manzanillo53
Legend
Platinum Level
Very good question, and I have to agree. Basic math will help but with psychology you really have to know what to look for and when to execute. Something I have not mastered.
kanogott
Visionary
Platinum Level
I think both things are important and if something is not in a right way you could not have constantly win chips and money. At first the bottom is the math, so you could increase your success if you knew the winning rules of poker. So i mean knewing ods or icm calculations. But there is another rule of mathematics its the variance. And if your mindset is not stable you could loose alots of money. The bad run could be very long. And in this situation some players getting away from the a game. And then there is a negative feedback to the future game.
A
arshuns
Rock Star
Bronze Level
Math is very important. In fact, poker is originally math. But mathematics says that, on average, everyone has the same chance of winning. Therefore, in order to increase your chances of winning in general, you need to involve psychology.
IADaveMark
Rock Star
Silver Level
Sorry I'm just now seeing this. I was out of town earlier in the week and not sitting at my computer (which is odd for me). But since I have "math, statistics, game theory, and psychology" listed in my signature line as what I do for a living (and, in fact, have lectured on all of the above around the world), I figured I would chime in.
Incidentally, one of the reasons that I have been drawn to poker more and more over the years was because of my love of, and subsequent study of all of the above. For those of you who are into mathematical complexity classes, poker is one of the best NP-hard games around. Ever. This also means that it can't be "solved" by a computer until the heat death of the universe. However NP-hard problems are great fun for people because we don't need to "solve" it perfectly. We need to get as close as we can. And the exploration in that wide open state space is not only what makes it challenging but what makes it fun.
Anyway, for starters, one of the things that is missing in the question that the OP presented is the concept of Game Theory. Interestingly, game theory is often where math and psychology collide. Game Theory covers a number of different aspects that are easily recognizable in poker. One of the most obvious is the concept of a mixed strategy.
For example, if we were playing rock paper scissors and I was constantly throwing rock, what would your reaction be? The answer to this is pretty easy of course. You would start throwing paper so that you could always beat me. While it might take a few more rounds to sort out, the same thing would happen if I was rotating through playing rock, paper, and scissors on every single game in that order. You would figure out my pattern and know that you needed to counter it by playing a similar cycle but matching them so that they would always beat my play.
The same can be said for a lot of other games and situations. If you are perfectly predictable, then you are exploitable. People can know in advance what it is you're going to be doing and react accordingly. The obvious solution is to change things up, even to the point of randomness. There's a couple of problems with this, however. If both players are playing completely randomly, it isn't really much of a game, is it? The other problem is that using rock paper scissors as an example is a problem in that it is a completely balanced game. No one item is better than the others. Each of them can lose to 1 and beat one.
Poker, of course, isn't like that. You can't just play randomly regardless of the cards that you are dealt. However, each of the given situations of the cards that you have and what's on the board can be thought of as its own little decision game. We use a mixed strategy when we play the exact same situation in a number of different ways just to throw people off.
Continuing the example that I said above, if I were to always go all in when I had top pair or better, bet half pot when I had middle pair, and check on all of my missed flops, it wouldn't be very long until people could figure out that it's probably not a good idea to call when I go all-in. That's why we do stuff like checking when we flop top set sometimes but betting it at other times. And that's where part of the psychology kicks in.
But sorting out what's good, what's bad, what's a potential opportunity and what's a situation where we are very likely completely locked out is all math. Math and statistics are the most important part of the game simply because things such as hand rankings can be reduced down to “X > Y”. Going beyond that, we end up with more complicated things such as "what are the odds of me getting X which would be greater than Y?” Obviously that's where we get stuff like pot odds in order to size our bets, determine what bets we will call, etc. That's just pure math.
So what if we were to rewrite rock paper scissors so that it wasn't completely balanced?
Taking a game such as the classic Stratego, it was pretty obvious which pieces beat what other pieces based entirely on their number rank. With some exceptions. For those that aren't familiar, the lowest number beat a higher number. So a 8 would beat a 9, a 7 would beat an 8 and a 9, a 6 would beat a 7, 8, and a 9, etc.
Well then, since a 1 would beat 2s through 9s, why didn’t people just take their 1s and mow through the opposition? Well, because there were bombs… and bombs blew up anything that attack them. But they couldn’t move! So just take your 1 and attack things that move, right? Well, there was another piece—a spy. The spy could move, and everything else could beat it… except for a 1. The spy was the only moveable thing that could kill a 1.
