[HN Gopher] An Introduction to the Theory and Practice of Poker ...
___________________________________________________________________
An Introduction to the Theory and Practice of Poker (2020)
Author : Igor_Wiwi
Score : 46 points
Date : 2024-02-21 21:08 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (hopkinspokercourse.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (hopkinspokercourse.com)
| JohnMakin wrote:
| Cool idea. I was a professional poker player off/on during my
| life and came of age during the Sklansky "Theory of Poker" days,
| which I was pleased to see on the reading list. However, much/all
| of the reading recs and I imagine some of the theory taught (only
| skimmed the lectures) is considered very outdated nowadays in the
| semi-pro and professional scene.
|
| Today, much of poker theory is driven by analyzers that are
| supposed to implement a practice called "GTO" (game theory
| optimal). There have been a lot of interesting findings in the
| last ~5 years that have come from these that I would be surprised
| to see in a course like this.
|
| To bring someone from completely n00b level to "okay", this
| course is probably fine.
| alexb_ wrote:
| > Today, much of poker theory is driven by analyzers that are
| supposed to implement a practice called "GTO" (game theory
| optimal). There have been a lot of interesting findings in the
| last ~5 years that have come from these that I would be
| surprised to see in a course like this.
|
| Where can one learn about these? Resources on fast moving areas
| like this is super hard to find if you're not "in the know"
| already.
| JohnMakin wrote:
| IME mostly in poker forums like twoplustwo.com or reddit or
| behind training site paywalls, but there are also a lot of
| bad/minsinformed opinions out there
| jvans wrote:
| A lot of it happens in closed discussions with pros who are
| running various simulations. Some of it is posted on training
| sites but a lot is not.
|
| The game these days is all about reverse engineering strategy
| principles from GTO simulation output. E.g. what general
| principle causes the solver output to say raise 30% in this
| spot vs raise 80%? If you come up with a coherent story, you
| can apply that thought process to new situations. It's a
| totally different game than it was a decade ago
|
| Here is one of the solvers if you are interested:
| https://piosolver.myshopify.com/
|
| Fwiw there is a significant amount of skill involved in
| choosing how to run simulations. I think they have some intro
| videos to help you
| JohnMakin wrote:
| > Fwiw there is a significant amount of skill involved in
| choosing how to run simulations
|
| and sometimes a pretty significant amount of memory - these
| applications use massive amounts of it
| natdempk wrote:
| What would you recommend to bring someone from noob to semi-pro
| as quickly as possible?
| JohnMakin wrote:
| There's lots of training sites and a lot of opinions about
| the best one/way to do this, but I think doug polk's website
| upswing poker caters to a broad range of skill levels and is
| the one I'd personally recommend (warning though the site
| itself is awfully designed). Nothing is really free out there
| I'm aware of unless you spend a lot of time discussing things
| in poker forums, which I wouldn't personally recommend.
| kqr wrote:
| I'm not semi-pro but I would expect spending hours with GTO
| solvers and other poker training software will play a large
| part in it. The idea is to get quick feedback on how well you
| are judging difficult situations.
|
| Some people also have to spend a lot of time working on
| emotional regulation to avoid throwing good money after bad.
| thatguysaguy wrote:
| I have a friend who's self-studied up to a pretty good hourly
| rate within ~2 years. The main thing he does is tons and tons
| of time studying solver outputs.
| ProllyInfamous wrote:
| >The main thing he does is tons and tons of time...
|
| I was gonna'say "patience," but your response is better.
| pests wrote:
| Yeah, this is it.
|
| I was a complete blackjack noob until a few months ago when
| I got interested in my states online casinos, specifically
| blackjack.
|
| I would check literally every position (even obvious ones)
| to see the expected value for each decision and quite
| quickly built up an intuition when I was playing without
| the aid (the live dealer games sometimes move too fast to
| input and get results back in time).
|
| Now its like second nature and only in rare situations do I
| double check my judgement.
| brettv2 wrote:
| noob to "semi pro" isn't the jump you are looking for. To get
| to a level even remotely close to 'semi pro' would require
| thousands of hours of playtime.
|
| you just need to grasp the basics.
|
| Phil Gordon's Little Green Book and The Theory of Poker
| (Sklansky) are common recommendations.
| antisthenes wrote:
| Learn pre-flop play. It's the foundation to everything else.
| sokoloff wrote:
| I'm going to answer a different question than the one you
| asked:
|
| As a noob, what's the quickest way to become better than
| breakeven, then better than breakeven including the rake/seat
| charge?
|
| Find a way to play against the worst players you can find.
| There are likely some tough games near you; avoid those. They
| might be some soft games; play in those.
|
| Game selection and exploiting opponent weaknesses can easily
| turn a player with a grasp of the basics into a winning
| player.
| galaxyLogic wrote:
| Isn't it much about "poker-face" including knowing your
| opponents?
| sokoloff wrote:
| Poker face doesn't matter if you play against players who
| are only looking at their cards (inc community cards). ;)
| antisthenes wrote:
| With a big caveat that GTO is only an optimal strategy against
| other players who are trying to play optimally.
|
| If you have a table full of clowns who are playing a range of
| strategies (ranging from being spiteful to just all-ining every
| hand, to barely knowing how to play poker), you will very
| quickly go broke with GTO, because you didn't adjust.
| highfrequency wrote:
| This is wrong. If a strategy is actually GTO, then it is
| unexploitable. Meaning that if you're playing GTO poker
| against a super loose player, you may not be maximally
| exploiting _them_ , but you should certainly not be losing
| money (in expectation). See Nash Equilibrium
| skulk wrote:
| This is also wrong. Unexploitable strategies can still be
| -EV. This video does a good job of breaking it down:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfuXD0YADIM
| galaxyLogic wrote:
| I'm not even familiar with the rules but I wonder: If AI can win
| in Chess and Go should it not win in Poker too? And when you have
| online poker, it should be possible to ask the AI on your laptop
| to play it for you? Is that what online Poker players do?
| rrr_oh_man wrote:
| Yes, yes, and: yes.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-02-21 23:00 UTC)