Garden: In the topic: //pokerdicas.com/forum/discussao-de-maos-bad-beats/554-aff-olha-isso-2.html
We had a nice debate about the mathematics of the game and situations in which we should not take it into account alone.
Also relevant to this subject is Akkari's text in flop no. 10.
The text is long, but I believe it is worth reading.
He follows:
ANDRE AKKARI COLUMN
I know that among the professional and semi-professional poker players in the world there is a large number of people who are absolutely obsessed with the mathematics of the game. I also know that this article will most likely displease some of them. I am not criticizing the way they play or the way they play.
way they have their monthly earnings, but I decided to just write an article about this long discussion, from the scientific and mathematical side of the game against the information side, the one that is more
subjective of the game. On a recent trip to Las Vegas, Alê Gomes and I had the company
from a great friend of Alê and now a great friend of mine too, Andrei. During the trip we had several discussions that questioned some attitudes that MTT players take
in their games, not always supported by mathematics, and we are talking about decisions that, in most cases, online cash game players make based on the mathematical foundations of the game.
Analyzing several of these discussions, I was able to draw some personal conclusions that I am sure can help many Brazilian players to be successful in multi-table tournaments. Here are some of them:
1st Success in a tournament is due to the set of attitudes related to the moment of the tournament, such as table information, opponents' style and many other variables that take you further and further ahead or define your death in that competition. Mathematical decisions in a hand, seen only
from a mathematical perspective and disregarding all other variables, can simply make you never succeed in multi-tables and are treacherous decisions, precisely because there are
There's a good chance you'll never realize this and think that to do well in multi-tables you need to be lucky, for the rest of your life.
In several multi-table situations I have abandoned hands where I had pot odds, implied odds, and all the odds in the world to call a hand, for the simple reason that the stack I had left, by avoiding continuing in a certain hand, gave me total peace of mind to continue controlling the table pot after pot, without having to put my tournament in a risky situation. For many of the
poker mathematicians, folding these hands would be murder. But without understanding how the entire concept of an MTT works, they will never understand that in this case, what mattered least was the
calculation of whether, in the long run, that decision was profitable or not.
2nd The purely mathematical concept is often defended by people who have memorized mathematical situations and thoughts of some players, but it is a speech that almost always makes
that this thinker is a dictator. It is much easier for you to be the owner of reason with technical speeches than with more subjective and philosophical speeches of the game. These thinkers carry with them
a range of players who will follow the same rational guidelines, and, probably, in the multi-table universe, will also lead their followers to failure. That is, if you are going to adopt someone or some
concept to support your game, to be the mentor of your career, use profitable players or concepts. Choose the winners, those who you can see, in practice and proven, that they are winners
in that game model you want to dedicate yourself to. In the most specific case, multi-table tournaments.
Doing the math during the game can also harm your tournament
There's no point in following the speech of a great cash game player or a master in sit-and-go, and leaving
applying his tips in multitable tournaments. Poker has several game types, with different structures and limits, and mastering some of them is no guarantee of success in all the others.
I myself migrated from sit-and-go to multi-table, and then I tried cash games. I always had to adapt a lot until I incorporated different concepts for each type of game. With each change and learning
I looked for tips from the winners in each modality and tried to learn as much as possible from what they had to tell me, always also trying to think in my own way and adapting or incorporating
the techniques I already had from other formats.
3rd A poker tournament is independent of any technical discussion. The fact is that it is a matter of survival. Whoever survives until the end, wins. Try to see ways and means, in the context
general, for you to survive, hand after hand. In theory, the bigger your stack, the better your chances, but small stacks are still survivors who need a quick path to
become great. The secret is to find the path among the many that, hand after hand, are placed in front of you, to grow your stack.
Think about the big online tournament players – the winning crowd, really! Names like AJK Hoosier, WestmenloAA, Annette_15, and so on. You rarely see any of them drop out of tournaments in the first, second, or third hour. Why do you think that happens? Because they don't get
a KK x AA, JJ x QQ, AQ x AK? Or why do they get these hands but always get dealt to them?
Of course they go through these situations, but unlike most players, they don't let anything, absolutely nothing, get them down at the beginning of a tournament. Do you think these guys don't see a favorable mathematical situation at the beginning of a tournament to put all their chips on the table?
Yes, they see it, but they often decide that, for their tournament, the math that seems favorable is ultimately unfavorable, such is their advantage over others, in the long run, with their winning tournament strategies.
If they just follow the math, they'll be on par with almost every other player who knows the odds and has read every poker book on the market.
4- Learn to look at your KK, QQ and AA, especially at the beginning and middle of a tournament, as just
two more cards that have fallen into your hand. Be ready to fold, call and raise, as you would with any other hand. Don't see them as the savior of all your problems, as if, by winning that hand, you become the great-ultra-mega-buster-ninja champion of that tournament. This tip seems ridiculous, but I'm sure it will help many. Think about it, when you see a pair of these opening
on your screen, you often get restless and place the responsibility of changing your life in the tournament on those cards. Remember that they are not unbeatable!
