blonde poker forum

I'd really like to improve the mathmatics side of my game and wondered if anyone had any suggestions for which poker books were particular good for this area of the game.

Anything from 2+2 Publishing tends to be math heavy.

Sklansky's Theory of Poker is a good place to start that side of things.

oh ive got that book knocking about somewhere i will dig it out

Cheers  :)up

Don't try and do it all in one sitting.

It's a chapter a day kinda read if you want to fully digest the ideas and concepts held within.

there are few specific book only concentrating on counting outs and odds, but i don't remember the title.  I know that they exisits as i saw them in the book shop.  One of the excellent additions is 'Holde'em on the Come: Limit hold'em strategy for drawing hands' by slotboom and dew mason.  Although it is for LHE, it gives an excellent practice excercises to learn all about counting the outs/pot odds and so forth. 

I bought Texas Hold 'Em Odds by Catalin Barboianu and it goes beyond 'maths heavy' and out the other side of 'requires a masters to understand', it contains very little text beyond pages upon pages of equations. On the plus side it's nice and big and handy for rolling joints on, so not a total waste.

How 'maths heavy' do you want it to be?  There are various books I can think of but they have varying levels of complexity.

Sheriff

What's the most complicated one?

I want something to put on my bookshelf so people think I'm clever.

In that case buy a brief history of time and stick your name on the side.

Serious question, I'm curious

The problem with poker maths is that it is secondary to other skills like hand reading.  Most books have a bit of basic maths, but a lot of the established classics are biased towards limit poker.  Implied odds are much more important in nl and pl than in limit.  NL tournaments have even more complexity.  If you play STTs there are some quite important concepts you should make yourself familiar with.

It's unlikely that you'll make big mistakes (except maybe in STTs)  due to ignorance of  complex poker maths if your other poker skills are up to the mark and you'll rarely have time to work out anything exactly during a hand anyway.  

IMO the twoplustwo forums are the best place to look first.  

  

getting the best of it by sklanksy deals with some good mathematical stuff, bayes theorum and the like

Wait til the end of the month Tank, Bill Chen and Jerrod have their mathematics of poker book out. That will be fantastic

Cheers

there's a new book called The Mathematics of Poker by Bill Chen and Jerrod Ankenman that's supposed to the definitive work on the subject. Chen won two bracelets at this year's WSOP so it looks like he at least knows what he's talking about...

The new book is the one I was thinking of as I was reading about it 'elsewhere' earlier on. Looks to be a definitive work on the subject but very intensive reading.

Mike Petriv's book, Holdem Odd's is another alternative and starts at a very basic level.  I does however look like its been printed on a 1970's dot matrix printer!

King Yao's 'Weighing the Odds in Hold'em Poker' is good, but focused on limit hold'em (which to be honest is a more 'mathematical' game).

Mason Malmuth's 'Gambling Theory and Other Topics' is a fascinating read but covers topics such as risk of ruin and bankroll theory, rather than pot odds, etc.

Just ordered 'Mathematics of poker' from waterstones at £30 i hope it's as good as it sounds

£30!!!  The RRP is $29.95 so it looks as though the usual (convert $ to £) pricing is going on there.

Not sure what lead time they've quoted on it but the book only went to the printers on 2nd November, and won't be ready for shipment until ~27th November in the USA.  It normally takes a while longer for chains such as Waterstones to get copies from the publishers.

Sheriff

yeah they just sent me an email to say they have ordered it direct from the publisher and will keep me informed, be handy if it came in time to read it before the APAT event @ Newcastle but i cant see it.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showthreaded.php?Cat=0&Number=7893096&page=0&vc=1 (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showthreaded.php?Cat=0&Number=7893096&page=0&vc=1)

http://www.headsupclub.com/aprock/2006/11/the-math-of-poker/ (http://www.headsupclub.com/aprock/2006/11/the-math-of-poker/)

I'm gonna wait until I see a review which indicates I might be able to understand more than a page or two.


