a. genius, 1600 SAT, 180 LSAT, double major in math/engineering, no understanding of people

b. innate social skills/insight to human heart/mind, limited math skills

c. econ major, successful trader on wall street, average math skills, good people skills

I think C would be the best player, but if A could be a serious threat if a person had an outstanding grasp of statistics and game theory. B could also be dangerous if they were really great with people. Who would you rather play?

whoever has the least experience playing poker? if all 3 just started playing then i would play all 3 of them at the same time to increase my earn rate.

of the three, who has the most potential to be a top player? who has the least?

B. It's a people game first.

B and C are better equipped to play the game well. Mr. A may be able to beat weaker games, but will never be able to move beyond small stakes games.

The one who is willing to work the most.

This is all speculation and not really poker theory, but I'll give it a go.


Mr A given time will figure out the game and be very hard to win against. He might not play the best leveling game, but will find exploitive tendencies and prevent himself from being exploited.

Mr B might yield high winrates against a lot of people from outleveling them, but will still have leaks and exploits that might stop him from winning against some of the tougher competition.

Mr C doesn't have any of the bottlenecks of the other two and will probably be successfull.


My money is on mr A when up against mr B.
My money highest lifetime winnings is on mr C > B > A

Odds are that C is likely to be a bigger risk-taker and thus take bigger shots with his BR, especially if he's younger.

I think BRM is what separates the successful B and C players.

I think wallstreet and economists have ignored the math on risk taking and were rewarded for taking too much risk in general. Which isn't good news for C.

Still bankroll management isn't too complicated, so all three players should be able to understand basic bankroll management. I think B is the least likely to actually put it in practice though.

^yeah, it really paid off for Lehman
there's so much more math than you'll ever know.

This is wrong. You could crush any game in the world without leveling, reads(of any kind), stats or a good grasp of the game flow.

i'd rather play c as he is the one with the most money. My logic is that a and b would be more likely to stop playing or at least try and improve if they realised they were bad, however c would continue more often as money would mean less to him

obv completley depends on which game.
being that limit games require diff strats than no limit, and games like holdem are much more player dependent than games like stud8.
id take player A (or poss C) in s8 over player B anyday, but in nlhe id take B over A. Player C is probably the best all around player tho.
Economists have the quant abilities needed in poker, but also try to apply this quant to real-life and personal interactions/choice making. therefore seems pretty good for poker

C has the most potential to be the best player.

a) has deep pockets
b) traders = risk management is like second nature
c) ability to change/adapt rather quickly.

none of the math in poker is hard enough to require any math ability. an english major can learn all of the poker math that they need in an afternoon

A. looks like some overqualified nerd
b. looks like durrr
c. phill laak ???



id play B & C but not A

Completely and utterly wrong. Nearly all of poker is maths.

In one poker hand you might be looking at the incomplete info you have on someone, looking at this stats from a few hands, considering the general player at the level, and trying to weight to two together to form the best guess at his general looseness/PFR/etc. Then from that calculating the best guess at his raising range.

Once you've considered that, you consider the equity your hand against his. You consider what sort of equity you need to take various actions. You might decide you have 37% equity and can profitably defend the BB in LHE.

You may have to consider how he'll react versus a 3bet in NL. You know noone is folding JJ+,AK. How many combos is that? What percentage of his range is that? You'd perhaps consider that small proportion of lags at x limit will bluff 4bet an unknown 3bet all the time in a steal spot. Some will do it never. Some will do it about GTO. Some will fold 75% of the time. Some will continue 75% of the time by calling a lot. You'll use his stats to weight it somewhat towards certain player times. You'd could use maths like Bayes' Theorem to come up with a guess as to how often he folds to a 3bet. You may decide you can profitably 3bet ATC. You may decide you need to make up x the times he calls by flopping big/cbet bluffing.

Then perhaps the flop comes. Then it's even more complicated with even more maths.........

Some of these things can be calculated at the table. Some are calculated by a tiny minority of players. Some are calculated away from the table with tools like pokerstove. Some can never be completely calculated, but can be partially calculated. A lot of the time we rely on intuition. But being good at maths helps a ton when trying to judge these things.

How much of the underlying maths of poker is understood is what seperates some (certainly not all) of the best winners from the immitaters of others. It's partly why the likes of Sklanksy's writings were ahead of their time. It's to some extend what Townsend was talking about in a recent blog post about looking to switch to other games from PLO, and to fully understand them, and how it will take over a year. It's why there are already LHE Bots as good as the best humans. Fortunately the sheer complexity & need to rely on mathematical intuition rather than pure calculation is stopping there from being genuinally quality NLHE bots


Poker maths is not that a X draw hits Y% of the time and so you can call if you have Z:1 pot odds.

A mathematical genius would have a huge advantage in the poker world, though there are many, many other factors involved.

^nothing you stated is that complicated. you can do all of this w/ a calculator. when i thnk of difficult math, i think of multivariable calculus or somehting like that. not basic statistics

At first I read this thread and thought it was going to be about solely playing HU vs. playing 3 or more handed and i laughed.

Obviously I'd reply, "HU CUZ THE ODDZ are 50/50 hur hur"

But honestly OP, everyone is different so it doesn't matter really your background or the other persons since its all about how much you know about Poker really. So I'd rather play the weakest person =P

no you are wrong. once you have slightly above average math ability none of the math in poker will hold you back. things like memory/dedication/tilt control/etc are all more important.

most people who play poker dont calculate the math even though they have the natural ability to do it. a math genius does not gain a significant advantage over an average math person in poker.

No, you're doing it wrong.

Play live.

Solving simple games with variable bet sizes requires non-trivial math, probably more complicated than simple calculus. I have no idea if you actually need it to be successful at higher stakes but it certainly wouldn't hurt. I imagine the best players have at least an intuitive understanding of optimal river play for all range pairings and stack sizes.

Yeah, I study Engineering and still have trouble solving more complex toy games with multiple streets etc.

Imagine how you would piss off a math guy if you 5b him to 70% of your stack and then requested time when he shoved, then finally calling.

+1