The cost of information, or TANSTAFL
I’m back from BARGE, so it’s time for me to fill in a few of the blanks.
So, my last post was a bit cryptic, but the first response is the exact response. Under typical conditions, there is usually a cost to acquire information. In poker, betting patterns are one of the primary conduits of information. The more actions in a typical betting pattern, the more information. For example, a check-raise always carries more information than a check. The crux of the information problem is that when the price of the information is too great you should generally eschew paying for it. This is a bit of inversion of the “Why raise?” question posed by others. Often times you’ll hear players saying that they are raising for information, or raising to “find out where they are at.” In general, most players take this tack far too often.
Both Daniel and David brought this up.
This isn’t so much as a result, or some novel theory. It’s more a recasting of action motivation. Aggression is good because it allows you to get money into the pot, especially if you have the best hand. Passivity is good because it allows you to be less confident about the strength of your opponents hand, and thus promote the relative strength of your own hand.
Of course, the difficulty comes in determining when you should switch from betting to calling. In limit poker, this turns out to be fairly easy to solve for most heads up confrontations.
August 23rd, 2006 at 7:54 pm
Nice piece, yes I use the check raise alot more than what I should but mostly at a limit game when I feel a player is just betting his pair and 269 rainbow flop while I hold pk pr or better draw. The problem I have, they call any way and find alot of bad beats. While I figure out where I went wrong I my play my wife looks at me and says you didn’t you played just like the last guy who sat there about an hour ago did. The cards (the deck) seems to repeat closely and all the player has do do is remember what won so will call any way with 63 offsuit and rivering a three destroying AA or whatever. Puzzled I said your right I have read the books and odds and all that stuff but all that matters is playing enough hands to get a read on the deck. So what would make a completely random shuffle?