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Date: 06 Feb 2009 16:17:20
From: Mark B [Diputsur]
Subject: How poker strategies spread.
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I decided to try to help make this a better group in terms of content. I
swear. So with that being said, it's been on my conscience that I need
positive karma in this regard. (Very old-school., classic dip style from
here on out. Got that?)
Let's look at how poker strategies spread through poker.
First, we have the poker-playing population. Within this population are
wealthy, successful players who have become famous from their success and
who others admire. One of the most famous and successful of these players
may write a book explaining in great detail, what it took to win. Aspiring
to win themselves, newcomers to the game and serious players study the work
and emulate their idol.
A logical fallacy now arises.
Each (or most) of the individual players involved in this scenario fails to
realize that the book, with practically everyone reading it and attempting
to play like it describes, *has changed the entire game*!
The question becomes: should you read Tad Perry's book to play like Tad
Perry or to play against guys like Tad Perry?
Let's take a simple case to look at.
A certain percentage of the poker playing population plays like Tad
Perry and the remaining players do not. Some of the players not playing
like Tad Perry are clueless. Some are playing to beat Tad Perry.
Since Tad Perry has totally given everything away about how he plays
and has essentially "turned his hole cards up" we will assume that players
playing to beat Tad really can beat Tad. Meanwhile, the Tad Perry
players can beat the clueless.
Mathmatically, some of this is very similar to studying predator/prey
relationships. (Memories of differential equations!!!)
[That sets me off on a tangent: My middle son now attends the 4th grade just
as I did. This has made me enormously proud. He's been asking me math
questions. Sometimes I can help; sometimes I forget the particular problem
type. Recently, I got to look smart in front of my own dad, when he
asked for help while I was with him, and I knew what to do.]
There are some assumptions we can make about the population levels.
Initializing our variables, we see that at the beginning there is only one
Tad Perry that knows how to play like Tad Perry. None of the rest
of the population has anyone in it with any particularly deep knowledge
about how Tad Perry is actually playing. After Tad writes his book,
knowledge of how he plays spreads. The growing number of Tads feed off of
the clueless and their numbers diminish rapidly. All but those who can
afford to lose are driven from the game.
Where should we set the percentage of players playing to beat Tad?
Since few people ever even view poker in these terms, I assume that there
are relatively few such players in the actual poker playing
population. Assuming no growth, one should go out and buy Tad Perry's
book and beat up on the clueless. Over time this will become less and less
effective as you are more often pitted against another Tad Perry. In
those cases, skill is about a wash and luck takes over. If the number of
clueless goes too low, all the Tads will lose to the rake and beat up on the
poor clueless who don't number enough to feed the Tads enough money to stay
ahead.
But surely the numbers of players out to beat Tad would grow, even if only
slowly, out of sheer necessity. So, what if the numbers of players out to
beat Tad were more significant?
If there are more clueless than Tad's out against you, it might seem you
should join the Tads. But wait, you have the choice of playing like Tad
against the clueless and like an anti-Tad when against a Tad. This shouldn't
be that hard because Tad always gives away his play! At this point, I'd have
to change my advice and say, go out and buy Tad's book and use it to figure
out the probable hole cards of all the Tads out there, and to beat up on
both the Tads and the clueless.
Note that the effect on the clueless population doesn't change in terms of
whether there a lot of anti-Tads around or very few. Some of the clueless
will not run out of money at the level they play if they can make up the
losses and then some outside of poker. Others will go broke or quit out of
frustration. And many are fully aware of Tad's book and may switch camps.
Some of those may even see that an anti-Tad approach is called for.
Eventually, the totally clueless would go extinct except for 1) New players
to the game, and 2) Players who really *don't* have a clue (and who maybe
even don't want a clue) and who will not run out of money at the level they
play. This does happen, but is very rare because most players *want* to know
how to win and *want* to be good players, so there is pressure to leave the
losers camp if possible. The majority of the clueless must therefore be
newcomers. (Which reminds me of the old advice to only teach new players the
rules, not how to play.)
With the Tad's and anti-Tad's feeding on the newcomers, and newcomers either
leaving the game or switching camps, the anti-Tads become wealthy and
successful over time, and the newcomers and the Tad's (who never abandoned
their Tad strategy due to it's initial success, but bemoan the losses of
recent years) come to admire the anti-Tads and aspire to play like them.
Finally, having accumulated an undeniable mountain of wealth, the king of
the anti-Tad's arises, writes and sells a book, and everyone buys it. In the
next cycle, the anti-anti-Tad arises and takes over.
dip
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Date: 07 Feb 2009 13:33:56
From: Stephen Jacobs
Subject: Re: How poker strategies spread.
