Hello, I am a Batchelor Student of Psychology in the Netherlands, and together with a group of other students we are currently doing research on Poker (Texas Hold’em). We are interested how much effect training has on novice players, and we are currently building up a research design where we want to train a group of novice players in a simple strategy and have this group compete against an untrained group. We are all just occasional players and therefore do not know a lot about poker stategy. Our question therefore is, which stategy is very simple but still very efficent. I came across the starting hand chars, something that looks very promising. However depending on the wwebside you go on you find different Charts with different values, and varying complexity. My follow up question therefore is, how reliable would you say are these starting hand charts, and which one is the most reliable?

We would like to thank you very much in advance already, and really appreciate any piece of information we can get.


Kind Regards,


Marcel

How are you going to conduct the experiment? Are you going to present the subjects with scenarios and see how often they will choose the optimum play or are you going to have them actually play poker against each other? It seems to effectively determine who was playing better, both groups would have to be presented with the same starting hands to eliminate the chance factor inherent in poker. I am interested to see what others have to say about this. Poker does seem to be an extremely challenging choice. Is your experiment going to allow for your subjects to read tells? Once I get going, I could probably come up with about 50 more questions... once I have had my coffee.

I will be interested to see the responses. But I would say it makes me think of a well known quote:


"Poker takes five minutes to learn but a lifetime to master." - Mike Sexton

My last thought is, who is funding this? (and can I have some of it if I ask nicely)

Are there already other experiments on which you could model your study? Maybe studies that have involved chess, backgammon or go?

Originally Posted by Melhin

We would like to thank you very much in advance already, and really appreciate any piece of information we can get.

Hi Marcel! Sounds very interesting, it would be great to see the results from that study when it's over. Starting hand chart is a good starting point. Check out this one for example: https://www.gripsed.com/strategy/poker-starting-hands. You can also find other tips as well for beginners from that site and it's definitely legit. Charts from poker training sites are probably the most reliable ones, I wouldn't rely on any random picture from Google search for example.

One very simple strategy is just to play straightforward poker. Determine your starting hands, play preflop according to them and then just solid poker from there on. Check or fold when you have nothing and keep playing (check/call/raise) if you do have something, draws included. Learn to fold mediocre hands if the action gets too heated and try to get as much as possible when you have the best hand. No bluffing, at least not much.

I would also recommend an exercise where you take an actual card deck and start dealing. First the flop, then turn and finally river. Figure out what are the nuts on each street because it is highly important to know the best possible hand on each situation. Only then you can figure out where your own hand stands in every situation and how close your own hand is getting busted on the next street or how close you are improving your own hand instead.

Playing against complete noobies might actually be hard because they can play with anything and make irrational moves just because they have no clue how to play that game. That's why the only way to beat them is to outplay them with good, solid poker. Wait for a good hand and then get the most out of it when that happens. That would be the simple strategy that I would teach to beginners

Oh and by the way, remember to make that experiment with more than one playing session since luck is also part of this game. Sometimes the worst players win just because they happen to hit better hands all the time. By playing more than one session, you reduce the effect of luck and focus on skill in the long run.

There are no only one way to win at poker, and there are a lot of circumstances that can change the game, you need to use charts to guidem but you will modify in the according of the circumstances, one player acting like a robot, and play a solid game, but only with method and charts, with no feeling, will be more easy to be beating, the villains can read his game and prevent some actions.

The great differential of a medium player to a good player, is his capacity to react to some unexpected moves. If you always bet with the top of your range, and just call with especulatives hands, in the long of tournamente you can lose good spots, and someone with medium hands can play waiting for one draw and make a good trap.


Since you are doing a psychology research. you can go beyond basics, studying ways to read opponents' actions, and acting on them, try to do a study that you can play any cards if you have good readings and reactions to the movements of other players.