Today’s poker is not your grandfather’s game. Games have become unimaginably aggressive, and the level of play by both amateurs and pros has risen dramatically. Today, aggressive betting and bluffing have become the norm, and plays that were once considered state of the art are common knowledge. It's argued that the cause of this remarkable transition in both approach and skill level has been the influx of thousands of online pros competing in tough games over the internet. Increasingly though, the online/live distinction doesn't hold up— today, pros are grouped more usefully by their poker methodology than by their preferred field of play. The old guard are exploitative players, always trying to gather enough information on their opponents to stay one step ahead. Increasingly, the highest limits of online play have been dominated by game theory optimal (GTO, or optimal, for short) players who don’t much care what their opponent does and seek to play a strategy designed in the long run to beat any other strategy in the long run.
I started my serious poker career in the spring of 2008 firmly on the exploitative side of the fence. Since then, I’ve traversed to the other side and become a champion of GTO play both as player and teacher, all while competing in the highest-stakes games. In 2012 I was lucky enough to be the biggest winner in online poker cash games, taking home about $4 million. (I try not to delude myself: being a winner is primarily skill, being the biggest winner requires a lot of luck.) While I was a winning pro before 2012, I attribute much of my extraordinary success in the past year to my work on optimal poker.
For our purposes, an optimal player seeks to find the optimal strategy, which is the strategy such that any deviation from it breaks even or loses against our opponent’s best counterstrategy. For any game, there exists at least one optimal strategy. As a GTO poker pro, my time and effort go to getting as close to the optimal strategy as possible. Each step along this journeyis called a near-optimal strategy.
As a poker player I have to prioritize the practical over the theoretical at all times. In other words, no matter how interesting this game theory stuff may be, I have to ask, “How is this going to make me money?” A frequent criticism of GTO play in the poker community is that it isn’t particularly profitable, more specifically that GTO play may be useful in minimizing losses against excellent players,and it fails to win significantly against weaker players. A version of this argument is made by David Sklansky in his classic Theory of Poker:
Game theory cannot replace sound judgment. It should only be used when you think your opponent's judgment is as good as or better than yours or when you simply don’t know your opponent. Furthermore, game theory can be used accurately to bluff or call a possible bluff only in a situation where the bettor obviously either has the best hand or is bluffing. (189)
The argument will become clearer through example—using a simple game we’re all familiar with: Rock, Paper, Scissors (RPS). A simple thought experiment should allow you to find the optimal strategy for RPS in just a few minutes. Imagine that before each throw, you had to write down on a slip of paper the frequency with which you would throw out rock, paper, or scissors—and then hand this slip of paper to your opponent. For example, rock half the time, paper half the time, and scissors never. Since your opponent now knows your strategy is to never play scissors, he’ll never play rock, and of his remaining choices paper is superior since it always breaks even or wins, while rock breaks even or loses. More generally, anytime our opponent knows that our frequencies are out of balance, we make it easy for him to pick a specific throw that will beat us in the long run.
Consequently, the optimal strategy for RPS must make all of our frequencies equal in order to defend against an opponent who knows our strategy—therefore, playing rock, paper and scissors one third each is the optimal strategy. A funny feature of RPS’s optimal strategy is that any strategy played against it will have an expected value (EV) of 0. Even the most exploitable strategies— for example, always rock—break even against the optimal strategy. If the optimal strategy in poker is like the optimal strategy in RPS and breaks even against all, or many, of our opponent’s counterstrategies, then, it can be argued, game theory should never replace our judgment. We play poker to win, and any sound poker strategy should aim to give us an expectation in excess of the rake.
