blonde poker forum

The latest article from 'The Dean' Carl Sampson can be found by clicking the link below.

http://blondepoker.com/index.php?q=node/20796 (http://blondepoker.com/index.php?q=node/20796)

Any comments/questions, then please feel free to post them here.

What a fantastic article.

So the difference between high level poker and being merely part of the crowd is getting a 'very good' 33% rakeback deal at Cake Poker.

I can't wait to read the next one!

lolz have to agree was one of the worst articles i have read on poker, do blonde pay for these?

I could be wrong, but my understanding of meta is that it means 'the game within the game.'

Calling with the intention to bluff on a later street might not be a good example of what the meta game is then.
It's not the game within the game, it's just the game.

No, we don't pay for them.

Deliberately writing bad poker articles in order to throw future opponents off the scent.

That would be a good example of meta-game.

I didn't know blonde were doing comedy poker articles now.

Awaits more articles about diets in poker, which involving eating lots of cake and plugging more companies that the author happens to be affiliated to.

Comedy aside, I'll offer a quick constructive suggestion to the author.

The article has been written with the intention to plug a rakeback deal, fair enough. When the topic is suddenly introduced out of the blue like this...

Your opponent bets out two thirds of the pot and you elect to raise them. You were also contemplating calling the bet with the intention of making a move on the turn and both of these plays are based on meta game principles.

When I first became aware of rakeback, I approached a good company called RakeTheRake (www.raketherake.com)

It becomes a bit too obvious, and this turns the reader, your potential customer, away. It feels too much like a big advert masquerading as an article on poker strategy. I'm no closer to understanding what the meta-game is having read this piece, and I don't think a beginner will either.

It's not all bad. The point you go on to make about how some players perhaps don't play as aggresively as they should because of their rakeback deal and the fact that they are already making guaranteed money is an interesting one. Perhaps you could have centered the article around this, and left out all talk of meta.

Of course this then has the advantage that introducing the topic of rakeback in an article that's actually about rakeback becomes a little easier.

Due to the feedback on this thread, I have decided to remove this article for the time being.

I was gonna ask .

Well, I'm clueless when it comes to the topic of meta gaming, which is why I asked for comments and suggestions on here. The consensus so far seems to be that it's not Carl's greatest effort to date, and thus perhaps not a good advert for the blonde homepage. That and the covert spam that's been highlighted is why I have removed the article. I actually enjoyed his one of Poker Trackers though and found it quite interesting.

Hi,

I am very disappointed this article got removed, as I was looking forward to learning about this "meta-game" theory.

My Dad said that he has learnt a lot of valuable techniques from reading Carl's articles and its also made him think of poker in a deeper, more analytical way, due to Carl opening up these mental channels for him. I really wanted to learn about this meta-game, I did not think that getting rakeback was meta-game though? I thought it was more making small negative expected value decisions to benefit from the image this creates in the future? Oh well, I will ask Dad about it tomorrow when he staggers out of bed. I do remember him mentioning something about raising without a premium and showing it at least once a tournament so that you can extract the maximum with the Aces and the Kings later, I am guessing this is meta-game?

Keep your head up Carl, I'm sure my Dad would be lost without your consistently fantastic articles, and I'm sure this is just a minor blip, or you are talking on a different level that people understand, sometimes you got to simplify things because we don't all think as deep as you!

Cheers,

Son Of Martin Green

I have to add my voice to the poster above in support of The Dean. I am also very disappointed that the article has been removed. The combination of saying almost nothing and doing so in as badly-written as way as possible is not an easy one to achieve, and I had been eagerly looking forward to the latest installment in the Cake-plugger's self-promotional series.

I bring to your attention his last published work, previous to the meta-game lost masterpiece. "Over the past few years, those of us who play poker seriously and regularly are all too aware of tracking software and what they can do," begins The Dean, who is clearly some sort of leading academic, for otherwise he wouldn't be A Dean, nor would he be able to change the rules regarding what tenses to use when employing the English language. "Well I have something of an issue with tracking software…" An issue, The Dean says. What fascinating new insight could this be into the philosophy and ethics of poker technology? "I don't like it."

