Mathematics Of Poker Review

4/12/2022by admin

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Mathematics Of Poker Review Rating: 5,9/10 5941 reviews

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Mathematics Of Poker Review 2020
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Solving some poker games and the idea resurfaced as a book that was less like a mathematics paper and more accessible to readers with a modest mathematical background. Our deepest thanks to those who read the manuscript and provided valuable feedback. This pairs perfectly with the Final Tables workbook to make your mathematical exploration so much quicker. Building live poker ranges: In this 5 video series, I break down a hand from the live cash games workbook. I share the ranges that I would assign, why, and follow it all up with an extended Q&A. Best Poker Courses 2020 - Winning Poker Tournaments With Nick Petrangelo (Advanced) The final poker course on this list (which is only recommended for advanced mid or high stakes poker players and pros) is Winning Poker Tournaments With Nick Petrangelo. This poker course, as the title suggests, is primarily about tournament poker. The Best Players Use Poker Math. It's true that we find some strong players who have very good intuition and don't need poker math to beat the games. However, the reality is that the very best players use poker math on a regular basis to make their decisions. We are not even necessarily talking about difficult maths.

While technology may have come a long way, learning by using pen and paper never goes out of style. It may not be everyone’s cup of tea but, personally, I find this approach very effective as I tend to better be able to commit things to memory when doing things this way.

For a poker player, learning and understanding math behind the game is essential. Pretty much without exception, you can’t be good at poker if you don’t understand poker math, plain and simple.

There are many ways to go about learning these numbers but if the aforementioned approach appeals to you, then you’re going to love the Poker Workbook by James “SplitSuit” Sweeney. It is an extensive source of knowledge on poker math and percentages that requires your active involvement. It may feel like you’re back in school at times, but if you do it right you’re bound to learn a lot from these materials.

Poker Workbook in a Nutshell

So, what exactly is the Poker Workbook? It is a poker textbook containing more than 1,500 tasks involving poker math – from the simplest calculations to highly elaborate concepts. Every single aspect of the workbook is briefly explained and then followed by a number of calculations you’ll need to do on your own.

Concepts covered in the Poker Workbook include:

Equity & EV
Ranges & range building
Pot odds & Implied Odds
Open raising
3-bets & 4-bets
Preflop all-ins
Blockers
… and more

Once you get the basic grasp of the concept that’s being discussed, you’ll need to apply that knowledge to real examples and come up with exact answers. You’ll need to calculate percentages, number of combos, pot odds, and more, and then fill in the answers. So, it’s not the kind of book that you can just read. It only works if you actually take time to do the exercises!

Train Your Brain to Think Poker

The main goal of the Poker Workbook is to teach you how to quickly make all sorts of calculations while playing. Although our brains aren’t computers and most of us can’t do complex calculations in seconds, almost everyone can develop a skillset to make very good approximations. More often than not, this is all you will need at the poker tables.

Mathematics Of Poker Review 2

To tackle tasks in the workbook, you’ll need poker software such as Flopzilla and/or Equilab. These programs will let you build custom ranges and turn percentages into visual representations (and vice-versa) of hand ranges.

As you do this, you should become much better at visualizing what a certain percentage of hands looks like. You should also learn how to quickly figure out if a particular call is +EV or not based on how it relates to the pot and the strength of your own hand.

It all may seem abstract until you actually sit down and start doing it. That’s exactly why I like SplitSuit’s approach with this product. It forces you to sit down, think about, and physically write down your results. That way, you can’t fool yourself into thinking you were “close enough”. If the number is there and it’s off by a lot (or even a little), you’ll know you made a mistake in your calculations somewhere.

When you want to check your results, there is the separate Answer Key file, which allows you to quickly find answers for particular questions without having to go back and forth through the original book. This is really helpful as it saves time and lets you focus more on the learning process.

Slow but Efficient

The Poker Workbook was designed to be studied methodically. SplitSuit recommends doing a few pages every day and really focusing on getting the right answers, so this is probably the best way to go about it. If you’re already an experienced player, some of the earlier tasks will be easy to complete off the top of your head. If you’re new to poker math, though, it will take some time.

The good thing about the workbook is that you can organize your studying time so it doesn’t affect your other poker learning activities, such as watching videos or analyzing your hands. You can just do a few exercises whenever you feel like it. As you do more, you’re bound to become better at it.

Finally, there’s the price point: just $39. That’s affordable for pretty much any poker player. Moreover, when you consider it as an “investment” rather than a “money spend”, it’s tough to argue that you aren’t getting great bang for your buck.

So, to summarize, it may feel like “doing things the old fashioned way, with pen and paper” is a step back when compared to all the modern and interactive poker training systems out there but I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing. The more traditional approach to learning poker can still work very well and the fact you’re more involved with the materials will help you memorize much more information even if you don’t realize it at first.

