Summer Vacation + something to think about
I’ve been doing all sorts of vacation type activities for a while now, and won’t be back to “work” till the end of August.
For those of you who want something interesting to think about, here is a concept which might seem paradoxical.
Poker is a game of information, usually the more information you have the better. But there are a lot of situations where you are given a choice about how much information you’d like, and it is often better to choose less information. What are some of those situations? What does that suggest about in game tactics?
August 16th, 2006 at 10:28 am
The only cases I can think of where it is correct to choose less information are circumstances where you have to pay for the information, either directly (more bets) or indirectly (by revealing more information to your opponents in the process). There are many cases where the +EV of the additional information does not cover the -EV of the cost to get the information.
Is that what you mean? Or are you thinking of some case where the extra information actually hurts you? If so, can you give an example?
August 16th, 2006 at 11:52 am
That could mean poker is merely a guessing game that predominantly involves luck. *shudder* I don’t believe that, but through deduction I believe that such a point could be construed from what you’re saying.
August 16th, 2006 at 2:42 pm
I don’t get it either. The standard response is that more information can’t hurt because you can always ignore it. That’s what Skalnsky would say. Of course it’s not true, because you can’t really ignore information once you have it you’ll use it.
I can think of one situation where knowing more of the information that doesn’t matter much while not knowing the information that does matter hurts you.
If an unknown UTG limper is followed by a wild and crazy raise, knowing the exact distribution of the hands the raiser might hold while not knowing anything about the UTG limper could be a bad thing. That’s because you already know all you really need to know with the wild/crazy informaiton, and what really matters is whether the UTG limper only limps with AA.
Or something like that.
But I’m just guessing, I don’t really know what you mean.
August 18th, 2006 at 2:08 pm
Matros writes about something like this occasionally. There are situations in which, if you bet and are raised, you know that you are beat, and you lose $X, whereas, if you check and are bet into, you introduce the possibility that your opponent is bluffing, meaning if you call, you lose
August 18th, 2006 at 7:42 pm
That could mean poker is merely a guessing game that predominantly involves luck.
Umm well, it is. Take a look at the components of your Sharp Ratio (ev/SD).
*shudder* I don’t believe that
Well, that’s typical.
Embrace it my friend, the next best thing to gambling and winning is gambling and losing. Beats working anyway.
August 29th, 2006 at 3:02 pm
Doh…of course that should be Sharpe Ratio.