<story><title>How A.I. Conquered Poker</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/18/magazine/ai-technology-poker.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>splonk</author><text>(Former pro and high stakes player, occasional solver developer)&lt;p&gt;This is actually one of the best poker articles I&amp;#x27;ve ever seen in generalist media.  Not too clickbaity, reasonable high level overview of game theory, a (very accurate IMO) quote from old pro Erik Seidel about the state of the game just 15 years ago, a discussion on variance vs. EV and results, and most importantly, an emphasis on math, randomization techniques and emotional control rather than the TV image of staring in someone&amp;#x27;s eyes and reading their soul.  Probably the one biggest misconception people have is that pros have sick reading abilities since TV likes to emphasize staredowns, when the actual single biggest skill long term pros have is the ability to lose hand after hand for hours and still play their best game.&lt;p&gt;Incidentally, the anecdote at the top of the article is pretty intuitive game theoretically.  Basically on the river you need to bluff with some portion of your hands, or else nobody will ever call when you have a good hand.  The natural portion of your hands to bluff with is the absolute worst ones - you don&amp;#x27;t want to bluff with your middling hands because you have some small chance of just winning a showdown when it checks around.  On a board of Kc4c5c2d2c, 7d6d is quite likely the absolute worst hand you can hold given the action that&amp;#x27;s taken place, therefore it&amp;#x27;s the one you bluff with.  (For some pot&amp;#x2F;stack sizes it&amp;#x27;s possible that you bluff so rarely that you have to choose between 7d6d&amp;#x2F;7h6h&amp;#x2F;7s6s, but that&amp;#x27;s getting into details.)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ramoz</author><text>Similar story here. I’ve always played, mostly online, before Black Friday (pretty sure I was a minor when it happened) but played all the offshore sites through college. Professional software career took off and bounced out, finally ~3y ago I decided to get back into it and I would only play challenging games (only thing challenging about a 1&amp;#x2F;3 or tourneys is the grind). So, started with 2&amp;#x2F;5, within a week was playing the 10&amp;#x2F;25, 25&amp;#x2F;50.&lt;p&gt;1. Emotional control and pushing through the variance are key, I would play all nighters and it was mostly a subtle rise up vs big pots (except the one that did me in)&lt;p&gt;2. You absolutely do read players, I didn’t need to be a pro to learn how to observe the degenerates. Even decent players signaled things here or there (obv not how they eat an oreo  , but I had a knack for knowing when someone was off their style). And it’s not even close wit a normal group of friends.&lt;p&gt;3. the sharks and their meta game… I had run up to about 50K within 3 weeks from my starting 2-3K. Had the pipe dream. I thought I had a growing bond with the pros. When I say pros I’m not talking grinders, I’m talking consistent big winners. About a handful of them. None of them tv personalities. - There were few times we’d run into each other, but I picked off a few donk bets here or there. However their persistence is what did me in. Went the entire month observing their advanced play style, which the meta was harsh, there were few rivers that mattered more than pre flop and continuation&amp;#x2F;donk betting. This style of play was like nothing I was seeing on tv. But I was winning with them. The last time I played, about a month into my run, I was on a 12h 25&amp;#x2F;50 game winding down, turned 30k into 70k (had 20k sitting back) pulled QQ and went up against a pre-flop donker. I face a 3 bet and get that gut feeling but put on lower pair or AK. Flop rainbows, large betting action. Turn, junk, I face an insane Re raise after testing a raise of my own, I know it’s off but it’s either AA&amp;#x2F;KK or AK at this point. My guts off but I’m too far in to quit. On the river I’m defeated, check, face bet, ultimately end up throwing 50K into the pot, lose to aces.&lt;p&gt;I never had a gut feeling so intense though. Like I was screaming at myself to get out. But I was caught.&lt;p&gt;Such a draining hand I never went back. I don’t have the discipline to grind games, and the tech industry pays more.</text></comment>
<story><title>How A.I. Conquered Poker</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/18/magazine/ai-technology-poker.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>splonk</author><text>(Former pro and high stakes player, occasional solver developer)&lt;p&gt;This is actually one of the best poker articles I&amp;#x27;ve ever seen in generalist media.  Not too clickbaity, reasonable high level overview of game theory, a (very accurate IMO) quote from old pro Erik Seidel about the state of the game just 15 years ago, a discussion on variance vs. EV and results, and most importantly, an emphasis on math, randomization techniques and emotional control rather than the TV image of staring in someone&amp;#x27;s eyes and reading their soul.  Probably the one biggest misconception people have is that pros have sick reading abilities since TV likes to emphasize staredowns, when the actual single biggest skill long term pros have is the ability to lose hand after hand for hours and still play their best game.&lt;p&gt;Incidentally, the anecdote at the top of the article is pretty intuitive game theoretically.  Basically on the river you need to bluff with some portion of your hands, or else nobody will ever call when you have a good hand.  The natural portion of your hands to bluff with is the absolute worst ones - you don&amp;#x27;t want to bluff with your middling hands because you have some small chance of just winning a showdown when it checks around.  On a board of Kc4c5c2d2c, 7d6d is quite likely the absolute worst hand you can hold given the action that&amp;#x27;s taken place, therefore it&amp;#x27;s the one you bluff with.  (For some pot&amp;#x2F;stack sizes it&amp;#x27;s possible that you bluff so rarely that you have to choose between 7d6d&amp;#x2F;7h6h&amp;#x2F;7s6s, but that&amp;#x27;s getting into details.)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>sillysaurusx</author><text>So how much have you won and lost in total? I don’t have any knowledge of poker, so I don’t know how to ballpark this. And the impersonal questions are boring after seven lifetimes, so I thought I’d ask.&lt;p&gt;It would be interesting to see a GitHub style graph of poker activity, with won and lost corresponding to added lines and removed lines.</text></comment>