If you want to learn poker math from scratch or if there are certain concepts that you don’t quite understand or struggle with, give Poker Workbook a go. Odds are you’re going to love it once you get into it and begin a daily poker study routine.

Mathematics Of Poker Review 2020

'There is no branch of mathematics, however abstract, which may not someday be applied to the phenomena of the real world.'

-– Nicolai Lobachevsky

'If you think the math isn't important, you don't know the right math.'

--Chris Ferguson.

A major factor attributing to poker's worldwide appeal is the common belief that it is more a game about people than it is about anything else. With most decisions being situational in nature, the answer to many a procedural question is often 'it depends.' Experts encourage one to play the man as opposed to his cards. But what if such conventional assumptions proved to be only partially true? This eventuality is addressed in the recently released The Mathematics of Poker. Authors Bill Chen and Jerrod Ankenman definitely state that it is the numerical reasoning behind our decisions that is more important than the searching for tells or the twitching of our guts.

Higher level mathematics is not a field in which the average poker pundit is generally well-versed, but this could never be said about Bill Chen. He holds a Ph.D. in mathematics, was a quantitative analyst by trade, and also has experience with software design. As for poker, his credentials are impeccable. Chen's results from this year's World Series of Poker were nothing short of astonishing. He left the annual event with a bracelet from the $2,500 Short Handed No Limit tournament and another from the $3,000 Limit Hold' em contest. Overall, he cashed six times. Chen has been collaborating with Jerrod Ankenman since 2002, and their labor has been quite productive. As for Ankenman, he is a professional player who took second this year in a separate $3,000 Limit Hold' em event at the 2006 World Series of Poker.

Their book is not unwieldy but its pages are bloated with information. The work is broken down into five major parts; each of these support the central theme of maximizing average profit. By the second page of the Introduction—in which the common misconceptions of play are examined—readers will discern that there is no fluff in these 350+ pages. Parts II and III embody its intellectual core as they outline the mechanics of both exploitative and optimal play. Exploitative play is defined as maximizing expectation in lieu of your opponent's strategy; whereas, optimal play makes use of fundamentally sound strategies which are independent from your opponent's actions. While most players strive to be exploitative with their play, the better ones compete at a 'near-optimal' level which is an evolutionary advancement over taking advantage of mistakes. Other than Roshambo [rock, paper, scissors] and the The Jam or Fold Game for no limit, many examples will not be familiar to the average person. A lack of familiarity is not a problem, however, because studying games like Clairvoyance, AKQ, Cops and Robbers, and Auction strengthen the mind and provide valuable perspective. Of course, novices should be forewarned to put off this purchase until they become fully grounded in the elementary facets of poker. This text does not address the majority of the decisions one makes at the table. In this way, Chen and Ankenman are more Plutarch than Sklansky by treating the mind as 'a fire to be kindled, not a vessel to be filled.'

Prospective readers may wonder about the difficulty of the math presented, and whether the possession of serious quantitative skills is a prerequisite for extracting value from its pages. Not surprisingly, the answer is, 'It depends.' Assuredly, most members of the book consuming poker public meet the author's criteria in this area, which is the completion of eighth grade algebra. Although, what Chen and Ankenman may forget is that many of us no longer remember most of what we learned during those dark days of middle school. Understanding the proofs so prevalent in the narrative hinges on the retention of information that might have been long deleted from our memory banks. Furthermore, a rudimentary background in statistics is also necessary for apprehending the meaning behind the equations. Those with no knowledge of statistics and algebra will be slightly stunned by the extent of the quantitative detail on display. The math impaired might become slightly demoralized, but the good news is that some amazing ideas are presented above and below the ubiquitous expressions. The sections concerning bankrolls, backing agreements, and tournaments will be of value to everyone as will the chapters devoted to the Risk of Ruin model, the use of math to improve play, and a no limit hold 'em case study used as the basis for justifying the precepts of game theory. With the exception of casino executives, who won't cherish the conclusion, 'risk of ruin is 100% for games with negative expectation,' this function will be universally appreciated. Luckily for the industry, millions of slots players are not troubled by the laws of probability.

Yes, this book is quite challenging, but self-improvement is rarely accomplished via easy endeavor. Beyond its application to the game, The Mathematics of Poker's educational scope provides an independent rationale for its worth. Concepts in finance, economics, and psychology are explained and numerous theories are expanded upon for which poker players might otherwise never encounter. And even in regard to recognizable terms like Bayes' Theorem and the Kelly Criterion, no source I've seen does a better job of illuminating their meaning than this one.

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It is important to recall that this text is not an end point. Mountain ranges worth of mathematical information remain in need of interpretation. The Mathematics of Poker is a thorough introduction, and there is little doubt that future works will build upon its foundation. Chen and Ankenman offer something here that is totally unique due to its avoidance of felt level tactics and its emphasis on strategy—which is its essential virtue.