Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How to make decisions like a poker player

fronterablog.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 156 posts

Re: How to make decisions like a poker player

#141

Post by myownpetard »

nogbit wrote: post #131
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…

Poker players use “pot odds”. The odds of winning a hand with a future card in order to estimate the call's expected value.

Pot odds are just the ratio of the current bet to size of the pot.

If you have not yet made your hand (e.g. only 4 spades) then you consider your drawing odds, which is the chance of making your hand.

But say there is a pair on the board. Then you need to consider the probability that your opponent has or will make a full house, which would beat your flush if you were to hit. Likewise the probability that someone will have a higher flush than you.

Analyzing this in aggregate is what gives you the expected value, which is what poker players consider.

If you are simply playing a cash game with unlimited buy-ins. Then assuming your overall bankroll is sufficient, you will always make plays with positive expected value, even with high variance, because it is a continuous game and you expect the total return to be positive over sufficient iterations.

If you are playing a tournament with a set number of places in the money, then you need to take into account the variance as well as the expected return because it is an episodic game and the types of plays you will make will depend on not just expected value of the single play but what place you are in currently and the number of players left.

Re: How to make decisions like a poker player

#142

Post by in3d »

cthalupa wrote: post #132
in3d wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But note that unexploitable, game theory optimal strategy in poker does not differ based on the opponent. It’s not just based on pot odds, but on the whole sequence of actions and cards. Still not a very good article, though.

There are plenty of bots that can play GTO poker better than any human, yet they are consistently losers online at higher levels. Hold 'em, at least, still ain't fully solved.

There are only two ways they can be losers: they are not GTO or the rake is higher than their winnings. Hold’em is pretty much solved (almost because approximations were used for bet sizing). It is possible that you can do better by deviating from GTO to better exploit bad players but that makes you vulnerable to be exploited yourself.

Re: How to make decisions like a poker player

#143

Post by rawling »

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…

> serious but hobbyist

> ~15k hands last month.

Is that not roughly a full-time jobs' worth of poker? (15k hands > 12k minutes? > 200 hours > 6h/day)

Re: How to make decisions like a poker player

#144

Post by JoshuaDavid »

jvanderbot wrote: post #130
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…

I imagine poker players don't use expected value. That's silly. You'd be all-in on a bet with positive expected value for no good reason. They use expected returns in conjunction with size of current pot and size of current holdings. What you say about variance is right on. It involves the payout and the odds and so on ... They use something internally like the Kelly Criteria, probably tuned against their own model o…

If your bankroll is small enough that Kelly vs naive EV calculations are giving you significantly different answers for what you should do, you are probably playing at stakes higher than you should be (or you're playing in a tournament, in which case the optimal strategy is indeed different than in a cash game).

Re: How to make decisions like a poker player

#145

Post by myownpetard »

myownpetard wrote: post #141
nogbit wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Poker players use “pot odds”. The odds of winning a hand with a future card in order to estimate the call's expected value.

Pot odds are just the ratio of the current bet to size of the pot. If you have not yet made your hand (e.g. only 4 spades) then you consider your drawing odds, which is the chance of making your hand. But say there is a pair on the board. Then you need to consider the probability that your opponent has or will make a full house, which would beat your flush if you were to hit. Likewise the probability that someone wil…

And probably the most difficult to estimate are the implied odds. If you do make your draw, how much money can you expect to make in later betting rounds.

Implied odds are interesting in that they can make very bad hands more playable because if you do hit, then the likelihood that your opponent believes that they are winning is higher (because the chances of such a bad hand being played rather than folded immediately should be low) and thus the probability that you can elicit more money from them is higher.

Small pairs and low suited connectors are good examples of these kinds of hands. Your pre-flop chance of winning with a pair of 2's on a full table is pretty low. But if the flop is 2-K-A, you will likely get a lot of action.

Re: How to make decisions like a poker player

#146

Post by Raidion »

rawling wrote: post #143
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…

> serious but hobbyist > ~15k hands last month. Is that not roughly a full-time jobs' worth of poker? (15k hands > 12k minutes? > 200 hours > 6h/day)

I play online and multiple tables. 600 hands takes ~90 minutes at 6ish tables. Each table is ~75hands/h.

I can play up to 12 at the same time, but my play suffers and I don't feel like I'm able to focus and get better.

Re: How to make decisions like a poker player

#148

Post by Raidion »

bglusman wrote: post #90
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…

I think you meant a 50% chance for $100 is the same as a 5% chance for $1000 right? Just... funny math error as I was like, wait, no... I'll take the 10% chance at $1000 every time! (unless I'm desperate for my next meal, then, as you say, the lower variance would point to higher certainty of some money vs max expected value) EDIT: I see someone else noticed this further down than I looked in comments, sorry for dupe…

Yea messed it up, I blame pre coffee. I'm a bad poker player pre coffee too!

Re: How to make decisions like a poker player

#149

Post by lgas »

sokoloff wrote: post #113
lgas wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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

A problem for those players, an opportunity for others :)

Re: How to make decisions like a poker player

#150

Post by sokoloff »

lgas wrote: post #149
sokoloff wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

A problem for those players, an opportunity for others :)

True!

Reminds me of: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_word_for_%22crisis%2...

Post reply on HN