Is math all there is to poker?

Sklansky has stated in regards to a Negreanu article that he's only using Bayesian logic, whether he knows it or not. I certainly believe this to be true. Those poker players who "play the player and not the odds" are only assigning an (more?) accurate probability based on past and future plays.

For those who are uncertain about Bayesian logic:

Named for Thomas Bayes, an English clergyman and mathematician, Bayesian logic is a branch of logic applied to decision making and inferential statistics that deals with probability inference: using the knowledge of prior events to predict future events.

Rick.

As always, it is a combination of the two.

No one is a poker calculator, and no one is Miss Cleo, either.

processing information is "all there is to poker"

but watching your opponents and understanding their past actions and applying them to the current situation, i'm not sure i'd call that "math"

i've really got into reading the poker books and i've learned from harrington, sklansky, yao king, hellmuth etc. that you have to get into reading both players and situations to be a top player... and it's not easy...

the basic math of the actual situation (pot odds, implied odds etc. only get you so far, especially in no-limit tournaments , eventually you have to call whether your opponent has some reasonably unlikely hand that he's representing)..

intersting subject, but as i said, the more i read books the more i realize reading your opponent is absolutely essential and not easy.

[Matt R.]

Math is all there is to everything. Now whether the system is simple enough to be solvable is another story.... In the case for poker, you can incorporate the psychology of your opponent into probability theory using bayesian logic. This comes up with reasonable approximations for the 'EV' of a play. But... the mind is obviously too complex to precisely model in this way, so it's just an approximation and cannot be exact. It's still all math though, it's just based off of the assumptions you put on your opponent.

I think Sklansky and Negreanu are saying the exact same thing -- they are just looking at it from different angles. Sklansky is saying this 'unsolvable' part is still mathematical because of Bayesian logic. Negreanu is saying it's not mathematical because your reads of your opponents are never exact.

[kyleb]

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Math is all there is to everything.

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Amen.

Miss Cleo is a Donk

[stokken]

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but watching your opponents and understanding their past actions and applying them to the current situation, i'm not sure i'd call that "math"



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It is called probability. Everything, EVERYTHING is math, doesnt necessarily makes u a perfect poker player though

It is how you apply it that matters

Low limit online poker-yes its ALL math
Higher low limits and middle-high limits-live there are some reads involved
NL-math plays a big role but reads are a huge part aswell (both online and live)

[willthethrill]

Poker would be all math if you always knew what your opponent had. A player could know the odds of making his straight and play accordingly, but if his opponent has a flush it doesn't matter if he makes his straight or not.

[ewashingtons]

on any one hand if you call a bet on the end your odds to win are either 100% or 0%. even in these cases there is math involved in determining the probability that you are a winner. if you want to say its all math because over the long run whether you are a winner or loser it's simply a combination of hands won/lost and amount won/lost that's fine but at least consider this:
there are a lot of hands you don't see that you still take information away from. this information you don't get from math but you must still impute it into your future decisions on how to play a hand.

You may or may not be intentionally making mathematical calculations on decisions while playing a hand, but you also may or may not be making "reads" (non-mathematical conclusions) which enter into this same decision process.