It is a recent discussion I had with Paul Jackson that got me into deep thinking and I just want to share my thoughts with everyone.
What comprises a great poker decision or any decision in general?
After the chat, I was left wondering what sort of approach do I agree with or employ when I make my decisions. After much thought, I decided I was a sponge! I have a tendency to employ or mimic what ever style I last read or see. I think of myself as a fast learner and I intend to learn as much as I can at poker or anything of any interests to me and when I learn or become interested at something, I get very obsessive with the subject and everything around it. Since discovering poker, I have read more books and articles that I can count, watched everything poker related and have had many discussion with in my mind great poker minds. Strategy in books and views that people have is not anything as interesting as some poker background stories I've read, nor are they as interesting as the thought process behind very person. Understand why certain people make some decision whilst others make completely different ones in similar situations have amazed me no end.
Many of you are aware that most 'old timers' base their decision on their vast experience of the game and they tend to take a more cautious style that is by no means passive. This is a logical decision making process, and is probabily due to them having observed many people go broke or lose money in situations that are undesirable. The new 'online generation' employs a much more loose and surcidal approach which has proven to be sucessful, I can only imagine that is probabily caused by the lack of respect for money. Now I am not saying which is good or bad and which style works best, i just think any style or play has their situations that yield the best results depending on many many different factors.
Daniel Negreanu is many people favourite and wannbie poker players, he is very likable and charming and I think this is more the reason than most people actually understand fully his 'game'. I think he is as sucessful as he is mainly because he can extract the most information out of players due to his speak play. Of course he knows the maths aspect of the game, and can read betting patterns and have more balls than most of us in aiding him make the occasional 'sick read' but with that he can also make bad calls and he does play more tournaments then most people thus the great results are perhaps not that surprising. We'll type cast him as the sort of player that rely on his reads and is a 'gut instinct' sort of player.
Next we move on to Phil Ivey. He does not talk like Daniel does so does not gain the information the same way as Daniel would thus his main decision based process is different. We all know him as a highly aggressive player and stares down opponants. We'll type cast him as the sort of players that are FBI trained specilist in picking up body language and tells.
Then its the complete different and unique, a very small minority, Chris 'Jesus' Ferguson. This is where things become interesting. He is master at computer science and his dad was a professor at game theory, and his whole game involves around pure Maths. I do not claim to know his game nor do I know many facts about him but i have read somewhere that his poker game is based on his holdings rather than focusing on other's. It is said that he employs game theory to poker and did a couple of years research building a computer program that analysis every single heads up situation and found (after running every situation infinite number of times) the 'correct' decision in most of situations that arises in poker. He truly believes there is a set 'correct' decision in every situation by only focusing on his two holdings.
Game theory is a branch of applied mathematics that is used in the social sciences (most notably economics), biology, political science, computer science and philosophy. Game theory attempts to mathematically capture behavior in strategic situations, in which an individual's success in making choices depends on the choices of others.
We all know that to be sucessful at poker, we have to vary our play (changing gears) to keep an opponant from figuring out our hand and to maximaze or minimaze our profits. We would not vary our play against a beginner who is unable to comprehend his own two holdings let alone figuring out what it is we're doing so game theory is used against more advanced players. We can thus work out the % of time someone will miss a flop and invented the famous continuation bet. But if we do that everytime, a good opponant will figure that out and try counter measures and it would also be too easy to read. Therefore according to Maths, there is an optimal frequency to continuation bet in a situation where you have hit nothing and it would yield the highest expected return assuming no previous or additional information. The same optimal frequency can be obtained for button raising, missed draw bluffing and just about every single situation that can arise in poker. I do not know enough about program to work all these out, but apparently Ferguson have done so.
I read an article recently that claims all of our poker making decision is one way or another based on fundamentals of mathematics. I would not be surprised as the level of poker have definately improved worldwide in the last 5 years due to the readily available odds and probability that can be found everywhere! So we do make our decisions because we know the odds of people missing on the flop, flush draws, pot odds, pre-flop odds through no work of our own but just reading on other's hard work. Maths have therefore influenced and changed the way we go about making decisions as we all are more well informed nowadays. In some cases mis-using maths as an excuse for poor play (fold equity), we all used that to justify! But not many of us actually know to the level of Ferguson how PURE maths and game theory can suppositly calculate situations to yield the optimal result in the long run. Most of us know basic strategy in blackjack, or some of you claim you know (its all maths). This optimal line should suggest something like to bet x% of time, check y% of time and fold x% of time and this will yield the best return in the long run. This is of course excluding previously aquired information and body language and speech play, so we should be able to alter that 'perfect maths' line to increase our profit in the long run. But Ferguson also believes that these decision are 'correct' because not only does he not care about your holdings, he can tell you his strategy and there would be nothing you can do to counter it. (in the long run)
But one can argue that poker is not always about long term results. A computer gives out results and percentages after a bizilion re-run of the same situation but we all know 82% favourite does NOT mean you always win. The thought process behind making the decision that lead you to become a 82% favourite is the truly great bit of poker.
Because I do not know this optimal line 'perfect mathematical play' with no information, i do not know whether someone who thinks they have made a great decision in a situation where they have collected previous and current information will yield a better overall result than that Maths line. As there is 'luck' in the game (short term) anyone can beat a better player who is making the better decisions.
Another article i read, Phil Laak beat a computer poker playing program but after careful analysis, the writer of the program claims that the program made far more 'correct' decision than Phil did and would have came out the winner had they played for an infinite amount of time. Phil Laak would have certainly died. I suspect most poker players knows the odds but just cannot fully comprehend and understand probability because it does involve a number that is too big to even think about. I mean who really cares if someone makes a decision their going to raise 8/10 and fold 2/10 if one of those 8 raising times was the wrong decision that lead them to win the WSOP?
Most of us make our decision to either fold/check/bet/raise/re-raise, none of us actually thinks 'in this situation, I'm going to do this x times, this y time' but can we truly say we made the best decision?
Someone might have work out all the Maths, combine it with Daniel's super reads, Mike Caro's FBI tells, Phil Ivey's poker face and be able to truly make the absolute perfect decision based on their knowledge of the game, previous and currently gathered information, even then this person would have to play x thousands or millions of hands to ensure he/she comes out the victor!
This is why I never blame or critise another player or any play as I feel there is always some sort of improvement I could have made to my decision!
Until then, I'll just keep learning every single approach and thinking process in poker to make a decision that is as close to perfect as I possibily can!
This is part 1 of my crazy thinking that don't actually improve my game. It is just how far and distant I think I have to finish learning this awesome game. Please post, I would love to hear what people think and how insane they think I am.
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