Oh well

http://terrencechan.livejournal.com/145103.html (http://terrencechan.livejournal.com/145103.html)

OK, the race is on.  Out of intrigue I've ordered direct from the US at a cost of $42.95 including shipping (payable by Neteller, which is handy as no conversion costs).  I'm intrigued to see what difference there is in delivery times (yes I'm that sad!)

Sheriff

All the maths i know (regarding poker) is;

Pot odds with two cards to come = 4* no. of outs, minus a bit if this number is 30% or greater and add a bit if this number is 20% or less.

Pot odds with one card to come = 2*no. of outs + a bit

14 outs with two cards to is 50-50 approx (slightly in you favour).

Chance of hitting a set on a flop is 1-7.5 or 1/8.5.

Chance of hitting a flop 1-2 or 1/3.

Chance of hittng two pair on the flop 1-48 or 1/49 (i think, flushy told me that one).

50% chance of an overcard on a flop when you hold JJ.

Two high cards vs two low cards = 5-3 (or 3/8 for the lower hand).

A pair vs. a hand with only one card higher than the pair is 5-2 fav.

Pair against lower pair is 4.5-1 fav.

Pair vs. two overcards = 55-45 fav.

Someone is probably going to tell me one of those is wrong, but i hope this helps all the same.

ps. do i need to know anything else.

hehe, well this should go without saying. Its not a cook-book like Harrington where they just tell you what to do and you follow the instructions like a robot, its a book that encourages thinking and analysing. It is going to be very hard, it will take a long time to understand fully what they are saying, and some of the stuff in there will be next to useless for almost every poker-game in the world, but the time you spend studying it will definately have a positive effect on your game, and it will open up your eyes.

The one thing about mathematics in poker is that it takes a set of assumptions, and then you can calculate pretty clinically the path that maximizes your expectation on the hand. Doubleup alludes to it earlier wher he says hand reading skills are important, because if you aren't reading the situations correctly, all the math in the world wont be of much use to you, because naturally your "assumptions" wont be accurate.

A simple example might be:

lets say on the river the pot is $20 and you and your opponent have $20 each remaining. If he will call a $20 bet 80% of the time and a $10 bet 100% of the time, which is a more profitable bet to make?

The hard part (and the bit that most people get wrong) is coming to the conclusion that they will call 80%/100% with regards to the differing bet sizes... most people use fantasy math to justify their actions (ie putting people on AK when they have a medium pocket pair, and putting them on a medium pocket pair when they have AK)... the hardest part is to appraise each and every situation with complete clarity and accurately come to the said assumptions about the situation, your opponents likely course of actions given bet sizes, and your reactions to their reactions. If you cant do this, then the math wont really help you much at all. If you CAN do this, then getting a deeper understanding of the math will incerase your profit levels by a huge amount. Sklansky touches on this a lot on his No Limit Theory and Practise book, which should be essential reading for anyone who wants to improve.

Again, if you are looking for a book that will tell you to move in from 3rd position with a XZ of Q and a M of 1.23sqrt^2, then this book (in my opinion) wont do that. It will concentrate more on the base theory and encourage you to come to your decisions with an open mind, and give you a deeeper understanding of why a move is correct/wrong, and from the perspective of equity maximization, rather then being scared of losing, not wanting to go broke in the first level after driving 3 hours to play a tourney, or anything else.

Driving miles to get to a tourney, going broke in the first few hands, getting pissed off, driving home at twice the speed limit, getting caught and having to cough up 60 quid is defintely a -EV play.

Nice post Totalise.

I'm a bit of a maths 'saddo' so this book is of interest to me.  However, I don't expect it to be a book on calculating pot odds, etc (or if it is then only in the briefest sense).

However, the 'maths' of poker goes way beyond this and, to me, its of interest from a theoretical point of view.  Many others would see it as being totally unnecessary and going way too far.  Its very much a question of 'each to their own'.

For example, this book looks to have a lot of material on game theory type approaches, which focuses on achieving a strategy which is, to all intents and purposes, unexploitable.  This generally only applies to 'simplified' games, so is most applicable to heads up poker, rather than full-ring play.  Therefore its by no means a 'necessary' part of poker but, for someone like me with a maths background, its challenging and interesting.  Others would probably prefer to undergo some form of dental torture rather than read this type of thing so, with 'mathematical' poker texts more than a typical poker books, there's a much greater chance of being disappointed by a purchase if you don't know what you are letting yourself in for.

