Maria Konnikova On The Art Of Poker

It is the mark of an educated man to look for precision in each class of things just so far as the nature of the subject admits; it is evidently equally foolish to accept probable reasoning from a mathematician and to demand from a rhetorician scientific proofs – Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics

No one-size-fits-all weapon. No predetermined strategy. Just an eminently flexible, and ultimately deadly, system rooted in deep patience and observation before anything else – and then a willingness to do whatever it takes, given the circumstances, to emerge victorious – Maria Konnikova and Erik Seidel, The Biggest Bluff, p. 87

In poker, as in most everything else including the market, because you have imperfect information, it is an art not a science. True, there is a mathematical aspect to poker that can be precisely quantified. But what can’t be quantified is what your opponents are up to.

You make reads based on their betting, their patterns, physical tells, etc… But there is no precision when it comes to reading your opponents. This is the psychological aspect of the game – and it’s the mastery of this aspect that separates great players from merely good ones.

Many amateur players play an ABC style focused on their own hands relative strength. If they have AK on an A-high flop, they feel good about their hand. If they have middle pair, they might call once but not a second time. Players like this are easy to exploit because what they are doing is very straightforward.

Even skilled tight aggressive players can be outmaneuvered because their strategy is transparent. They patiently wait for big hands and then they try to get a lot of chips in the middle. You can push them off most hands but when they push back it’s time to get out of the way.

The elite style is exploitative. That is, you are adjusting your game to each opponent and each situation. In poker, you never step into the same river twice. They don’t just play their cards, they play their opponents. While most players have a certain style, exploitative players can play all of the different styles and the one they choose depends on what is optimal in a given spot.

Erik Seidel, Konnikova’s mentor, is one of these masters. “Psychology really is the most fascinating part of the game,” Seidel tells Konnikova early on (p. 29). “Of the great players, the ones who are some of the most exploitable are the ones who are really into math” (p. 27-8).

Poker math is foundational. You must understand the math in order to make correct decisions. But if you want to be truly elite, you must go beyond the math to the psychology. Many players resist this because it is a grey area. While you can be sure that AK is in okay shape against most hands All In preflop, you can never be sure about what your opponent’s hand.

But when you learn to pay attention to all the information – what they’ve showed down in the past, how active they are, how they’re betting, do they look nervous? – you start to create the edge that will separate you from the pack. This is what the players at the higher levels of the game are up to.