Let’s think about one more simple game: tic-tac-toe (TTT). TTT is a game of complete information, which means we can see all of our opponent’s past moves. Any competent TTT player knows that games between two good players will always end in a draw. But let’s say we open with an X in the center and our opponent responds mistakenly with an O in the middle:
We’ve already won the game, and our opponent can only avoid a loss if we make a mistake. In the language of optimal strategies, our opponent has played an exploitable strategy, and if we respond with:
X O
X
X O
then we’re playing the optimal strategy. Had both TTT players played the optimal strategy, the game would end in a draw, which is similar to how we saw the optimal strategy always break even in the long run in RPS. But unlike RPS, when one player deviates from the optimal strategy in TTT, his opponent will be able to secure a win. The technical term for a suboptimal strategy that always breaks even or loses against the optimal strategy is a dominated strategy. My main project as an optimal poker pro is to eliminate from my game as many dominated strategies as possible.
Chess is an example of a much more complicated game of complete information. Chess is complicated enough that it has still not been perfectly solved but simple enough that top computers almost always win against the best humans, and against average human players, the computer always wins. For the computer, chess is a lot like tic-tac-toe when played against a novice who doesn’t see that his strategy is dominated. In a game as complicated as chess, the optimal strategy will always secure a victory against even advanced suboptimal strategies.
In my experience poker is a lot like chess, and not very much at all like RPS. Optimal (or near-optimal) poker will absolutely crush even relatively strong strategies played by intelligent humans, because even professional players (myself included) employ many dominated strategies.
It turns out that some forms of poker are becoming much like chess. The simplest form of poker, from a programming perspective, is heads-up limit hold ’em, and today’s best bots routinely beat world-class human players by a significant margin. More specifically, world-class heads-up limit hold ’em pros typically win 1to 5 big blinds per hundred hands (bb/100) against somewhat weaker players, and the best bots now beat the pros by about the same amount as the pros beat the games for. It’s even possible to calculate how much a bot would lose to an opponent’s best counterstrategy (although it’s impossible to calculate the optimal strategy itself), and the best bots lose to that strategy by about twice as much as they beat the pros!*
But even if we play poker with the intention of exploiting our opponents, it’s often extremely helpful to know near-optimal play in order to pick an approptiate exploitative strategy, especially if our opponent is also a strong player . For example, say we’re playing someone who calls 40 percent of the time after opening on the button and being 3bet by the big blind. If we have an idea of what the optimal 3-bet calling percentage is, then this information can be used to encourage us to 3-bet more aggressively for value (if she’s calling too much) or bluff more aggressively (if she’s folding too much). In other words, we can use our best guess of what optimal play is to make adjustments to exploit our opponents.
In addition,a near-optimal strategy in poker wins against just about any strategy an opponent is likely to play. This means we can ignore our opponent’s strategy most of the time and still expect to have a healthy winrate. If you’re an online player who multi-tables, ignoring your opponent’s strategy frees up a massive amount of attention.
... is how you survive, I ain't tryin' to survive I'm tryin' to live...
This quote by Jay-Z was true when I was a poker player. Unfortunatly nowadays is all about survival, so this blog will be about regular 9 to 5 jobs.
My professional situation changed dramatically since last month. I was kinda worried that I would lose my job because my contract was ending at the end of april and I wasn't sure if I will get another one. I send some CVs applying for other jobs just in case and was invited on interviews in McKinsey and Credit Suisse.
Then suddenly in the middle of the recruitment process in those companies I was given a promotion and a raise in my current company and signed a new contract. Then after a week of silence I was contacted both by McKinsey and Credit Suisse for my final round of interviews. To get things short I got an offer from McKinsey yesterday and I am waiting for a response from Credit Suisse who are suposed to make a decision by the middle of next week.
Now to the point. I am kinda hesitant on accepting the offer from McKinsey. My current job is just super laid back. My boss is the most calm and smart person I have known, he does the majority of work to the point that I never felt ANY pressure when working on something and never did a single hour of overtime. To make things even more awesome I have a dinner break that can last 1 hour in the middle of the day, and I don't have to work more because of it. So essentially I am working 7 gours a day, great boss, no presure, 1 hour dinner break, coffe breaks as often as I wan't, very small workload. The pay is pretty good and I have a senior position after my pomotion.
