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How to make decisions like a poker player

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Re: How to make decisions like a poker player

#111

Post by Kelamir »

m12k wrote: post #34

I attended a talk by Richard Garfield, the game designer behind Magic: The Gathering. He made a point that adding randomness to a game can be a way to give it that property of "easy to learn, hard to master", and in turn make it easier for a community to grow around the game. When you add randomness, it becomes possible for novices to sometimes beat more experienced players through sheer luck. Contrast that with e.g.…

An alternative to randomness is handicap. For example, Go game has ranks and based on them either you or your opponent get a handicap. Equal ranked players don't use handicap. It is counted that a stone of handicap is worth ~6.5 points, and that is what's used in handicap - one player gets additional stones placed at the beginning of a match. The system is aiming to provide you with 50% win/lose percentage, and every match to feel equal.

Re: How to make decisions like a poker player

#112

Post by kqr »

pessimizer wrote: post #109
CPLX wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an interesting comment, and I'd add one other element to this, which is that randomness is way more realistic, if we think of games as something intended to represent the real world in some way. In real life the best marksman can get wiped out on the first day of a war, the best business strategist can get done in by a once in a generation disaster, and a hapless idiot in business can get an early big break.…

That depends on whether you think that games should be simulations. Even if you think they should be simulations, you still might only want to reward optimal play over lucky play. If I'm using a simulation to train someone, I only want them to be rewarded for ideal play.

This is incorrect, as far as the research into training for expertise goes. You actually want simulations to be like the real world: complex, ambiguous, sometimes with delayed feedback and presenting multiple forms of the problem. Of course, it also takes a good mentor to debrief with and untangle what was bad luck and what was bad decision making. (See the Oxford Handbook of Expertise if this stuff interests you.)

Re: How to make decisions like a poker player

#113

Post by sokoloff »

lgas wrote: post #61
1retep wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also like the discourse on bankrolls and bets sizing. I think being able to correctly size your bets is such a great, albeit challenging skill to have in the real world.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_criterion may be of interest.

One major problem here is that many players dramatically overestimate their edge.

Re: How to make decisions like a poker player

#115

Post by csa »

ryandrake wrote: post #74
csa wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a good opponent would just start bluffing me out of every pot… People try this. > …by increasing their bet size to a point where I can’t profitably call. A good poker player will adjust your expected range based on your sizing and frequency of bets/raises, and they will adjust their calling/raising ranges accordingly. Most poker games, especially big bet games are played against a range/distribution of hands, not a…

Yes. The article makes its analogies with a "simplified" view of poker. I don't think the author's point was to go deep into the game. It's enough to describe the basics like bankroll management, pot odds and expected value, and then show real world examples of it. I'll also point out that constructing ranges and thinking in terms of ranges/ hand distributions is a relatively new development in poker. I mean, the ver…

> but it's only been written down and analyzed in the last 10 years or so

I agree with you overall points.

For historical reference for folks who are interested in the poker boom of the 00s but were not there, it’s more like 20 years, if not more.

The book Let There Be Range was published in 2008.

High stakes players were discussing the issues covered in that book amongst ourselves (live and online) with quite a bit of sophistication for several years before that.

All that said, and supporting the point made above, advanced computational support for ranges (esp. via “solvers”) didn’t really start becoming a thing until the early 2010s.

Re: How to make decisions like a poker player

#116

Post by prometheus76 »

curun1r wrote: post #100
morley wrote: post #7

I've also heard this topic referred to as "results-oriented thinking," which is generally what you don't want: you shouldn't judge a decision based on its result, but on the information you had at the time. The key to this idea, which I don't see covered in the blog post, for making future decisions is that you shouldn't let past bad luck affect your future decisions. If you lose a positive EV bet, it shouldn't shy y…

Results-oriented thinking is just one of many human cognitive quirks that are often maladapted to the modern world. A major one is how we tend estimate probability. We naturally do that by equating it with how easy it is to imagine or remember it happening. This worked well in a tribal situation where our world was very small...if Grog got attacked by a tiger, there's a good chance that tiger attacks are a serious da…

Do you drive a car? I am asking because statistically speaking, it's the number one killer of people from age 21-65. Very few drivers go their whole life without getting in an accident.

Statistically, on any given day, the odds of being in an accident are quite low. However, if you drive for 30-60 minutes every day, you are exposing yourself to a low amount of risk consistently over time, which inevitably means that one day, your number will come up.

Most people don't have a background in probability or they haven't taken the time to look at driving, but for those who consider themselves normally "rational", they're often very surprised to see just how dangerous driving a car really is, but they just weren't aware of the amount of risk.

Analyzing the risk of driving every day is an exercise worth doing. That being said, I have a fairly high level of risk tolerance, so I drive to work every day because I live just a little too far to reasonably walk, and riding a bike would be a higher risk than driving because of lack of adequate road shoulders for much of the route between my workplace and home.

Re: How to make decisions like a poker player

#118

Post by csa »

listenallyall wrote: post #88
alasdair_ wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The author sounds like a losing poker player. Annie Duke has cashed 39 times at the WSOP and has won at least four million dollars at tournaments alone. Any good poker player would understand that the example was simplified for a non-playing audience. It’s so obvious it didn’t need to be stated.

> has won at least four million dollars at tournaments alone. This is most certainly not true, because it doesn't subtract the cost of all the entry fees, to the tournaments she cashed and the dozens or hundreds she didn't. "alone" implies she has won additional money in non-tournament play, when there is no evidence she is a winning cash player. Finally, there is a LOT more to the Annie Duke story. Morally, ethicall…

> This is most certainly not true, because it doesn't subtract the cost of all the entry fees

It is fairly standard in the poker world to discuss total winnings in tournaments rather than net winnings.

When discussing net winnings, it’s usually discussed using an ROI measure (e.g., 30% roi over their past 100 MTTs between $1000 and $5000) rather than just dollars, since the biggest winners in dollars are almost all winners of super high roller tourneys like the Big One for One Drop.

Furthermore, live MTT results in general are often skewed due to the unmatched (?) softness of the $10k wsop main event for a field that size.

With regards to Annie Duke in particular, I never considered her a “good” pro poker player. That said, she was pretty good at fleecing amateurs, and she was able to play a tight game when she was outclassed.

Re: How to make decisions like a poker player

#119

Post by ricardobayes »

lordnacho wrote: post #85
Raidion wrote: post #11

I'm a serious but hobbyist player with ~15k hands last month. The thinking like a poker player is mostly about being upfront about your risk tolerances and then having a culture supporting people who make the best risk adjusted decision, even if it doesn't work out. Expected Value is complicated because a 50% chance for $100 is the same as a 10% chance at $1000. It's the variance, not the EV that makes a lot of decis…

Where's the best place to play online? Non-US citizen.

The golden days are sadly gone. It has pretty much all been dried up after the US crackdown. Before that, sites were full with very loosely playing Americans who viewed a loss of a $100 just 'entertainment' or equivalent of a night out. With that all gone, you have tons of very tight Chinese and Russian players these days. Lots of hunters and not a lot of moose.

Re: How to make decisions like a poker player

#120

Post by csa »

beginnercounter wrote: post #24

The author sounds like a losing poker player. If my calling frequency is based entirely on pot odds, a good opponent would just start bluffing me out of every pot by increasing their bet size to a point where I can’t profitably call.

> The author sounds like a losing poker player.

An additional comment that I copied from another reply:

With regards to Annie Duke in particular, I never considered her a “good” pro poker player. That said, she was pretty good at fleecing amateurs, and she was able to play a tight game when she was outclassed.

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