I think the other misconception that people have about the maths of poker, as totalise alluded to, is that some people expect to find a blueprint strategy on how to play from understanding the maths.  This is not the case either.  No book will ever give you this but a text such as 'The Mathematics of Poker' (or even 'The Theory Of Poker' which is not a maths-specific text) will give you much more 'food for thought' than you probably had before.

Sheriff

What's some good books for NLHE cash games? Do 2+2 do some NLHE cash strategy books?

They've got 2 scheduled to come out in the next few months (or they did last time I looked).  One is HOH4 - aimed at NL ring games.  The other is Small Stakes No Limit Holdem by Ed Miller (his limit book was fantastic so if this is anywhere close it'll be a great read).

No Limit Holdem Theory And Practice by Sklansky/Miller is a good read but more theoretical in nature to the above two titles.  Its best described as the NLHE version of 'Theory Of Poker'.

Sheriff

Sklansky's No Limit musings are of limited use IMHO.

I wasn't sure about it at first when I started reading it but there is some good content in there.  I have high expectations of the other two titles though.

Forgot to mention Phil Gordon's 'Little Green Book' which is a good general NLHE text.

This is probably true for a lot of the online games, they make too many assumptions as to the quality of your opponent. the general concepts behind the thinking are still pretty useful though. Its all about the eye of the beholder, if you go into a book expecting someone to tell you the way to play the game, you are going to come up short, if you go into it hoping they will teach you how to think about the game, its a pretty good book for those that probably dont think as much as they should. (i just re-read it and it looks like it is aimed at you personally, that isn't the case whatsoever)

the Small Stakes No Limit book should be a pretty good one, Matt Flynn is a tremendously knowledgable person

I have mixed feelings about the little green book, it touches on things that require a lot more writing to fully explain them, but doesnt go into enough detail.. so you end up just blindly following what he says without adequately understanding why, and (as you will have guessed by now) I hate books that instruct, rather then educate.

Fair comment but I do think its worthwhile for a lot of folk on here as its relatively easy reading, compartmentalised into small sections, and not as heavy going as one of the theoretical tomes.  I think that anyone who likes the Harrington books will probably like the 'Little Green Book'.  I couldn't say the same for NLHE Theory & Practice as its a totally different type of book and someone who's only read HOH will probably be disappointed by it as its not as instantly accessible.

Again its all to do with expectations.  I'm used to Sklansky's books, particularly Theory Of Poker, so was expecting something along similar lines.  Like many of his books, it takes several reads to get the full benefit from it so the value isn't instantly obvious.

I defo agree with you, I think its a good book, it has some stuff on live play and tells which I would find useful if I ever escape from my house and play live. I gave it to my dad after I read it and he has improved quite a bit

Anyone read this one?

Texas Hold'em Odds And Probabilities: Limit, No-limit, And Tournament Strategies - Matthew Hilger ?

Just wondering if there's useful stuff in there, or it's just a rehash of the usual charts, etc. 

Might just buy it and find out.

 :dontask:

Not read it but it got 4stars out of 5 in this month's Poker Player mag.

Just opened mine, and saw it - which prompted me to check the thread.

I'll get it and feed back to everyone what I think of it.

do you really need a book to tell you what your pot  odds are ? As far as I was aware there were still 52 cards in a deck, and you have two of them, if you cant express your "outs" as a percentage based on these two facts then you have no business playing the game. its just basic arithmetic.

actually , you have plenty business playing the game, just as long as you are sitting at my table....

Frankly I never realised that there were quite so many books available on the subject of poker....

Is it likely, does one suppose, that many of them are saying exactly the same thing as each other and are therefore a complete waste of money?

