Post
by Skeletor » Thu Sep 08, 2022 2:47 pm
yeah ashe is right
when i started, david sklasnky's books and other books 2+2 published were what everyone was reading. this is the starting point that i was saying is already miles ahead of phil's book
it's all about counting outs, working out the odds of winning, comparing that to the pot, working out how much value it is to bluff if they fold x% if the time plus whatever equity you have from your outs if they call. it's a very mathematical approach to the game, and these books all involve example hand after example hand, they're just filled with hand after hand and then an analysis of the hand
so the next phase is the early 2+2 forums phase where everyone is reading those books and extending the approach on the forums. thousands of users making zillions of posts, you post a hand you played that you wonder about, multiple people help you analyze it or at least give their reaction about what they'd have done. so this is sort of an amplification of things, and everyone starts tracking all their hands with software and as a group starts developing some new things too with all this data
i was playing through this phase and i quit about the same time as jorbs started up. my understanding is this amplification process continued, play continued to change in response, and people started going deeper on explicit ranges. when i was posting people talked about ranges, and there were range calculators, but it was mostly about outs. outs are like a really fuzzy view of ranges. it's like, i have a flush draw, i probably win if i hit the flush so those are my outs, i probably lose if i don't. so i do all my math based on getting the flush or not basically
ranges are more exact, and when people start working out more exact ranges for their opponent, they start talking more about their own ranges. this is a step toward GTO (game theory optimal) type of play, where you're not just considering hands in isolation, but considering that if you take this line with this hand, then it has implications about what lines you can take with other hands
my knowledge of how things progress is increasingly on the sidelines here but at some point limit holdem becomes a thing where humans can't beat computers. and at some point heads up limit even becomes fully solved. no-limit is still ok for a while, but computers eventually can beat everyone at that too; next humans move to omaha which eventually also falls
at this point top players use the computers to "run sims" which is probably analogous to usage of engines in chess
wow, [you]. that all sounds terrible. i hope it gets better for you