And the thought-provoking doesn't end there. The Dean goes on to challenge our preconceptions of, ooh, all sorts of stuff, prime among them how many consecutive paragraphs can be started with the word "but", even when pretty much any other word would be more appropriate.

Clearly I don't have the time to trawl through all The Dean's published works to bring each and every highlight to your attention in support of my cause, but I hope you get the idea snoopy. Bring back the meta-game article, save The Dean!

A fair point well made.

I for one will not let anyone suggest that his previous article was motivated by the fact that the Cake network are anti tracking software. Though do i believe they offer some meta game bonuses for the their customers.

blonde removing the article is bad form imhumbleO snoops. just coz it aint getting glowing reviews and he does some corporate spiel you remove it.

 Carls a decent writer and has had good reviews on here before, why should it be censored? Goes against the blonde ethos i reckon.

lovely stuff,
yet another phrase i can add to my ever increasing list of unfathomable poker termanology.
i rememeber the first time i met nik persauld down at the gutshot a couple of years back, he was talking about a hand (i know, hard to believe it) & he asked me whether i thought there was much fold equity in it - he may as well have been speaking chinese, i honestly had no idea what the hell he was talking about
(obv i put on game face & blagged it....)

I'm on dictionary tilt here.

What does "meta-game" actually mean?
The article, as far as I could tell, is saying that meta-game is basically synonymous with "tricky shit".

I don't even understand the Wikipedia explanation of Meta game.

I meta girl once but never meta game.

Meta game in regards to poker as I understand it. Is making plays or even saying things which will affect future decisions.

For example in a sng situtions you often get spite calling.

7 handed Blind vs Blind against a reg i will sometimes make a call which is -ev. To stop him pushing any two cards into me constantly, therefore long term i will get some walks in these situations which is +ev for me.

just find it highly amusing the thought of someone trying to ask you if there was fold equity in a hand a couple of years back. Fold equity back then for you julian was a simple equation :yoyo raises+still has chips left= he aint folding ;) I always said we were all completely fooked when you learned about fold equity,pot odds and position.

As for metagame theory the perfect example is Julians career. First few years was just setting everyone up with so many -EV plays and now he reaps the benefits with his image.

That's what I thought it meant. I feel so much better now.
Giving someone a rubdown might be part of the meta game, or buying someone a drink.

Longy's explanation > that article > not much

Ah OK...thanks mate.

i followed the majority of that up until the -ev bit  ;djinn;

while you are online is there any chance of a blog update? have you won anything worthy of blogging about you lazy git ;)

off to dublin this morning for a wedding; they don't have computers over there so that's it put off for another week...
oh & well done in the monkey comp at luton, let's hope it's the start of something beautiful

cheers mate. cu in bolton in a few weeks

Ignore meta-game unless you play HU tbh. More important things to focus on @ the table.

 ;iagree; very bizarre censorship. can I read the article please?

An explanation of Meta-Game:

Simply put the Meta-Game is the game within the game, or more clearly the way the game is played within a certain environment. Examples of environments could include different countries, internet sites or individual poker clubs. The way the game is played in each of these environments may be subtly different, the rules are the same but the styles are not. In one club the game might be very aggressive and full of bluffers, another could be very tight with everyone trying to out slowplay each other. These two clubs could be described as having different Meta-Games.

A poker club populated with a large number of regular locals who do not play on-line will tend to have a very specific Meta, whilst a bigger club with a constant influx of new experienced players might have a much less defined Meta. The evolution of the internet has meant that the sharing of new ideas and styles of play is disseminated amongst a large number of people very quickly. This might mean that a particular move might be very effective initially, such as floating, but once the word gets out everyone starts to include that move as part of their game and others begin to defend against it. This then results in a shift in the Meta-Game.

