The "Other" Deuce Fo'

“I wake up smiling every day knowing that people will use stats as the main foundation for their poker thought process.” -improva

So awesomely true. This really made me smile when I read this. I personally think that the incorporation of statistics into poker may be responsible for keeping the games as good as they are. A little bit of knowledge can be very dangerous and in a field as complex and oft misunderstood as statistics, it can be misapplied in so many ways. I see a lot of forum posts and discussions revolving around certain statistical aspects of poker. Without delving into specifics, there really just aren’t enough grains of salt being taken with any of it, and the fact that we’re trying to play better poker often gets lost in the mix.

I’m no statistician, and I do use HEM, but with many things in life, “you don’t know how much you don’t know.” Both statistics and poker are no different. It really pays to put in a bit of extra work to find out more, and find out how much more there is to find out.

Two books that I have recommended before and will recommend again for anyone concerned about runnign bad, BB/100, variance, standard deviation, HUD stats, why some people take shots and skyrocket to the nosebleeds but why others run like a bag of ass everytime they try to move up, or just more about statistics and randomness as they relates to our daily lives.

The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives and
Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in the Markets and in Life

I have actually only read the first one, but the second one has been recommended to me numerous times, is sitting on my nightstand in a huge pile of “to read” books, and I’m familiar with some of Taleb’s other work. Taking to heart the ideas and concepts in these books will save you hours of grief and hopefully a decent chunk of change.

In other news… Last week I got a chance to play some live poker in a 2/5 home game, and I can say with utmost certainty that none of the other players present have read the books mentioned above. They are called “gambler’s fallacies” for a reason, and while I’m sure that many (well at least some) of these players are accomplished in other aspects of their lives, understanding these concepts was not one of them. While it is a wonderful game and the host is very generous and hospitable, the rake was atrocious (I think I saw $7 come out of a $40 pot) and live play is significantly slow. I haven’t decided whether I’m going to go back or not yet. If I do it will be primarily for entertainment rather than expectation.

Best of luck?