As totalise has eluded to ther is a lot more to the mathematics of poker than just calculating pot odds. Some of it is intuitive, some of it far from it. Personally I think 'bet sizing' is one of the key areas where people make mistakes in NLHE, especially at the lower stakes. Some of the books mentioned in this thread provide excellent examples of this and support it with the maths ... these examples are not a 'how to' guide but will get you thinking about other areas of your game and some of the standard plays in your arsenal.

However ... the maths is never black and white and will always be based on the fact you have read the situation/hand correctly and a multitude of other factors.

For example, what pot odds do you need to call an all-in with any two cards?

You'd be amazed at how much variety there is - I've got about 100 books on poker & gambling theory and there's remarkably little common ground.

Of course, this does mean that you have to be careful as there's a lot of bad advice out there.  If you want an idea of how bad, take a look at the 'search inside' and reviews of this book (http://www.amazon.com/Comprehensive-No-Limit-Holdem-Tournament/dp/1419625225/sr=8-1/qid=1164071342/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-7033641-1512613?ie=UTF8&s=books) which is a clear favourite for the worst poker book ever written.

Sheriff

All novices should buy The Sun's How to Play Poker, only £4.99 from all good bookshops!

 ;)

My copy of The Mathematics of Poker has just arrived!  A quick flick through reveals plenty of formulae and algebraic notation (is it sad that I cheered when I saw this?) so this is not one for the faint-hearted as far as maths is concerned!  Will put a review up in due course.

Sheriff

the explanation of Bayes Theorum in it is exceptional, I took one look at the 0,1 games and other such stuff and my head exploded.

Any idea who wrote that one Simon?.......

Knowing he change from £20 for a round of drinks is basic arithmetic.

Pot odds is actually a darn sight harder than that.  Just because Jesus is a mathmatical genius, doesnt mean that every top player naturaly is.   Some of us need help trying to understand the complexities of this game.  That doesn't make us bad people, and although we are not worthy of playing at your table now, maybe in a few months we'll improve enough so that you can happily take our money.

 ;tightend;

From what I've read so far, The Mathematics Of Poker is NOT the book you want to read to get a basic understanding of pot-odds, etc.  The discussion on this is very brief and some of the earlier books I listed in this thread are far better from giving you a practical understanding of this.

That is not to say that this is a bad book.  I've absolutely fascinated by it so far, but I suspect the vast majority of 'casual readers' would find it very hard-going to get through it.  As totalise stated earlier in the thread, the discussion of Bayes Theorem is about as good as I've ever seen but the book assumes a level of maths knowledge that's beyond GCSE level (e.g. if you're unfamiliar with the sigma notation for summation, which I think is probably something you don't see until A-level maths, then you're likely to be disappointed as the very first formula stated in the book uses this).

I'm finding it a fascinating read so far, but I studied maths through to university (although I'm now discovering how much of it I've forgotten) so I'm just the sort of sad geek that this book has been aimed at!  Please bear this in mind if you're thinking of buying it.

Sheriff

Finally received this book by Bill Chen and Jerrod Ankenman from Waterstone's for £30 off a publishers price of $30 - didn't know the dollar had got that bad!

That gripe aside i am a whole 14 pages in, mostly taken up by forewords and introductions and i am already scratching my head lol  :dontask:

Still if it helps improve my game even 10% i think it would be worth the slow trudge through the chapters caused by having to re-read each page 5 times to get even a modicom of understanding of the concepts lol  ;frustrated;

Hi Rozza

I've merged your new post onto the earlier discussion so that its all in the same place.

I've found the best way to try an read these types of book is to not get bogged down on the first read.  Plough through it, make a note of anything you don't quite grasp and then come back to the tricky bits.  These books need multiple reads to get the best out of them.

I'm still working through my first read - had less time to devote to it in recent days but the content so far is excellent.

Sheriff

is there any norkage in it ?

Thanks for that - I wasn't sure how to find the original topic thread.  :blonde:

Yes, booder, there is.  Buy it immediately.

Sheriff reserves the right to admit he's lying about this

 rotflmfao  i always check out the smallprint

my christmas present to myself was the mathematics of poker and it arrived yesterday. f*** me it's complicated but right up my street. Going to have to dust off my maths brain.