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"Mark B [Diputsur]" <diputsur@gmail.com > wrote in message
news:gmi9cu$e6b$1@news.motzarella.org...
>I decided to try to help make this a better group in terms of content. I
> swear. So with that being said, it's been on my conscience that I need
> positive karma in this regard. (Very old-school., classic dip style from
> here on out. Got that?)
>
> Let's look at how poker strategies spread through poker.
>
> First, we have the poker-playing population. Within this population are
> wealthy, successful players who have become famous from their success and
> who others admire. One of the most famous and successful of these players
> may write a book explaining in great detail, what it took to win. Aspiring
> to win themselves, newcomers to the game and serious players study the
> work
> and emulate their idol....
There's a serious disconnect right here. It comes down to my favorite line
from a 2+2 book. In Ray Zee's high-low book, describing a tricky situation,
he ends with "In orther words, you have to play poker well."
There are strategies that can be explained well enough so good players can
benefit from them but poor players will do even worse from trying to follow
them (a particular case is Chip Reese's stud chapter in S/S). There are
strategies that are extremely sensitive to game conditions (high-low games
have this attribute), and a great player's description of how to play in the
games he generally encounters may be wildly misleading about how to play
under the conditions the reader usually encounters. And then there's David
Sklansky's brilliant chapter in S/S on playing high-low stud, no qualifier
(mostly without declare), which covers a game no longer seen in casinos, but
which presents ideas that a clever reader can use in all sorts of places.
These kinds of things may become popular briefly (until the fish
mis-applying them bust), or may never spread much. Good players may get
differing take-aways from strategy discussions by other good players.
Rather importantly, some key aspects of good strategies may not be fun, and
even pretty good players may not adopt them because of that.
Sure, there are cases where every adopter of the strategy plays pretty much
similarly, and pretty much as described (I think of Harrington's tournament
NLHE strategy), but those are a minority. And even there, Harrington never
played the way he describes because it's a baseline strategy, and one of the
keys is the deviations from baseline.
So anyway, predator-prey models and spread-of-invasive-species models are
much much too simple to describe poker strategies.
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Date: 06 Feb 2009 16:16:03
From: FangBanger
Subject: Re: How poker strategies spread.
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On Feb 6 2009 3:17 PM, Mark B [Diputsur] wrote:
> I decided to try to help make this a better group in terms of content. I
> swear. So with that being said, it's been on my conscience that I need
> positive karma in this regard. (Very old-school., classic dip style from
> here on out. Got that?)
>
> Let's look at how poker strategies spread through poker.
>
> First, we have the poker-playing population. Within this population are
> wealthy, successful players who have become famous from their success and
> who others admire. One of the most famous and successful of these players
> may write a book explaining in great detail, what it took to win. Aspiring
> to win themselves, newcomers to the game and serious players study the work
> and emulate their idol.
>
> A logical fallacy now arises.
>
> Each (or most) of the individual players involved in this scenario fails to
> realize that the book, with practically everyone reading it and attempting
> to play like it describes, *has changed the entire game*!
>
> The question becomes: should you read Tad Perry's book to play like Tad
> Perry or to play against guys like Tad Perry?
>
> Let's take a simple case to look at.
>
> A certain percentage of the poker playing population plays like Tad
> Perry and the remaining players do not. Some of the players not playing
> like Tad Perry are clueless. Some are playing to beat Tad Perry.
> Since Tad Perry has totally given everything away about how he plays
> and has essentially "turned his hole cards up" we will assume that players
> playing to beat Tad really can beat Tad. Meanwhile, the Tad Perry
> players can beat the clueless.
>
> Mathmatically, some of this is very similar to studying predator/prey
> relationships. (Memories of differential equations!!!)
>
> [That sets me off on a tangent: My middle son now attends the 4th grade just
> as I did. This has made me enormously proud. He's been asking me math
> questions. Sometimes I can help; sometimes I forget the particular problem
> type. Recently, I got to look smart in front of my own dad, when he
> asked for help while I was with him, and I knew what to do.]
>
> There are some assumptions we can make about the population levels.
> Initializing our variables, we see that at the beginning there is only one
> Tad Perry that knows how to play like Tad Perry. None of the rest
> of the population has anyone in it with any particularly deep knowledge
> about how Tad Perry is actually playing. After Tad writes his book,
> knowledge of how he plays spreads. The growing number of Tads feed off of
> the clueless and their numbers diminish rapidly. All but those who can
> afford to lose are driven from the game.
