I guess that is one way to look at it, and quite well-put of your teacher.

But how to you make those decision you talk about? You do it (consciously or not) by using math.

As I see it, an in-game poker decision is two things: 1) Estimating people's ranges in a spot and taking into account their tendencies (i.e. reads). 2) Choosing the highest EV line given 1).

Now, I think we can all agree that 2) is math (simulations, solving equations etc.). Some would say that 1) is an "art" or something to that effect, but I claim that it is mainly math as well; we use bayesian inference to estimate a range for our opponent and while there is some sort of "intuition" in getting "reads", I think that in some way, this can be put on a quantifiable footing as well (e.g. I think it is x% likely that he will do this with that hand and y% likely he will do this).
EDIT: You can also think of the "reads" part as "Given what I have previously seen (his actions and his stats) how to I think he will react with these portions of his range?" which can be quantified/estimated (although you could argue, that you here need to use some "intuition" when remembering his past actions).

When we talk about being a professional, there're a lot of decisions away from the table as well - bankroll management, when to play and when not to play etc. etc. but these are certainly mathematical in nature as well (bankroll management is obvious, when determining if to play or not you need to estimate or quantify your EV and if it's possitive you play, if it's negative you don't (actually you should weigh it against other alternatives that could be more (life)+EV) and this is again using some mathematical reasoning).

Thinking about poker this way, I believe, makes it mainly math-based (I dont know if 95% is correct but I'd say that it isnt far in any case).

I see what your saying, and maybe I just have a different way of looking at it, but I don't really consider figuring out someones tendencies and ranges to be that math based. The biggest skill you can have in poker (aside from running good), is being able to figure out what your opponents are doing. I try to do this based on what I have seen someone do in the past, the way they are playing the current hand their in, and what I think they're perception of me is. When I am factoring in all this information, I am not really thinking about numbers and percentages that much. I suppose you could say that this is math itself in principle, but I prefer to just think of it as poker.

When I'm making a big decision in a hand, like a hero call or a bluff, I'm not doing it because I think its going to work 59.85% of the time, I'm doing it because I think it's going to work more than it's going to fail. I guess there's not really much of a difference between the two but what I'm trying to say is that I don't have a list of numbers and percentages in my head when I play. I make decisions because I believe they are going to be correct through my experience. I think that memory is a very important skill to have as poker player, and the more you can remember the better idea you'll have of whats going on in a hand.

I'd be very curious to see how many of the most successful players use HUD's when they play. I would imagine a fair amount of them don't use them at all. To be that successful I think you need to have a much greater understanding of your opponents than a HUD will give you. (although it obviously helps a sh*t ton in most cases)

Anyway, I guess what I'm ultimately trying to say is that I don't believe math is that important in poker. I do however believe that poker, like math is all about the art of problem solving. But in my mind there is a huge difference between solving a numerical equation, and solving a poker hand. I realize that I'm not really arguing that much here, but I feel like they're are probably a fair amount of players who agree with what I'm saying. I guess I would hope that most of them have been more successful than I have and that there is still hope for me

If you guys are limiting maths to arithmethic, algebra and statistics - or whatever basic, simple maths you learnt up until age 14 - then yeah, once you get to a basic level of competency at poker, we're not consciously using much maths at all, but that's not the extent of maths. logic is maths, hand-reading is maths, mixing up your play is maths, it's all maths, the only bit that's not is the psychology of manipulating our opponent, reading his thought processes and controlling our own, and in the first two, there's still a lot of maths in there - we're subconsciously processing the behaviour of all the opponents we've ever played in a large range of spots and trying to work out what category this opponent fits into, thereby predicting what he's going to do and working out his range, and that's a mathematical thing. just because you don't think you're doing it mathematically doesn't make it maths.

this is maths.

No it's ur gut speaking m8

Calling that maths is like saying 56454 + 820384 is greater than 0, sure it's better than thinking it's a negative number, but it's not going to win you a Fields Medal, just like knowing a bluff will work a non 0 amount of the time wont let you take on the top PLO bosses.

not quite sure how to say it any clearer

"gut" and "feel" are just math internalized and refined through experience.

IMO, winning poker breaks down 3 ways:
1. the fundamentals: math, math and more math
2. assessing villain's range/exploiting imbalance/being balanced: math + observation
3. emotional control: not math

this 5.2k plo scoop is stacked, my starting table would be a really tough deep table lineup i would never sit in lol with that said I think will bink it

ah come on, only one reg has the note: good reg and all the others are only regs easy money for

playing these talking me out of playing any in vegas, 3 hours in and like nothing has happened, this is torture

somehow 7/30 left in this thing, now it makes sense why people play this when the times you start to go deep in one, when I bust out though i'll want to go jump into the ocean or something tho but since going to win might I won't have to experience that feeling

sorry cleaner11 for mean words because you win 100 percent all ins, tommey i mean what i said about you though


shouldn't have played that mtt, been up like 3 days now with 3 hours of sleep

Wth is going on today. I am 12 tabling 2/4+ and there is at least one VPIP>50 fish in every game.

scoop?

You must be devastated!

You're telling me this doesn't usually happen? I should just stop playing PLO right here

Hotmark looks like he could be final-tabling the 10k SCOOP main

currently 4/9

he posts here right? gl to him

vamooooooooooo hotmark!!!! damn god, ft scoop is sick!!!! GL representing the omaha !!!

btw guys, anyone saw KK x AK when final table was 9handed? flop AAx for 1,5mil chips. thats like 300k or 400k bad beat lol... guy who lose the hand still in, now in 4th w 700k chips. he will be my hero if he win after losing kk x ak .

especially because flop was AAx and the turn was the K, like sickest turn ever, lots of huge tilt potential.

sad end to the scoop got 15th in the 5k plo 32nd in one other 2k and 5th in the 1k plo/nlhe mix scoop so close to having a good scoop




this hand busted me 11th

My man suarez_BG shipped the middle ME for 560K, Bulgarians are rollin'

Not sure if this has been posted before. He's doing his usual ratholing, take position and sit out on a new table stuff even in the video

thx for posting this. will watch and know his game better