The Evolution of Poker
02-21-2017
, 05:42 AM
Hi Everyone:
Two Plus Two has a new book coming out titled Poker and More: Unique Ideas and Concepts; Strategy, Game Theory, and Psychology from Two Renowned Gambling Experts By David Sklansky and Mason Malmuth that has an essay by me that is somewhat related to this thread. So here it is:
Editors Note: This is an article that Mason wrote about fifteen years ago for a gambling magazine that quit publishing shortly after this was submitted. Mason can’t even remember if it ever appeared in print, and if it did, very few people today would have seen it. In addition, it has been reworked a little to reflect more recent events, and is not a strategy article per se. However, we do think that most of you will find it interesting.
Modern Poker
by Mason Malmuth
Poker is a game that has been around for many years. When French colonists arrived to settle the Lousiana Territory in the 1700s they brought with them a French game called “Poque” that used five card hands and required betting and bluffing. The game took hold around the city of New Orleans, and in the early 1800s began to move north with the Mississippi riverboats. It also went through many changes. More hands of value were added and the standard 52 card deck began to be used. But most important, Americans began to call it “poker.”
Its popularity increased during the Civil War as the Union Army moved south and many soildiers adopted it as the way to pass their idle time. (In fact, the term stud may be referring to the additional horses that were required to pull the canyons along the Mississippi River.) But poker really entered its Golden Age after the war had ended as former soldiers, especially those from the Confederacy, headed West for a better life, and by the 1880s it had become one of the main gambling games for the elite. It was not a game for the “faint of heart.” Fortunes were known to change hands in the games, and many of our “heros” from that era were really first and formost poker players. This includes people like Wild Bill Hitchok, Wyatt Earp, and Doc Holiday. When their fortunes were poor, they worked as lawmen, but when their luck at the tables was good, they were poker players.
Today, it appears that poker has entered another golden age. But there’s a major difference. The game has become much more widely played. And while large sums of money do occasionally change hands, most poker games are now played for moderate stakes. Enough to be interesting, but not enough to dramatically change your life. This is due to the fact that limit poker as opposed to no-limit poker became popular, and most of today’s no-limit games have caps on the buy-ins.
Interestingly enough, today’s games probably require much more skill than the games over 100 years ago. The reason for this is that the games are currently structured much differently from what we see in the movies. I suspect that the best players of that era just played tight — that is they only played the premium hands — and unimaginatively. This is all they needed to do to get the money as long as they were against that “rich rancher or miner who came to gamble.” So the skill wasn’t in “how you played your cards,” that came much later. The skill was in getting the right player to sit down at your table and convincing him that it was okay to be “eaten” by the “sharks.”
As we can see, old time poker was a “people game.” When the right person was playing a lot of hands, he would eventually get trapped for all his money. How you played your hand wasn’t as important as just waiting for the right hand to play. This is also one of the reasons that the professional gamblers of the Old West dressed so flamboyantly. It was to disguise the fact that they were not there to do much gambling.
Now you may say that since I wasn’t there how could I know that this is accurate. It seems hard to believe that people like Wyatt Earp were actually more boring than their legacy seems to indicate. But at the poker tables I strongly believe that this is the case.
There are three reasons that can be used to support this argument. First, is that draw poker was widely played. Anyone who has much experience at draw will tell you that this is a game where the best starting hand usually holds up, and if the ante was small, anyone who just plays tight will have a field day against “live” action.
Second, is that the old time poker books, of which there were many, advise to “just play tight.” The old time authors don’t seem to recognize all the skill and different techniques that are present in poker. This is most likely because they weren’t necessary.
The third reason, and the one that’s probably most important, is that in the early 1900s a new form of poker began to evolve. Today we know this form as “Texas Hold Them Poker,” or hold ’em for short. It’s now the most widely played form of poker, and is a game that requires considerable skill. But when it first appeared it was mainly played no-limit, and no-limit hold ’em with a small blind/ante structure is a tight player’s dream if you’re against people who are action players. That is, people who like to play many hands. (I do need to point out that no-limit hold ’em isn’t so simple when you’re against other skillful players, especially if the stacks are deep. But against weak players who are frequently putting their money in the pot and who will call most bets, all you need to do is wait for the right hand.)
But poker, like many other endeavors, began to change as the years went by. Part of the reason for this was that it was played in the casinos of Nevada as well as the cardrooms of California, and for it to be successful the game had to be structured so that bad players would have enough winning nights so that they would keep coming back. That is, forms of poker began to appear where there was a “proper” balance of luck and skill. Limit hold ’em and seven-card stud, with reasonably large antes and blinds, began to catch on in Nevada, and ace-to-five lowball draw became the game of choice in California since only forms of draw poker were legal at that time.
These games — even with their large luck factor — are still beatable through skillful play. But the day of “sit tight and wait” for a good hand was over. A new breed of player began to appear. These were people who approached the game much more scientifically and attempted to squeeze out every possible edge that they could find. To do this they needed to play their hands well all the way through. To support this argument, let’s look at three areas of play which the old time poker experts (probably) did not concern themselves with.