5- Obviously, there comes a time when you need to go to the mathematical side, go for the all or nothing and trust that, in the long run, that move will be profitable. But the big issue is that you shouldn't base all your decisions on this concept. You'll be eliminated from the tournament, I'll be eliminated, everyone will be eliminated. But fight with all your weapons before that happens. Don't miss opportunities, of course, but know how to detect what is really a real opportunity and what is just an isolated mathematical probability, separated from the entire context and history of a long tournament.
I hope this article is seen as just another set of tips on how to be successful in multitables, especially online, where we play so many of them every day. I'm sure many people think the opposite of what I said. I wish them all the success in the world, and I emphasize that, in poker, there are no truths.
absolute. Neither mine nor yours. This is just my truth, and here I try to convey my concepts to those who identify with my style.
Andre Akkari
Team Member PokerStars and one of the biggest
Texas Hold'em players in the country. Their
online and live results grow every day.
Source: //revistaflop.com.br/pdfs/10.pdf
brunomulato: Very good post Jardim! It's very similar to my vision too, but as he said there are no absolute truths in poker.
Petrillo: I liked the part where he talks about QQ, KK and AA…
Besides, he doesn't get very far... It was kind of commonplace...
What I think is that a great player is a team, a very strong team.
I think you have to study the mathematics of the game a lot.
And yes, you have to study a lot, reading and game psychology.
If the mathematics of the game were not important, Chis Ferguson would be a loser… But if reading the game were not important, Phil Yves would be a loser…
But both have these two very strong characteristics!
Chis Ferguson makes insane plays and Yves is super tight at the right moments!!
So, the best thing Akkari said is that in poker there is no absolute truth! 😉
guisonho: Very good indeed!
Thanks Jardim
Maziviero: Hello, this article is very good. As a mathematician, I confess that since I started playing recently, I was already leaning a little towards the mathematical side of things, but now with this reading, perhaps I should reevaluate some of my concepts.
Marcelo: This article is good for drawing the attention of those who think about poker from a single perspective.
Good players know how to combine mathematics and game psychology brilliantly.
TSawyer: Akkari did well,
I always defend poker as a more psychological game than anything else... and as time goes by I'm changing my view a little.
With the help of my friends at PokerDicas, I understood the importance of mathematics and also statistics... a subject that I never liked in college... lol, today I understand that it is something essential, that helps a lot in the long run.
I particularly liked the comment about pocket pairs. I have done what was written many times. These cards are illusory and can take you out of tournaments, as has happened to me. I see that there are many determining factors to play MTT, SIT&Go or CASH well. But the main thing, and what I managed to capture in the article, was that you will only be able to stand out if you can combine psychological and mathematical factors with your style. You must study and develop yourself in a way that always seeks to be unique (original).
Regards, TSawyer:happy34:
Petrillo: One really important thing is to see the tournament as a whole…
It’s no use just winning a hand (like in cash, where winning a single hand can be enough), you have to win the tournament!!
Ok, you won a big pot: “I cleared 3 guys and now I have 6k with blinds 10/20!” Definitely a huge advantage!
But you haven't won anything yet!!!
If you play wrong, you will give everything back, tilt and be out of the ITM…
Regarding the article itself, I was a little concerned about Akkari’s somewhat prejudiced terms and expressions…
He says “absolutely obsessed with the mathematics of the game”, “The purely mathematical concept”, “A poker tournament is independent of any technical discussion.”
Be careful. Making decisions based on math and readings are both treacherous… A loose nag also flops AA and sets, and a super tight one also blatantly bluffs…
I think the key question is: am I at a decisive moment in the tournament, where I need to risk my chips to win it?
If so, use all the tools available to make the best decision at this decisive moment!!
The thought remains…
icemanjr0: Important phrase:
Learn to look at your KK, QQ and AA, especially in the beginning and middle of a tournament, as just two more cards that have fallen into your hand.
We often don’t know how to deal with these cards, even though it’s obvious…
prof_anselmo: great post.
I don't like cake recipes.
Akkari, you did well, I see it that way, because whenever I see an advantageous situation to put a chip on the table in light of mathematics, I usually end up in the dark…
Poker is a game of incomplete information, and with mathematics alone you are not a complete player, because poker is made up of people, and people are not always, or never, as logical as mathematics. There is an important factor in poker, the psychological one.
In poker, you don't just play cards, you play the player in front of you.
In addition to what has already been widely and exhaustively presented by poker theorists.
Position, movements before you, and all the theory, which we have already read and reread in so many articles and books.
I agree with André Akkari, but mathematics is definitely one side of the various components of poker.
There are no absolute truths… only circumstantial truths.
PokerBrasileiro: While writing the latest article on Poker Brasileiro, I went looking for Akkari's article that talked about the same topic and discovered that it had already been discussed here.
Mathematics can really be a “handbrake” for many players.
If you are interested, check out the article here.
JRS: “People would live better if they tried to put serenity and the common good one step ahead of what they take as absolute truths, coming from egocentric thinking”… The guy swears that the phrase is not his… I thought it was in context…
Original author: Jardim.
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