So how do you do this? How do you use your spy effectively to kill the marauding 1? If you start moving towards the 1, the other player might get suspicious. OTOH, you could do that with any other piece… say, a 6. Boldly move towards the 1 and chase it even though you know you would lose if you caught it. And this, my friends, was a proper bluff in my childhood.
Same thing with placing bombs. Many people would place bombs around their flag to keep it from being captured. Only 8s could defuse bombs safely. So a player would find a bomb, find another bomb next to it, and figure that the flag was nestled safely behind them. Nope… we would SOMETIMES put a flag way far away from the bombs just to get the other player to waste time and units pursuing in the wrong direction. In the meantime, we would be doing our own exploring in the hopes of doing damage or finding the enemy’s flag before they figured out our ruse. Another bluff—although one that was a larger setup ahead of time that took longer to play out.
Notice now how the rules of the game involve math—specifically the hierarchy—and other things such as how many of each type of piece you started with, that 9s could move much faster than the other pieces, etc. However, we could use that math and the unknown surrounding the situation to our advantage. Make the other player fear or at least be wary of something. Make the other player believe something that wasn’t true. Lure the other player into traps. All of that is the psychology of the game.
And this is poker.
You can play it without the psychology and all of the tricks, certainly. However, you then start edging towards predictable and, therefore, exploitable. And remember the fact that the other player might be doing psychological manipulation of you! It takes knowledge and awareness to prevent that from happening. So whether you are actively using psychology and game theory in a situation or game, you need to know how it works in order to keep yourself from being tricked and beaten.
Incidentally, you will hear people talk about GTO play in poker. That is "game theory optimal". GTO is the play that means that you can't do worse regardless of what the other player does. In game theory, there is a similar idea called Pareto Optimality where you can't make one player better without making the other(s) worse off. This is great if we are seeing the best outcome for everyone involved... find that optimal solution and we're good. But that's not what we are trying to do in poker. That's why GTO is preferred. We want to have the "safest" situation. Oddly, GTO play requires the use of a mixed strategy so that we aren't exploitable... it just helps to tell us what that mixed strategy should entail and how much we should use each of the options. It's... well... it's... complicated.
And yes, it is a combination of math and psychology.
So there you have it.
Learn the math first, then understand the game theory, and tap into psychology to utilize it to your advantage.
Incidentally, one of the reasons that I have been drawn to poker more and more over the years was because of my love of, and subsequent study of all of the above. For those of you who are into mathematical complexity classes, poker is one of the best NP-hard games around. Ever. This also means that it can't be "solved" by a computer until the heat death of the universe. However NP-hard problems are great fun for people because we don't need to "solve" it perfectly. We need to get as close as we can. And the exploration in that wide open state space is not only what makes it challenging but what makes it fun.
Anyway, for starters, one of the things that is missing in the question that the OP presented is the concept of Game Theory. Interestingly, game theory is often where math and psychology collide. Game Theory covers a number of different aspects that are easily recognizable in poker. One of the most obvious is the concept of a mixed strategy.
For example, if we were playing rock paper scissors and I was constantly throwing rock, what would your reaction be? The answer to this is pretty easy of course. You would start throwing paper so that you could always beat me. While it might take a few more rounds to sort out, the same thing would happen if I was rotating through playing rock, paper, and scissors on every single game in that order. You would figure out my pattern and know that you needed to counter it by playing a similar cycle but matching them so that they would always beat my play.
The same can be said for a lot of other games and situations. If you are perfectly predictable, then you are exploitable. People can know in advance what it is you're going to be doing and react accordingly. The obvious solution is to change things up, even to the point of randomness. There's a couple of problems with this, however. If both players are playing completely randomly, it isn't really much of a game, is it? The other problem is that using rock paper scissors as an example is a problem in that it is a completely balanced game. No one item is better than the others. Each of them can lose to 1 and beat one.
Poker, of course, isn't like that. You can't just play randomly regardless of the cards that you are dealt. However, each of the given situations of the cards that you have and what's on the board can be thought of as its own little decision game. We use a mixed strategy when we play the exact same situation in a number of different ways just to throw people off.