One clear example of a shift in the Meta-Game is tournament poker prior to everyone reading Harrington and post everyone reading Harrington.

u mean you dont get into ridic levelling 4b matches with some regs coz they have seen you jam 34 sooooooted pre?

[  ] Person who wrote this knows what meta-game is

[ x ] Above person chooses to insult the poster by saying they do not know what a meta-game is when they do indeed know what a meta-game is.

From Wikipedia:

Adaptation to a specific gaming environment
Another game-related use of Metagaming refers to operating on knowledge of the way a game is played within a particular geographic region or tournament circuit. This local or circuit-specific context is often referred to as the metagame. A player who is aware of the metagame for their particular gaming environment may make play choices that are objectively inferior for the game in general, but are optimized against the play styles of the majority of players they are likely to face in that specific competitive arena. This usage is common in games that have large, organized play systems or tournament circuits and which feature customized decks of cards, sets of miniatures or other playing pieces for each player. The premier example[citation needed] of this kind of environment is the tournament scene for the card game Magic: The Gathering. But this is probably better called a meta-related game not a metagame since this is a game related to a meta (a local environment).

[  ] Wikipedia is always correct.

Although it is coincidental that it agrees with me, seeing as I did not read it until after I posted. Having played CCG's for the last 13 years or so I am well used to using the term Meta with relation to cardgames.

But seemingly not in relation to poker....

Er, no. The reason I said 'person who wrote this' instead of 'Grier78' was because it was clear you didn't write it, you'd copied and pasted it from somewhere.

What you have done is you've put 'meta game' into Wikipedia or whereever and copied what it said. What it says is not correct - that's not what meta game means within the context of poker.

If you want to know what meta game is, read Longy's post and his blind on blind example.

To the best of my knowledge the usage of the term Meta-Game has transferred to Poker over the last 5 or 6 years as large numbers of Magic the Gathering players have moved across to Poker, the most famous of which is David Williams. If anyone can point out the term being used with relation to Poker previous to this then please let me know as I was not playing Poker at that time.

Well you are incorrect on your first point as I did indeed write all of it.

Secondly Longy has posted an example of Meta-Game within Poker not a wider definition of it. I don't see how what Longy posted is contrary to what I posted, as he is stating that in a particular environment (Sit and Go's) that people tend to employ a specific strategy. By identifying the Meta-Game he has been able to take advantage of that strategy. If lots of people started playing like Longy then people would apply that strategy less and this would result in a change in the Meta-Game.

In every example of meta game I have seen (when talking about poker) the person using it has been using it in the context of a play, the ramifications of which are not just to be felt in that hand. This whole 'the meta game of that poker club is quite aggressive' stuff you gave is just not something I've ever seen.

Yes, if you are Meta-Gamming then you are using the information you have gleaned from identifying the Meta-Game and using that to your advantage, this can be either with a narrow focus such as a particular table in a particular game right up to a wide focus such as Internet vs Live Play.


I think what you are thinking of here is taking actions to change the Meta of that game in order to give yourself an advantage. The obvious example of this the "standard bet", on some tables players seem to settle on a set amount to bet on a particular blind level and other players at the table tend to also bet that amount. If you start making bigger opening bets than the "standard bet" then you can try to make the table come with you and also make bigger opening bets. Creating a shift in the "Local Meta".

Google book search ftw

Just searched for metagame in volumes published between 1900 & 1950

168 Results

So it's not a new word.

I meant with relation to card games, I think it has been used as a military term for a long time and within Mathematics for even longer.

I think it is interesting.Three schools of thought, each with their own thoughts on what the word metagame should mean to a poker player.

I’ve been a little busy, and as far as I can tell, we’re all absolutely correct!

The word metagame seems pretty simple to look at first glance. ‘Game’ comes after the prefix ‘meta’.