Area No. 1: Starting hands. Waiting for premium hands was no longer enough to assure a win. Because of the large ante/blind structure that the new forms of poker featured, the better players needed to find additional hands which would show a profit. But what’s most interesting is that many of these hands only show a profit in the right situations, and may still be losers most of the time. An example from limit hold ’em is a small pair. In many situations these hands just cost chips. But if you can expect multiway action the “implied odds” that they produce can even make a lowly hand like the
2
2
highly profitable if you manage to flop three-of-a-kind. Now you may trap several other players with reasonable hands for several bets each.
An example from seven-card stud would be to play a hand like the
9
8
6
if you can get in cheaply. Now if you get lucky and catch perfect (which means a seven) you’ll be in a good position to win a big pot.
Area No. 2: Middle round play. Since hold ’em and stud are both games with many rounds of betting, middle round play produced new opportunities to squeeze out additional profit. We’ve all heard the story of the farmer who lost half his farm drawing to inside straights, and the other half when he finally made one. But in both hold ’em and stud these hands are sometimes correct to play. The difference is that when you hold one of these hands you should frequently be the one initiating the action. That is, you should bet and sometimes even raise. This will give your opponent(s) a chance to drop, and if they don’t you might get lucky and catch perfect anyway. These type of plays are called “semi-bluffs,” a term originally coined by poker authority David Sklansky, and they’re only one example of many different techniques that can be used to generate long term profit before the end of the hand.
Area No. 3 : Play on the river. Even after all the cards are out the better players began to understand that very sophisticated concepts would govern correct strategy. An example is that you don’t necessarily bet what you think is the best hand. If you were playing stud and had four-of-a-kind showing, you should virtually never bet. Your opponent would only continue to play if he could beat what you had in sight. So players began to learn that in general you should only bet your legitimate hands if you feel that your hand will be best when your opponent calls. But there’s even an exception to this. If you’re first to act and you feel that your opponent will call with more hands than he himself will bet, and that you’ll call his bet if you check, then you should go ahead and bet even if you think that if called you’ll lose more often than you should win.
As you can see, today’s modern forms of poker can be quite complex, much more so than what was played in the late 1800s. And, it’s hard to believe that the gamblers of the Old West would have much success going up against today’s professionals. On the other hand, given some time, I believe people like Wyatt Earp and Doc Holiday would get to work on their poker games, as many of us have done, and eventually do quite well.
Two Plus Two has a new book coming out titled Poker and More: Unique Ideas and Concepts; Strategy, Game Theory, and Psychology from Two Renowned Gambling Experts By David Sklansky and Mason Malmuth that has an essay by me that is somewhat related to this thread. So here it is:
Editors Note: This is an article that Mason wrote about fifteen years ago for a gambling magazine that quit publishing shortly after this was submitted. Mason can’t even remember if it ever appeared in print, and if it did, very few people today would have seen it. In addition, it has been reworked a little to reflect more recent events, and is not a strategy article per se. However, we do think that most of you will find it interesting.
Modern Poker
by Mason Malmuth
Poker is a game that has been around for many years. When French colonists arrived to settle the Lousiana Territory in the 1700s they brought with them a French game called “Poque” that used five card hands and required betting and bluffing. The game took hold around the city of New Orleans, and in the early 1800s began to move north with the Mississippi riverboats. It also went through many changes. More hands of value were added and the standard 52 card deck began to be used. But most important, Americans began to call it “poker.”
Its popularity increased during the Civil War as the Union Army moved south and many soildiers adopted it as the way to pass their idle time. (In fact, the term stud may be referring to the additional horses that were required to pull the canyons along the Mississippi River.) But poker really entered its Golden Age after the war had ended as former soldiers, especially those from the Confederacy, headed West for a better life, and by the 1880s it had become one of the main gambling games for the elite. It was not a game for the “faint of heart.” Fortunes were known to change hands in the games, and many of our “heros” from that era were really first and formost poker players. This includes people like Wild Bill Hitchok, Wyatt Earp, and Doc Holiday. When their fortunes were poor, they worked as lawmen, but when their luck at the tables was good, they were poker players.
Today, it appears that poker has entered another golden age. But there’s a major difference. The game has become much more widely played. And while large sums of money do occasionally change hands, most poker games are now played for moderate stakes. Enough to be interesting, but not enough to dramatically change your life. This is due to the fact that limit poker as opposed to no-limit poker became popular, and most of today’s no-limit games have caps on the buy-ins.
Interestingly enough, today’s games probably require much more skill than the games over 100 years ago. The reason for this is that the games are currently structured much differently from what we see in the movies. I suspect that the best players of that era just played tight — that is they only played the premium hands — and unimaginatively. This is all they needed to do to get the money as long as they were against that “rich rancher or miner who came to gamble.” So the skill wasn’t in “how you played your cards,” that came much later. The skill was in getting the right player to sit down at your table and convincing him that it was okay to be “eaten” by the “sharks.”
