How do I measure the cost of mistakes ?

[Mens Rea]

Basically, I meant to say that world class players are better than anyone else, and in theory, they should be able to make money whether the fish show up.

I was trying to make the point that its always best to play people worse than you, but now that I think about it, world class players get the same benefit.

[thabadguy]

http://www.early-pregnancy-tests.com/index.html

[beach_bum]

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What annoys me is there are few absoultes in poker. If I have to make a big call it often comes down to a judgement call about the other players personality and playing style.

[/ QUOTE ]

Welcome to poker.

Become good at making the right decision in that situation as well as deciding on the alternatives to calling as well as understanding and controlling what led you to be in the spot where you had to make the decision and you will be on your way to earning a lot at the game.

[Mens Rea]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
What annoys me is there are few absoultes in poker. If I have to make a big call it often comes down to a judgement call about the other players personality and playing style.

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Welcome to poker.

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And while we're on this, what strategy game against another thinking person doesn't?

[muzungu]

damn, mark, so many responses and no one gave you a good answer (well, except for thabadguy).

You are asking a few different questions here.

The simplest one is the cost of a given mistake. Looking at this from a Fundemental Theorem of Poker perspective (if you don't know what this is, read Theory of Poker), you can look at the cost of a mistake by comparing your equity when you put $ in to how much you put in.

So, you get your KK all in preflop with his AA for $500 apiece. You win around 18% of the time.

Your equity here is .18($1000) = $180. You put in $500, so you just made a $320 mistake.

Now you might object, I couldn't know he had AA. Similarly, in any situation where you call on the river and lose, this sort of calculation would say you made a mistake, as your equity is 0.

The answer is that you can make the same calculation using hand ranges. So, in the KK example, say you think his range is AA-QQ. Here, your equity is around $500. You chop with KK, and get from QQ about what you lose to AA. Note that he can have QQ and AA equally often. If we throw AK in, your call is +EV... and so on.

The skill in all this is trying to make your estimate of his hand range as accurate as possible. So, perhaps you think he can have AA-QQ or AK, making your call with KK a winner, whereas he actually would only go all in with AA (making you a $320 loser).

As you get to know your opposition better, and as you improve as a player in general, your estimates will be closer to their actual holdings, allowing you to make fewer mistakes.

That should about cover it.

-muz

[creedofhubris]

All I'm going to add to Muzungu's excellent advice is that there are various places that will run poker calculations for you

twodimes.net (web site)
pokerstove.com (download)

are both places to go to calculate the probabilities of various hands winning after seeing a flop or turn, which will let you calculate exactly how big a mistake you make by calling with an overpair vs. bottom two.

Also, pokerstove allows you to enter a hand range for an opponent, so you can get a little more sophisticated in your analysis.

[fanmail]

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So how can I tell for sure if I've just made a mistake and got outplayed and is there a good way of estimating how much my mistake just cost me in the long run ?

Mark.


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Well, if you go back after your game is over and analyze the situation, you may be able to discern whether you made a mistake or not. Asking about it on here could help as well. Also, the advice about using pokerstove to see the actual numbers using hand ranges is quite useful. It's a good way to learn about % favorites in certain situations and helps you think about putting your opponent on a range of hands. As far as long term costs go, I can't give you much concrete advice other than to say that if you continue to make a similar mistake repeatedly, you're costing yourself a lot of money.

[punter11235]

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sklansky's fundamental theorem of poker

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This wont help you to determine the cost of mistake or even if given play was a mistake or not.

[punter11235]

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There are no absolutes in poker

[/ QUOTE ]

Oh there are a few. Dont forget that's its math game and we dont know much about it now because its hard to analyze. It may change though.

[RikaKazak]

Well, poker "can be" a game of absolutes, lets say, a tell for instance, that someone only bets with there left hand with red aces. So you "could" for 100% know, and sometimes tells like that are true, like, someone only goes all in pf with AA, like some SUPER TIGHT players, but overall poker is a game of "clues" that lead you to the "best guess." To be a winning player you have to "guess better" than your opponets. AND poker is about hand "ranges" not I know he has me beat, but rather I think he has me beat 70-80% of the time.

That exact "guessing," what you hate, is why fishies play, cause sometimes they "guess correct" and get lucky, the thing is overall odds average out, and the best player wins the money. If poker plays won EVERYDAY and fishies lost EVERYDAY then VERY FEW fishies would play. They'd go play a game they at least had a "chance."