We all know what a game is, but what about a meta?

The dictionary lists three definitions for meta. The first one I’ll mention quickly just to get it out of the way... “denoting position behind, after or beyond” (ie, your metatarsals and  metacarpals)

That doesn't have much to do with anything else, so we'll ignore it, but come back to the other two definitons later on.



Game theorists have studied poker as a model for quite some time. Metagame theory is a branch of game theory, and it seems clear to me that the first use of the word metagame in a poker context was more than probably by way of game theory.
 
The game theorist’s metagame seems to be all about choosing the best option based upon what you think your opponent might do. It is a little more complicated than that, and I’ll confess that I do not fully grasp all the specifics, but that is the general jist.
 
By this token, would you believe that the use of metagame in the article Carl wrote is not actually wrong! What he describes is a genuine example of what Doyle (http://www.blondepoker.com/blondepedia/blondepedia_view_player.php?player_id=532) Brunson (http://www.blondepoker.com/blondepedia/blondepedia_view_player.php?player_id=532) meant by the metagame when he wrote Super System.



This is where I should probably put the second dictionary definition of the prefix meta... “to denote something of a higher or second order.” - ie, metalanguage or metaprogramming

Metalanguage is language used to describe other language, and metaprogramming is a program that programs other programs. It’s easy enough from this to see metagame as “the game within the game.”

So another definition has evolved, and seems to be predominantly the one favoured by the majority of players on here, including myself.
“The game within the game” is all about making decisions and taking action that helps in the future, such as the metagame 'spite call' that Longy described for us earlier in the thread.

It's quite a natural progression. Carl's metagame meant considering other options based upon knowledge of what your opponents might do. The contradiction stems from the the fact that this is pretty much what poker is all about anyway! The word didn’t really fill much of a lexical gap.
The new metagame doesn't have this problem. It fits nicely into everyday poker conversation, and the critical thing is that people actually understand what you're talking about.



Found a metagame you liked? Unfortunately we're not quite done yet?

Into the mix comes Grier78 with his definition of metagame. To describe a location’s differing conditions, such as a poker club, and the successful poker player's need to adjust to them.
 
Game is sometimes omitted, and meta used on its own as a plural noun (The metas are totally different at the weekend. What’s the meta like up where you are?)
 
He reports that the word used in this manner stems from a card game called Magic : The Gathering, that started in 1993.

We can see the game theory roots in there, (adjusting to what you think they’re going to do) but there may be another influence in it coming to be used so...

The last dictionary definition of the prefix meta is to “indicate a change of position or condition” - ie. Metamorphosis.

So it seems that the Magic players have a dual claim to using meta in such a manner.

I couldn’t find too many examples of poker players using metagame in this context if they were not also fans of the Magic card game. That being said Grier78’s metagame is being  used a fair bit while talking about the 52-card game, and so perfectly legitimate.




Anyway, I’ve found this journey into pokolinguistics fun, (because I’m odd like that.)
Possibly bollox, but I'm happy now that I understand meta enough to waffle about it.

 :goodpost:

[ x ] this thread has bored me to tears
[ x ] this thread has made me regret the decision i made to learn the english language
[   ] i think it will improve on page 4
[   ] i will eagerly await future posts on this thread

im on tilt with what some ppl think metagame is. it aint rocket science.

Wow tank, let that be your proposal for a phd in meta game theory.

Wow amazing effort, well done.

At the risk of lowering the tone ( something I'm afraid I do far too often )

Can someone put it into laymans language for me, it's beginning to go a tad over my head.

I thought metagame was refering to using the opponents expectation against him.  IE double bluffing him.

I've always thought Scotty Nguyen's play when he won the WSOP ME was an example of metagame.  IE the idea of poker tells - Strong is weak, weak is strong.

Scotty's speach - You call, it's gonna be all over baby, convinced his opponent that Scotty was weak.

Am I close ?