On the other hand McKinsey is very tempting. I think the company has a great brand and will open many doors if I work there (anybody dissagree?). The pay is good + there are many additional benefits. But after doing some research I read that the workload is very heavy and You can avarage 60 hours a week. This is something I am scared of because as a former poker player I am not used to work at all and am struggling to endure 8 hours at my regular job.
Does anybody work or knows someone working as an analyst in McKinsey? I'm just trying to find out is it worth the long hours spend at work. How is Your experience working overtime?
Has anyone here watched this? I am downloading it at the moment. I am looking forward to watching this. I guess I am interested as I have finally finished watching the 5th season of the Wire, and I noticed David Simons speaks in this movie. So I am curious. Does anyone know how "credible" this is or is it one of them stupid conspiracy type ones?
So been with GF for 4 years, and i would say that for about 1 year its not been going too well (mostly since we started living together...). But its wasn't all that bad.
However 3 weeks ago i had the brillant idea to teach her call of duty 2. Since then, shes like playing this shit no-stop, going to bed at 4 am, not sleeping with me anymore, not eating much anymore, etc. Now the even more annoying thing about it is shes CONSTANTLY talking to guys on it, laughning etc, and doing god knows what with them. If i try to talk with her shes constantly interupting me to talk with them.
My first reaction was to kinda get mad at her, explaining her how this shit makes no sense. Her reaction was to change our relationship to "its complicated" on facebook, and completly stop sex, and tell me she will probably break up. When i try to say its ridiculous she destroy our relationship for a stupid game shes says game has nothing to do with it.
MY first reaction was kind of weak, telling her how much i care about her etc, asking for second chance.
Then seeing how this fails, i decided to just do the break up myself and act like i don't care (this actually confused her a bit...).
My current plan was to get myself my own place, ignore her for a full month, and then see whats up, but tbh shes so hooked on that game i'm not even sure she will miss me at all.
So just move on or what? i'm a bit frustrated cuz i actually loved her.
So I tried Dota2 for a bit. managed to put in 80 hours in 20 days while working lol.
The game is aight, players are terrible though in matchmaking so many games are just steamroll one sided or one disconnect. It crashed quite a few times for me and don't like stuff like small health bars, liked the dota ones better for last hitting.
The guides sort of take out the fun of dota. . . trying out new items now everyone has the builds right in there, it's all very aimed towards new players.
I like the commend and report systems, dota players are jerks including me but hunting for commendations teaches you manners
Anyway it was fun trying all the heroes in new graphics, but it's getting boring now so I'm uninstalling steam and going back to poker. I really don't have enough time to get to high levels where it gets fun
work
taking a 5 day break from work. There was a lot of stuff like getting paid £270 instead £750 one week, days that are wasted and I don't learn anything in the office, basically i want to do sales and this is still just surveying lofts and walls, and we have been promised a proper product for 4 months now, and this being boring with delayed payments, money taken out of our pay for no reason etc.
A bit negged out, tried playing poker on the side just got de-motivated when I had to take out 70% of my roll because didn't get paid properly. Set weekly goals with rewards for floorball equipment, reached the weekly target and then couldn't buy the stuff next week cause I didn't get paid properly. The owners are motivating us by chilling and telling us how much money they made and that we can do it too, but when your boss is lazy you will tend to do the same.
Was promised B2B product and alarms, which should be again fun though. I take selling as a sport or poker, the preparation is very much the same and it feels like performance, but I just didn't get that looking for walls and lofts that weren't insulated for free yet and then spending time on surveys and paperwork, this year feels wasted rly.
poker
well with dota there was no time, and I'm so rusty :D
I hit a downswing when I was ill, playing badly too but nothing serious. I will get back into it and start blogging again. Dota is such a poison lol.
