only think about winning percentage and surviving, and some of these players find a way to do alright. Does that mean pot odds are 100% meaningless, useless, or that it's impossible to calculate them? Of course not! I *know* many people don't use advanced mathematics to model their opponents and their tendencies, but does that mean it's impossible to do so or that these advanced stats are 100% meaningless and useless? Again.. of course not!

When you say you only care whether he is on tilt or not, not whether he has a 75% chance of being on tilt, you should understand that rarely (especially online) can you be 100% sure of such things before actually seeing your opponent's cards. It is the same basic concept as putting your opponent on a range of hands rather than a single hand.

And as for the number of observations... small number of observations = large uncertainty. More observations = smaller uncertainty. I literally observe every single hand that is played on the sites I play on at the stakes I play at (of course I eventually drop older hands when they stop correlating well with the way the player currently plays). For the regulars who multi-table, I end up having tens of thousands of observed hands on them in a month.

Of course you don't understand.

[HatesLosing]

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First of all, you would have to do a hell of a lot of observation to know what percentage of the time a person will reraise your button steal attempts, for example.

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Not a problem online for all of the "regular" players who multi table. Every single hand that is dealt is available to you.

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Yet, the answer to your question really is not mathematical. The answer is, whenever the man gets tired of you constantly raising his blind. In which case his frequency of reraising the steal attempts is likely to rise if you keep doing it. Also, his range of reraising hands will now change.

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Exactly. I 100% agree with you, but I claim that you can mathematically model this phenomena. Not with standard statistics that you read about in poker books, but with advanced methods that you see published in mathematical journals.

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There are a lot of players that, if you try to peg them mathematically, you'll fail. A good player never plays a hand the same way twice.

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And you can observe a player playing hands differently and your mathematical model can point this out to you. Even if your model does a poor job predicting what hands he has in certain situations, it can at least tell you that it is having a hard time doing so and alert you that this player is not easy to read.

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What's important is how they play their hands at that moment, in that game.

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I don't disagree, but at the same time, how people have played in the past in similar situations is incredibly useful information, and for many players out there it will give you a very good way to predict what range of hands they have right now.