As we can see, old time poker was a “people game.” When the right person was playing a lot of hands, he would eventually get trapped for all his money. How you played your hand wasn’t as important as just waiting for the right hand to play. This is also one of the reasons that the professional gamblers of the Old West dressed so flamboyantly. It was to disguise the fact that they were not there to do much gambling.
Now you may say that since I wasn’t there how could I know that this is accurate. It seems hard to believe that people like Wyatt Earp were actually more boring than their legacy seems to indicate. But at the poker tables I strongly believe that this is the case.
There are three reasons that can be used to support this argument. First, is that draw poker was widely played. Anyone who has much experience at draw will tell you that this is a game where the best starting hand usually holds up, and if the ante was small, anyone who just plays tight will have a field day against “live” action.
Second, is that the old time poker books, of which there were many, advise to “just play tight.” The old time authors don’t seem to recognize all the skill and different techniques that are present in poker. This is most likely because they weren’t necessary.
The third reason, and the one that’s probably most important, is that in the early 1900s a new form of poker began to evolve. Today we know this form as “Texas Hold Them Poker,” or hold ’em for short. It’s now the most widely played form of poker, and is a game that requires considerable skill. But when it first appeared it was mainly played no-limit, and no-limit hold ’em with a small blind/ante structure is a tight player’s dream if you’re against people who are action players. That is, people who like to play many hands. (I do need to point out that no-limit hold ’em isn’t so simple when you’re against other skillful players, especially if the stacks are deep. But against weak players who are frequently putting their money in the pot and who will call most bets, all you need to do is wait for the right hand.)
But poker, like many other endeavors, began to change as the years went by. Part of the reason for this was that it was played in the casinos of Nevada as well as the cardrooms of California, and for it to be successful the game had to be structured so that bad players would have enough winning nights so that they would keep coming back. That is, forms of poker began to appear where there was a “proper” balance of luck and skill. Limit hold ’em and seven-card stud, with reasonably large antes and blinds, began to catch on in Nevada, and ace-to-five lowball draw became the game of choice in California since only forms of draw poker were legal at that time.
These games — even with their large luck factor — are still beatable through skillful play. But the day of “sit tight and wait” for a good hand was over. A new breed of player began to appear. These were people who approached the game much more scientifically and attempted to squeeze out every possible edge that they could find. To do this they needed to play their hands well all the way through. To support this argument, let’s look at three areas of play which the old time poker experts (probably) did not concern themselves with.
Area No. 1: Starting hands. Waiting for premium hands was no longer enough to assure a win. Because of the large ante/blind structure that the new forms of poker featured, the better players needed to find additional hands which would show a profit. But what’s most interesting is that many of these hands only show a profit in the right situations, and may still be losers most of the time. An example from limit hold ’em is a small pair. In many situations these hands just cost chips. But if you can expect multiway action the “implied odds” that they produce can even make a lowly hand like the
2
2highly profitable if you manage to flop three-of-a-kind. Now you may trap several other players with reasonable hands for several bets each.
An example from seven-card stud would be to play a hand like the
9
8 6if you can get in cheaply. Now if you get lucky and catch perfect (which means a seven) you’ll be in a good position to win a big pot.
Area No. 2: Middle round play. Since hold ’em and stud are both games with many rounds of betting, middle round play produced new opportunities to squeeze out additional profit. We’ve all heard the story of the farmer who lost half his farm drawing to inside straights, and the other half when he finally made one. But in both hold ’em and stud these hands are sometimes correct to play. The difference is that when you hold one of these hands you should frequently be the one initiating the action. That is, you should bet and sometimes even raise. This will give your opponent(s) a chance to drop, and if they don’t you might get lucky and catch perfect anyway. These type of plays are called “semi-bluffs,” a term originally coined by poker authority David Sklansky, and they’re only one example of many different techniques that can be used to generate long term profit before the end of the hand.
Area No. 3 : Play on the river. Even after all the cards are out the better players began to understand that very sophisticated concepts would govern correct strategy. An example is that you don’t necessarily bet what you think is the best hand. If you were playing stud and had four-of-a-kind showing, you should virtually never bet. Your opponent would only continue to play if he could beat what you had in sight. So players began to learn that in general you should only bet your legitimate hands if you feel that your hand will be best when your opponent calls. But there’s even an exception to this. If you’re first to act and you feel that your opponent will call with more hands than he himself will bet, and that you’ll call his bet if you check, then you should go ahead and bet even if you think that if called you’ll lose more often than you should win.
As you can see, today’s modern forms of poker can be quite complex, much more so than what was played in the late 1800s. And, it’s hard to believe that the gamblers of the Old West would have much success going up against today’s professionals. On the other hand, given some time, I believe people like Wyatt Earp and Doc Holiday would get to work on their poker games, as many of us have done, and eventually do quite well.