Its basically about the bigger picture in poker, whether that is one game or several games. You can see common themes if you look across many games such as check raising, bluffing etc. If you analysed all these components across a range of games you start to see what kind of strategies are beneficial to play because basically you know what works and what doesnt. This gives you the opportunity to refine your game using meta analysis and have an evidence based/ tried and tested approach.

In a single game you decide to play according to how your table is playing - you play aggressive if your table is tight for example,  but you are also considering how the general game of the whole tourny is going and take that into account too. This is playing a game within a game (table) within a game (tourney).

It seems there are many levels within the game but meta is bigger picture thinking imo

I hope I didnt confuse you more? lol

Yup.

But I'll read it again after a beer.

 ;)

I find beer does help, not that it clears confusion, you just care less about being confused...:)

 :)up

True.

I'll try to summarize my waffle for you shatner. There are three different meanings of the word.

You are playing the poker metagame when...

1. you decide upon what action to take based on what you think your opponents might do.

2. you make a play that you do not expect to pay off immediately, but will have some benefit for you in the future.

or

3. You can say that there is a change in the metagame whenever there is a change in the conditions of the table. For example, loose to tight.

Hope that helps more   :)up

That actually makes sense .

There's hope for the old git , yet.

Cheers

 ;applause;

i have issues with this.  dont think it truly fits into the context of metagame. a and b spot on.

so complicated this thread lol. Cant help wondering if any of you have used any meta theory without realising it.

simple example- biggest fish in your live game who loses chunks every week. He looks to be getting a little bit fed up and starts saying he may not come anymore even though he has lost thousands every night for months. Last hand of the night he bets a £300 at you on the river and you are sure he has you beat but are a £3k up on the night, would it be so bad to pay him a few hundred off the last hand of the night? its only a tiny % of your profit on the night and you are pretty certain if you send him home with the taste of that one win he will be back tomorrow. would it be so bad to massage his ego a little telling him you are going to have to be carefull with him in future as hes playing a lot better etc etc etc?

there are plenty different levels of metagame theory and if you look at some of the top players in the world it should show you how they use it. DN for example- how does he play? caling station, loose etc etc etc. Gus hansen- maniac... if you watch closely whenever they play a huge pot in tourneys they seem to have a monster though. You think that is by accident? Its nice to have a loose crazy image and when it comes down to it always get your chips in good ,also a loose crazy image means less people will steal or bluff you as you are capable of calling with anything- how many of you have seen the gus- I have have ten high I have to call v antonio esfandari? was it a coincidence it was in a tv invitational event that meant nothing? everyone remembers that hand though so it was very good advertising

I just noticed a few negatives about my last article......dont mind that at all but let me put the record straight a bit. Like Snoops said, I dont get paid to write the articles on this site and I sure as hell dont have to do them. I write for numerous magazines and websites, non of which I have ever mentioned in any of my articles despite having a vested interest to do so. I have mentioned things that have been instrumental in helping me personally in my progression as a player.

But rest assured to the people on here, there will be no more mentions of anyone in any future articles and as for my sponsor then I was given permission by Snoops to post this. So in future, no one will have any reason to get upset.

The Dean

I completely agree,unfortunately(but i couldn't find a better standard of poster that said the same thing to quote)  ::)

this tilted me when i read the first few posts before clicking the link only to see you've taken it down, i really agree it does go against the blonde ethos, subtle spam aside the OP has now posted and seems to be ok with the criticism so cant we have it back up?

it would be very bad IMO not too, it's like saying we're having all these articles and everyone loves eachother but if something doesn't go the way we want we'll just shut it all down because we dont want to offend someone that's written something of their own volition whos an authority on the subject!

If he was the kind of person(and i doubt he is) that was so offended by some of the comment he decided to say "fuck you lot at blonde im never writing anything again because i didnt get my arse licked when i did so i'm off" would you really want that person writing for blonde anyway?