In-depth analysis

[wuarhg]

I am looking for material that goes a little deeper into the mathematical aspect of poker. I am far from a master at math but still interested in exploring it.

This is the first book I saw that sparked my interest: The Theory of Gambling and Statistical Logic by Richard A. Epstein ... Has anyone around here read this?

Websites/Books/Other sources that go a little deeper into combinatorics etc(sp?) without confusing the living daylights ouf of me. What kind of books are "Gamling Theory", "Getting the best of it"? I've got the impression that they just scratch the surface.

Thanks

P.S. Obviously I have no idea what i'm talking about, hopefully someone can push me in the right direction here [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]

[npc]

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I am looking for material that goes a little deeper into the mathematical aspect of poker. I am far from a master at math but still interested in exploring it.

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My recommendations in this area depend a great deal on how far along you got in math. If high school algebra was it for you my recommendations would be quite different than if you've had more than a little college math.

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This is the first book I saw that sparked my interest: The Theory of Gambling and Statistical Logic by Richard A. Epstein ... Has anyone around here read this?

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It's a classic. I'm not sure it's everything you want, but it's a fair chunk of it.

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Websites/Books/Other sources that go a little deeper into combinatorics etc(sp?) without confusing the living daylights ouf of me.

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This is tough. I don't have any specific recommendations. If you're not afraid of teaching yourself relatively simple college-level math, you may as well go cheap and purchase one of the texts published by Dover.

Some possibilities:
Balakrishnan, "Introductory Discrete Mathematics"
Freund, "Introduction to Probability"
Bulmer, "Principles of Statistics"

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What kind of books are "Gamling Theory", "Getting the best of it"? I've got the impression that they just scratch the surface.

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I like both books, although I like GTaOT better. Both of them have some good mathematical analysis of gambling situations, but they're not texts on the fundamental math. It's entirely possible that you'd consider both of these to "just scratch the surface".

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P.S. Obviously I have no idea what i'm talking about, hopefully someone can push me in the right direction here [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]

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Yeah, that's kind of a problem. I don't have a good feel for what it is you're looking for. It sounds to me like you want to give yourself a good enough math background to thoroughly understand gambling applications. I'm also guessing you probably don't have much of a college-level math background, but I could be wrong.

[benfranklin]

You might want to check out the Probability Forum here. Read through recent posts and then ask more specific questions there.

[fnord_too]

"Weighing the Odds in Hold'em Poker" by King Yao does a lot of EV analysis in a straight forward manner. The book will give you a good grounding in how to analyze options at various stages of a hand.