If anyone playing NL25 -50 wants to chat pm me your skype I'll be on over the weekend
spend the last 20 days of my life one-tabling 1,50$ Hyper Turbo HU SNG on Stars and managed to play 620 of those. It has a huge rake (1,44 + 0,06). In relation the rake of the higher buy in tourneys (6,85 + 0,15) is half of that. That's really annoying and I wonder if you can beat those games (the 1,50s) at all even if you have a huge edge. What you guys think?
I think I am playing pretty good right now and can exploit my opponents pretty well, especially with valuebetting vs guys that call all types of gutshots and call down bottom pair ALWAYS. Opening any 2 vs guys that fold too much preflop, shoving draws vs guys that fold 2nd pair to a shove on flop etc... It's only standard stuff actually.
Today our teacher gave us a thinking problem seeing if anyone comes up with an answer for tomorrow. Being stupid i cant solve it, so wanting to be baller for class i wonder if someone here can solve it: on a plain paper he places 4 coins total (1) in each corner. A random person blind/feel-folded is then selected. He doesnt know how the coins are faced in the start. Each round our teacher is free to spin the paper 90/180/270/360... And so on degrees. The blindfolded person is each round free to turn as many coins as he wants, his mission to win is for all coins to face the same direction. He doesnt know how many degrees the paper is spinned each round. Q: is there a stratey for the teacher to make him never be able to win? (Is there a straytegy for the student to win, is that the same q?). Hope i explained it well enough, gl
Mattress Buying + Parrilla Buildingby RiKD, April 15
Any tips, tricks, hacks, insight, anything in regards to mattress buying?
I just find the experience pretty horrendous. There are like 10 brands, 10 different types of 10 different 10 types of 10 different types of 10 different types of 10 different types of 10 different types of 10 different types of ..........
The salespeople seem pretty lackluster although maybe not their fault since bed comfort is so damn subjective.
I like the idea of temperpedic "memory foam" but at the same time seems like it could be classic marketing mumbo jumbo in order to rape the buyer in the ass.
Everyone in the western world probably buys a bed at some point. There has got to be a way to make it suck less and actually find the right bed for the individual.
So now that I'm done complaining about beds...
For a number of reasons that I don't care to list (I already spent shit lines shit complaining) I have decided to build a motherfucking firebrick parilla grill that ate tokyo by hand. Who knows when the fuck it will come to fruition but when it does I invite any and all LP'ers to kill some choice animals (or buy some choice killed animals) and asado that bitch up proper.
If you are in the Northern Hemisphere cheers to shit hopefully blooming and being nice out.
If you are in the Southern Hemisphere cheers to that for why not.
Read through an old notebook of mine today while waiting on a car checkup. Came across a fairly interesting quetsions and possible awnsers regarding life. Thought I would share;
Point of life?
- to live/avoid death
- to experience
- to experiment
- to better the world
- to continue existance of human race
- add to collective conciousness
What is sucess?
- Aquisition of wealth
- power/influence
- harmony with the world
- to become admired/adored
- respect
Reality is...?
- A figment of Imagination
- based on your point of view
- elusive or non-existant
- what can be observed or experienced
these are from about 5-6years ago I wonder if I were to ask myself these questions again if my awnsers would change...
Just a couple of mins ago I was having a shower and caught on singing a song by Linkin Park - i haven't been listening to that band for like ages. However, the lyrics really caught my attention - I've tried so hard and got so far, in the end it doesn't even matter. That wouldn't be anything fancy, but after having a 60 hour workweek behind me, with not enough sleep and just preparing to set off to uni, I'm really asking myself - is it really worth? I know that I can't achieve anything without hard-work and that I don't want to live the life of average Joe, but well, for sure I know that I don't want to go crazy and just have a schedule like - work, 1-2 hours of free time (free I guess, but there's homework, things around the house, etc), sleep, repeat. How do you balance this?
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