Continuing the example that I said above, if I were to always go all in when I had top pair or better, bet half pot when I had middle pair, and check on all of my missed flops, it wouldn't be very long until people could figure out that it's probably not a good idea to call when I go all-in. That's why we do stuff like checking when we flop top set sometimes but betting it at other times. And that's where part of the psychology kicks in.
But sorting out what's good, what's bad, what's a potential opportunity and what's a situation where we are very likely completely locked out is all math. Math and statistics are the most important part of the game simply because things such as hand rankings can be reduced down to “X > Y”. Going beyond that, we end up with more complicated things such as "what are the odds of me getting X which would be greater than Y?” Obviously that's where we get stuff like pot odds in order to size our bets, determine what bets we will call, etc. That's just pure math.
So what if we were to rewrite rock paper scissors so that it wasn't completely balanced?
Taking a game such as the classic Stratego, it was pretty obvious which pieces beat what other pieces based entirely on their number rank. With some exceptions. For those that aren't familiar, the lowest number beat a higher number. So a 8 would beat a 9, a 7 would beat an 8 and a 9, a 6 would beat a 7, 8, and a 9, etc.
Well then, since a 1 would beat 2s through 9s, why didn’t people just take their 1s and mow through the opposition? Well, because there were bombs… and bombs blew up anything that attack them. But they couldn’t move! So just take your 1 and attack things that move, right? Well, there was another piece—a spy. The spy could move, and everything else could beat it… except for a 1. The spy was the only moveable thing that could kill a 1.
So how do you do this? How do you use your spy effectively to kill the marauding 1? If you start moving towards the 1, the other player might get suspicious. OTOH, you could do that with any other piece… say, a 6. Boldly move towards the 1 and chase it even though you know you would lose if you caught it. And this, my friends, was a proper bluff in my childhood.
Same thing with placing bombs. Many people would place bombs around their flag to keep it from being captured. Only 8s could defuse bombs safely. So a player would find a bomb, find another bomb next to it, and figure that the flag was nestled safely behind them. Nope… we would SOMETIMES put a flag way far away from the bombs just to get the other player to waste time and units pursuing in the wrong direction. In the meantime, we would be doing our own exploring in the hopes of doing damage or finding the enemy’s flag before they figured out our ruse. Another bluff—although one that was a larger setup ahead of time that took longer to play out.
Notice now how the rules of the game involve math—specifically the hierarchy—and other things such as how many of each type of piece you started with, that 9s could move much faster than the other pieces, etc. However, we could use that math and the unknown surrounding the situation to our advantage. Make the other player fear or at least be wary of something. Make the other player believe something that wasn’t true. Lure the other player into traps. All of that is the psychology of the game.
And this is poker.
You can play it without the psychology and all of the tricks, certainly. However, you then start edging towards predictable and, therefore, exploitable. And remember the fact that the other player might be doing psychological manipulation of you! It takes knowledge and awareness to prevent that from happening. So whether you are actively using psychology and game theory in a situation or game, you need to know how it works in order to keep yourself from being tricked and beaten.
Incidentally, you will hear people talk about GTO play in poker. That is "game theory optimal". GTO is the play that means that you can't do worse regardless of what the other player does. In game theory, there is a similar idea called Pareto Optimality where you can't make one player better without making the other(s) worse off. This is great if we are seeing the best outcome for everyone involved... find that optimal solution and we're good. But that's not what we are trying to do in poker. That's why GTO is preferred. We want to have the "safest" situation. Oddly, GTO play requires the use of a mixed strategy so that we aren't exploitable... it just helps to tell us what that mixed strategy should entail and how much we should use each of the options. It's... well... it's... complicated.
And yes, it is a combination of math and psychology.
So there you have it.
Learn the math first, then understand the game theory, and tap into psychology to utilize it to your advantage.
recerveau
Visionary
Platinum Level
Personally, I am of equal importance to both, as they complement each other within the game.
SopianaeExtra
between my 2 ears
Bronze Level
Love your post. You very succinctly described one of the axioms of the game.
CheckDisOut
Enthusiast
Silver Level
hobojim1247
Legend
Platinum Level
Was the question about which offensive strategy is the better in football, running or passing? lol
The following is the summation in a previous post, it is not my authorship, I am not this eloquent.
"And yes, it is a combination of math and psychology.
