Hi.

Sometimes you hear people say about other poker players, that they really have 'good fundamentals'.

What do they mean by that?
Is there only one definition?

Thank you .

Value betting, bluffing, bluffcatching, and folding.

+ opening ranges, basics of positional play, basic preflop play (calling ranges, 3bet ranges), basics of hand reading especially betting patterns and understanding of most important stats (VPIP, PFR, aggression, steal%, fold to steal%, 3bet, cbet%, fold to cbet%, etc), bankroll management, tilt control, self-assessment and game selection, session and hand review, how to use resources to learn, other stuff I'm not thinking of.

THE MATH.

calculating equity and EV, knowing the odds to every draw, knowing all the equities for common matchups (over pair versus suited connectors, overcards to a pocket pair, overcards to suited connectors, etc.)

knowing the odds to draw doesnt help you much in NLHE

I am not sure what you mean. Are you saying that knowing how to calculate your odds of hitting your dras is not useful in NLHE?

this alone wont put you on a higher level then someone who doesnt know the odds if you (both) still call with improper odds.

got it?

in NLHE most draws are unprofitable to call with in a pure odds game, simply because normal betsizes are 2/3 to pot, so if you dont have a OESDFD(in which case you should raise) calling is not profitabel if it where 1 streetpoker, i.e. Opponent "knows" when you hit your draw

What about open ended straight draws on the flop, flushdraws on the flop, gutshot+overcard draws on the flop, straightdraw+pair on the turn, flushdraw+pair on the turn? Surely you're taking betsize and implied odds into account with those hands.

but knowing the odds alone doesnt help you if you call anyways, thats all i say

it is a nice knowledge, but i wouldnt say THIS is the thing that makes a pro

It's true that people might miscalculate the odds and make a bad decision, or they might just wanna gamble and call with bad odds even though they know better. Nobody denies that. However, knowing the odds and making good drawing decisions because of that is definitely an important fundamental.

i think i just have another view on it.

for me the fundamentals are gameselection and knowing your opponents.

compare it to math in school, would you say adding and multiplying is a fundamental or comprehening textbased excercises?

the answer is probably both of them, but for me adding and multiplaying is like knowing how to wipe your ass.

What others have said, but for me it's also understanding the "language" of poker.

Like when someone raises you on a dry flop, usually they can beat top pair crappy kicker, kinda thing. Or on a wet board knowing that you sometimes should call a loose person's bet when holding 2 pair, etc. (Too many people see monsters under the bed, too often.)

Try practicing game selection without knowing the basic odds of drawing hands, or how to calculate EV, or how to make basic reads on ranges. can't be done. Fundamentals are those skills upon which all other skills are based, you are basically saying 'ehhh, all poker players should have these basic skills, so I won't even mention them' when the original question is precisely 'what are the basic, fundamentals of poker'.

"I've never played a hand of poker but three of the kids from the Downs Syndrome group home, my drunken aunt Mary who's on her fourth glass of sherry and my neighbour's golden retriever want to play. I think I like my chances."

Seriously, while I agree your items belong on the list, game selection just means playing against players who are worse than you. Nothing you mentioned is an absolute prerequisite to doing so.

Which suggests that game selection is the most fundamental skill in poker. But that can't be true - game selection is a meta skill that relies upon both your own assessment of your own abilities and of your opponent's.

So then what is the least amount of poker knowledge you could have and still be able to reliably determine that you're likely to be better than someone else?

None.

This is largely a philosophical discussion but, even having no experience with poker but having a strong background in math (particularly statistics or game theory) or as a card/board game player would give you a tremendous advantage over someone equally unfamiliar with the game but without such background.

Ultimately, it's a chicken and egg - The most fundamental skill in poker is game selection. But game selection is itself a collection of even more fundamental skills. Which skills apply depend entirely on the competition.

There's more than one definition. When some says this, it means that the player is making the same decisions that the observer would make in the same situation. If the decision was different, the observer would understand why the player made that decision, even if he didn't agree with it. At a table consisting of a number of LLSNL posters, they would say I have good fundamentals. At a table with nose bleed cash players, they would say I was pretty weak.

It is much how most people use the terms LAG and TAG. Anyone playing more hands than the OP is a LAG. Anyone playing the same or less hands is a TAG.

"They have good fundamentals" roughly means "I've never seen them make obviously terrible plays, but I've also never seen them do creative stuff that I don't understand". i.e. It's a way of saying "Another average reg".

these young bloods don't practise the fundamentals anymore

and those omc will just play the f they want