>
> Where should we set the percentage of players playing to beat Tad?
>
> Since few people ever even view poker in these terms, I assume that there
> are relatively few such players in the actual poker playing
> population. Assuming no growth, one should go out and buy Tad Perry's
> book and beat up on the clueless. Over time this will become less and less
> effective as you are more often pitted against another Tad Perry. In
> those cases, skill is about a wash and luck takes over. If the number of
> clueless goes too low, all the Tads will lose to the rake and beat up on the
> poor clueless who don't number enough to feed the Tads enough money to stay
> ahead.
>
> But surely the numbers of players out to beat Tad would grow, even if only
> slowly, out of sheer necessity. So, what if the numbers of players out to
> beat Tad were more significant?
>
> If there are more clueless than Tad's out against you, it might seem you
> should join the Tads. But wait, you have the choice of playing like Tad
> against the clueless and like an anti-Tad when against a Tad. This shouldn't
> be that hard because Tad always gives away his play! At this point, I'd have
> to change my advice and say, go out and buy Tad's book and use it to figure
> out the probable hole cards of all the Tads out there, and to beat up on
> both the Tads and the clueless.
>
> Note that the effect on the clueless population doesn't change in terms of
> whether there a lot of anti-Tads around or very few. Some of the clueless
> will not run out of money at the level they play if they can make up the
> losses and then some outside of poker. Others will go broke or quit out of
> frustration. And many are fully aware of Tad's book and may switch camps.
> Some of those may even see that an anti-Tad approach is called for.
>
> Eventually, the totally clueless would go extinct except for 1) New players
> to the game, and 2) Players who really *don't* have a clue (and who maybe
> even don't want a clue) and who will not run out of money at the level they
> play. This does happen, but is very rare because most players *want* to know
> how to win and *want* to be good players, so there is pressure to leave the
> losers camp if possible. The majority of the clueless must therefore be
> newcomers. (Which reminds me of the old advice to only teach new players the
> rules, not how to play.)
>
> With the Tad's and anti-Tad's feeding on the newcomers, and newcomers either
> leaving the game or switching camps, the anti-Tads become wealthy and
> successful over time, and the newcomers and the Tad's (who never abandoned
> their Tad strategy due to it's initial success, but bemoan the losses of
> recent years) come to admire the anti-Tads and aspire to play like them.
>
> Finally, having accumulated an undeniable mountain of wealth, the king of
> the anti-Tad's arises, writes and sells a book, and everyone buys it. In the
> next cycle, the anti-anti-Tad arises and takes over.
>
> dip
MORON TO MORON
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.
Voltaire
--------
: the next generation of web-newsreaders : http://www.recgroups.com
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Date: 06 Feb 2009 20:02:14
From: CheckRazor
Subject: Re: How poker strategies spread.
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> On Feb 6 2009 3:17 PM, Mark B [Diputsur] wrote:
a bunch of nonsense
>>> Dude, get off the meth. Your first five paragraphs didn't make much sen=
se, but when I got to the one where you said you were enormously proud of y=
our son making fourth grade, and you couldn't help him with fourth-grade ma=
th, I realized you are probably tweaking .
That's the longest post I've ever seen you make, and most of it didn't
make any sense.
Seek.Help.Now.
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Date: 06 Feb 2009 14:09:02
From: Tad Perry
Subject: Re: How poker strategies spread.
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????
I'm not sure if this is some sort of slam on the fact I wrote a book, but
it's good to note that mine is not a book that espouses a given strategy.
It's a comprehensive overview of how poker works (and even includes this
aspect of evolving strategies) and gives all of the various adjustments one
should make for the playing environment at hand. Plus, I'm a very formidable
player. It's only people like you who think otherwise.
tvp
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Date: 06 Feb 2009 17:21:13
From: Mark B [Diputsur]
Subject: Re: How poker strategies spread.
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"Tad Perry" <tadperry@comcast.net > wrote in message
news:gmiceu$mdc$1@news.motzarella.org...
> ????
>
> I'm not sure if this is some sort of slam on the fact I wrote a book, but
> it's good to note that mine is not a book that espouses a given strategy.
> It's a comprehensive overview of how poker works (and even includes this
> aspect of evolving strategies) and gives all of the various adjustments
> one
> should make for the playing environment at hand. Plus, I'm a very
> formidable
> player. It's only people like you who think otherwise.
>
> tvp
????
I've never stated (nor do I think) otherwise.
You're just fun to tease =) How's Tess?
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