Learn the math first, then understand the game theory, and tap into psychology to utilize it to your advantage."
The following is the summation in a previous post, it is not my authorship, I am not this eloquent.
"And yes, it is a combination of math and psychology.
Learn the math first, then understand the game theory, and tap into psychology to utilize it to your advantage."
jordanbillie
Legend
Bronze Level
Nice! I'm certainly getting a sense of analytics from your post.
Have you found any areas of intense analysis freed from intellection that drift to intuition?
What I mean is, have aspects of poker which previously required tiresome intellection now simply become "gut feelings?"
To me, this is the aim.
My attempt is to play the game of poker without any mental blockage whatsoever, and to be in the zone/flow/Zen/happy place/whatever you would like to call it, without being ignorant of what I already know (from previous research/intellection). The balance between constant analysis and trusting what you know is part of the art of the long poker game. My focus is on this balance.
ratbat615
Legend
Platinum Level
I agree with you psychology is very useful cause you have to make your opponents think you have something you don’t. Real mind games .
whiskers77
The art of purring
Loyaler
Oh my god, I love your scientific approach to this. And at all this question and topic is very interesting in my opinion.
For myself, I have to admit, that I started playing poker mostly with the psychological aspect and less with math.
I am very lazy and lame about calculations in my head, although I had 3 semesters of Math in my study of computer science.
But I am not good about this. I belong to the generation, that was pampered by calculators, I guess.
Of course, I can do basic calculations, but not fast enough honestly when I am multi-tabling.
Then I just use rough experience and math for my decisions, but will never calculate it exactly in my head.
So, therefore, I would vote more for psychology, but I think also some math is helpful for basic decisions as well.
F
firerain
Rock Star
Bronze Level
Mathematics and psychology are both important in a live poker setting. However, mathematics to make correct fundemental play since you have few reads in online poker (bet sizing) to live poker.
L
LOOPY
Rock Star
Bronze Level
I think math is more important in online poker games, but both math and psychology are equally important in live table action.
I Live Poker
Legend
Platinum Level
It's poker is magnificent. I think we should change poker from a sport to a 12th art!Nice! I'm certainly getting a sense of analytics from your post.
Have you found any areas of intense analysis freed from intellection that drift to intuition?
What I mean is, have aspects of poker which previously required tiresome intellection now simply become "gut feelings?"
To me, this is the aim.
My attempt is to play the game of poker without any mental blockage whatsoever, and to be in the zone/flow/Zen/happy place/whatever you would like to call it, without being ignorant of what I already know (from previous research/intellection). The balance between constant analysis and trusting what you know is part of the art of the long poker game. My focus is on this balance.
IADaveMark
Rock Star
Silver Level
What you are talking about touches on a couple of things. If you are familiar with the book Blink by Malcolm Gladwell, he talks a lot about how experts can actually detect things in their area of expertise but can't explain exactly why. That's along the lines of what you are talking about where you have internalized so much information that it becomes intuition beyond even what you might be able to understand.
A bit more along the lines of what you were talking about is something that is referred to as the adult stages of learning. Those come into play when we are approaching something that we aren't familiar with. The first one is unconscious incompetence. We suck and we don't know it. The second one is conscious incompetence. we suck and we realized that we do but we don't know how to fix it. Number three is conscious competence. If we are thinking about what we are doing we can actually do it. However, we have to concentrate on it at all times. The fourth one, and is really the one you are after, is unconscious competence. We can do it without thinking about it.
An interesting problem with this is that sometimes complacency kicks in add people wrap back around from unconscious competence back to step 1 of unconscious incompetence. We get so complacent that we start making mistakes and don't realize that we are doing so.
So yes, obviously the first thing that people need to do is become competent when they are thinking about it and eventually stuff starts sliding into unconscious competence. There are repeating patterns that we have seen enough that we just instinctively know how to deal with it. Not only does that come with regards to how to handle particular hands and board textures but can also apply to the psychology of dealing with the other players.
jordanbillie
Legend
Bronze Level
This is exactly what I am talking about! The balance of unconscious competence (thank you for introducing me to this term/concept) with continous improvement. Understanding when to trust intuition and when to go back and reanalyze common spots because complacency might be setting in.
Super interesting stuff! This is why I love CardsChat!
Thanks Dave !
