Why charts don't suck, or: Jeet Kune Do and poker

[Songwind]

Here in the micro forums we see a lot of discussions that bring up charts, either as evidence that a particular move is appropriate, or as objects of scorn.

I'm somewhere in the middle.

To me, it looks a lot like arguments between traditional martial artists and practicioners of Jeet Kune Do. For those not familiar, JKD is a fighting philosophy developed by Bruce Lee and presented in the book Tao of Jeet Kune Do. It proposes that traditional martial arts attempt to force a form on combat, which is inherently chaotic and fluid. True fighting excellence must come from being open to all possible avenues of action, rather than being constrained by the teachings and forms of a traditional fighting system. In considering what styles to use and learn, JKD practicioners frequently will tell you, "use whatever works." The trouble is this: how do I, as a novice who knows he needs to defend himself but has no practical experience, determine what works? I can try different techniques and approaches by trial-and-error, and get my butt handed to me again and again until I find a working set of tools. That's kind of painful. It's also probably beyond the skills of most people who can learn to be good fighters. Instead, I can learn a core set of skills that will see me through most situations safely and modify, expand, and prune that set of tools as my experience dictates. Even hardcore JKD school generally start off by teaching a body of technique in which one must
become competent before one can advance to the higher levels of learning.

Poker strategy is the same thing on many levels. A poker game is an ever-changing conflict and charts and ABC steps for playing attempt to put this situation into a box and say "here is how you handle it."

It's true that there is never going to be a simple system like this that answers all your questions or assures that you will always make the optimal play. A good poker player has to observe what's going on, adjust his play according to conditions, and may at times be so far afield from his "base" game that only someone who was involved could understand why he'd do it that way.

But the starting hand charts, simple steps, and all the other tools that beginning players use serve as a basis, a set of functional tools that will allow a beginning player to see what it is to play poker that can win. Only once one has internalized this sort of conservative approach does one have a basis from which to branch out and change from utilitarian to brilliant play. The alternative is to splash around, try hands and strategies at random, and like our erstwhile martial artist above, we will be very sore at the end of the day.

I believe that these tools, perhaps crutches, are an excellent first step for us to learn our way around the poker ring... but we have to be ready to leave them behind once our own knowledge and experience catches up to them.

[VoraciousReader]

very nice post.

[UATrewqaz]

The low down on charts...

There is a small enough group of hands/positions/situations such that a person can build a preflop action chart and using it and it only can play pretty close to optimally preflop (the chart would be robust, covering both tight and loose games, and the player would have to know which area of the chart to use in some cases)

Any schmuck can find and use such a chart and play close enough to optimally preflop.

But this will do NOTHING for his postflop play or understanding.

The optimal preflop chart assumes you know how to play the hand well postflop. Thus rigidly following a chart will not make you a winner. It will make you better than somebody playing any 2 cards randomly, but you will never be a big winner.

As SSHE states (paraphrase) "Pick a simple and solid preflop strategy and then focus on your postflop play. Postflop is where the money is"

So beginners need to realize this, as you kind of elluded to.

[bottomset]

poker is a very situational game, charts are rigid, and therefore not optimal

specifically players that live by charts don't isolate, steal or defend enough .. and those become crucial skills as you move up

nice post.

Once you've used the charts enough to get a feel for how you should play pre-flop, then you can drop them. Playing a marginal hand vs. folding it is a very small mistake. Become proficient post flop more than makes up for this.

[Buccaneer]

Bruce Lee never played a 72o from EP. Thats what the charts help me with . . . . . sometimes.

[deception5]

I agree that charts are helpful when getting started. Generally anyone who starts without one finds themselves getting involved in too many pots they shouldn't be by doing things like limping Kxs UTG and raising marginal hands too early. There's no question that a chart is a useful tool.

The problem as you allude to in your post is that no chart can cover "optimal preflop play" if there even is such a thing. The more you play the more you realize that preflop is just another street - part of an overall strategy for playing a particular hand at a particular table. Sometimes it makes sense to just call with AK preflop because you know your opponents are way too aggressive when they hit an ace if no one has raised preflop where they will give up early if an ace flops after a preflop raise. On some tables you can open raise 44 from the hijack and on some tables it's a fold from the button.

Charts don't take into account whether the other players are loose or tight. They can't possibly realize that the player on your left has raised the last 6 pots and they certainly don't help much with your play in the blinds as 2 different players can have 2 completely different raising standards on the button. If you've raised the last 6 hands, it may make sense to fold a marginal hand which you'd normally raise with as you'll get played back at far more often than normal.

I agree that we shouldn't splash around at random trying to figure out a strategy and that these charts can be useful tools when getting started. Just realize that the difference between raising and calling or even folding in many situations is extremely close and what is far more important is your plan for playing the rest of the hand and your reads on the other players. Trying different strategies preflop will make you a better player in the long run as you'll be thinking more about why you should raise or call rather than blindly following a chart. In my opinion there's nothing worse than reading a response to a post which states "you need to raise this preflop because SSH says this is a raise from that position".

Despite my post about the weaknesses in the SSHe starting hand chart this morning, I'm certain preflop charts have helped me to play far better as a beginner than I ever could have without them.

But are there also tools that are harmful for beginners? I suggest HUDs like PokerAce. Let me say right off that I mean no harm to the guy who does PokerAce: it's a terrific product in terms of how well it works and it's very reasonably priced. I'm a Windows programmer in my day job and I have great respect for what he's done: nice piece of work.

But recently I stopped using it and started playing 1 or at most 2 tables and carefully keeping track of people's actions (using my brain and an old-fashioned pencil and paper). I think it's made me a better player. If nothing else, it causes me to think about other player's behavior all the time, rather than just glancing up and looking at the little numbers.

Should beginners avoid HUD products for a while? What do other people think?

[ZenMusician]

Relying on stats, particularly low sample
stats, has become the downfall of many
otherwise good players (never mind
beginners).

ABC poker is boring and predictable...but VERY
profitable at LLHE. Charts are teh g00t.

-ZEN

I like the charts for the beginner. They helped me and as I think SSHE says somewhere, The charts will lessen the number of times one is faced with tough post flop decision. It won't eliminate them altogether, but it helps. For a beginner playing after the flop is harder to learn and takes more time. But, after playing, studying, posting, and grunching here on the boards, one should have a better idea of the reasoning behind the chart. At that point, their usefulness declines.