Testing ICM -- some questions for discussion - Page 5

schwza · #41 05-10-2005, 12:10 AM

it's called auto mouse v1.3 (link ). you have to register it for $15 to make it run for more than 60 minutes, so it's not too functional if you don't do that, but you can mess around with it. if anyone does buy it, i'd be happy to share my algorithm for hand mining.

i'd be very interested in trading hand histories for observed STT's (i.e., not STTs that you played in).

(edited to add link, fix some wrong info)

poincaraux · #42 05-10-2005, 10:43 AM

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Why do you impose the requirement that the small stack must be greater than the big blind in your hypothetical simulation? I have some thoughts myself that suggest why the equity function is non-linear once the small stack is less than the big blind, but would like to hear your reasoning.

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Well .. if this is ever going to be linear, my intuition tells me that it's going to be linear in the case where both players push/call any hand. So,

- if you have fewer than 1sb in chips, you're in linear world.

- if you're the bb and have fewer than 1bb, you're in linear world.

What if you're the sb and have a short stack? If you assume chip value is linear, you need to have more than 2.8 small blinds in your stack (it's possible that I made a mistake working this out, but it seemed pretty simple) before you can fold the worst possible hand (23o vs. a random hand is 32.3% vs. a random hand). So, it would have to be very nonlinear for there to be a difference with these stack sizes.

As far as the rest of your post: the whole claim is that it's linear heads-up in the absence of skill, right? That'll be hard to get at, since skill probably has something to do with the stack sizes when it gets heads-up. At the very least, it'll have to be datamining random tourneys, rather than looking at your own hand histories (unless I'm wrong, you're a little more skillful than the average opponent [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]).

This is interesting. I'm looking forward to having some free time to think about it soon.

the shadow · #43 05-10-2005, 10:59 AM

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As far as the rest of your post: the whole claim is that it's linear heads-up in the absence of skill, right? That'll be hard to get at, since skill probably has something to do with the stack sizes when it gets heads-up.

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I agree. I was trying to get at the same point in my suggestion to schwza elsewhere in this thread.

As I think about it further, we may not be able to assume equal skill if we (that is, schwza, who seems to be the one starting the work [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img])take the results from the last two players in an SNG. After all, wouldn't the better, more skilled player tend, at least slightly, to have more chips once it became HU?

What do you think about taking the chip count at a preset period in a HU tourney, say once the blinds hit level 2 or 3? The skill effect may still be there, but it may be less pronounced.

The best way to do it would be to assign random starting chip amounts to players of equal skill. That way we could be sure that the difference in chips was not due to a difference in skills. That seems to argue for a bot v. bot simulation.

BTW, thanks, but I wouldn't make any assumptions about my skills relative to any player -- they'd be way to easy to disprove. I'm just trying to understand this game.

The Shadow

schwza · #44 05-10-2005, 11:07 AM

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After all, wouldn't the better, more skilled player tend, at least slightly, to have more chips once it became HU?

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hard to say. it could be the case that bad players gamble too much when it's 3-handed and so you usually have a good short stack and a dumb big-stack LAG.

i've been thinking about including poker prophecy data as a measure of skill. i've never used the program, so i'm not sure exactly how it would work.

gumpzilla · #45 05-10-2005, 12:00 PM

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i've been thinking about including poker prophecy data as a measure of skill. i've never used the program, so i'm not sure exactly how it would work.

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You should be aware that the Poker Prophecy data is both incomplete and inaccurate, according to the reports of just about everybody in STT land.

schwza · #46 05-10-2005, 12:12 PM

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i've been thinking about including poker prophecy data as a measure of skill. i've never used the program, so i'm not sure exactly how it would work.

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You should be aware that the Poker Prophecy data is both incomplete and inaccurate, according to the reports of just about everybody in STT land.

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bummer. thanks for the heads up. i'm not really concerned about it being incomplete, but how the hell are they inaccurate?

gumpzilla · #47 05-10-2005, 12:29 PM

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bummer. thanks for the heads up. i'm not really concerned about it being incomplete, but how the hell are they inaccurate?

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Why it's inaccurate is beyond me, but there are numerous reports of various posters having records where Prophecy has them playing buy-ins they've never touched, or more ITM finishes than they've actually had, etc. The incomplete is only relevant because it's still a young enough product that you'll find lots of good players with terrible Prophecy records and vice versa, or so I'm given to believe.

Apathy · #48 05-10-2005, 12:54 PM

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I think the best way to do it is with an observed game data mining program. This is a significant undertaking, but has obvious multiple utilities which may justify the "cost" of developing such a capability.

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Why not talk to people that are already set up to do this? If you are really interested in doing this kind of study I'm sure you could talk to the people at Poker Prophecy and cut them in or give them some money. They are pretty greedy so I don't think they can turn down money, and they are already set up better then anyone I can think of to do what you're talking about.

eastbay · #49 05-10-2005, 12:58 PM

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I think the best way to do it is with an observed game data mining program. This is a significant undertaking, but has obvious multiple utilities which may justify the "cost" of developing such a capability.

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Why not talk to people that are already set up to do this?

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Like who?

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If you are really interested in doing this kind of study I'm sure you could talk to the people at Poker Prophecy and cut them in or give them some money.

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They aren't set up to do this. If they were, their results would be correct. They use the unreliable and insufficient method to just see how many players are at the table. We would need full observed HH information. Very different task.

eastbay

Apathy · #50 05-10-2005, 01:09 PM

That's too bad, I thought it might only be a small adjustment to get them to keep the tables open for the HU matches, but I suppose that would signifigantly take away from their actually business. They were my first thought since they have several dedicated machines that just sift through SNG data 24/7.