The Backwards learning theory of poker

EDIT: link fixed

Hi all,

I mostly post in the short handed forum. You may know me from abstract blog posts. You may know me as the guy who I can never make any sense out of.

This concerns me. There is no reason why a new player shouldn't be able to understand the content of my writing. But many of them don't, even though my writing could be 10,000% more beneficial to your game than any single piece of advice.

The knowledge I write can easily be dismissed under the guise of "Advanced Strategy." This issue is that this isn't advanced strategy at all. It is moreso the simplest and the most encompassing concepts in poker, and by knowing them you can unlock, all by yourself, the secrets of poker profit.

Yet many still don't understand. There are a few reasons for this. One is your learning philosophy. This concept I like to call the backwards learning theory of poker. It's the idea that people think that they first need to learn the facts before the theory. In economics, this is like a teacher telling you to memorize 100 economics terms without telling you their actual meaning. But if he actually explained how economics worked, and the concepts behind these ideas, you could learn these terms without memorization. Same with poker. People think that they need to learn whether to raise AA preflop UTG before they learn how to form a range, because forming a range is an advanced concept and a decision is a simple concept. This is backwards. Decisions are built on a plethora of concepts, and without knowing these concepts, you cannot come to a correct decision. Furthermore, when you are told an incorrect decision, you have no ability to correct your error nor do you have the ability to learn about different decisions based on that decision. It is likely then, that a player would be better of leaning how to beat an 1000NL game before he learns how to beat a 2nl game.

I have wrote this same rant in my blog in different words: http://www.flopturnriver.com/blogs/weekly-strategy-compilation-revision-of-isf-theorem-249

Below is a post that talks about one of the most fundamental concepts in poker.

http://archives2.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=533592&page=&view=&sb=5&o=&fpart=all&vc=1

Read it as long as it takes to understand it.

Now think.

-Danny Steinberg

2nd link appears not to be working. BTW, nice new avatar. I check all your posts now!

Edit: nice post.

good stuff Danny... I'll be giving it thought for sure

Nothing like helping yourself by calling someone a douche when they have no vested interest in trying to help you but do anyway. The guy has no reason to give advice except to give back to the same community that helped him and that's how you want to respond? I guess you no longer need the help, good luck with that. I for one, will accept anything ISF and other high stakes FTR'rs are willing to give.

Hmmm wow I didn't realize that what I said came off douchey at all. If I did I'm sorry. I think my advice is much worse than the advice of better players like sauce and gabe. What I meant to say was the concepts you could learn by reading about high stakes play is 1000000000000 times better than someone giving you a tip.

I'll make sure the link is fixed.

I thought it seemed pretty douche'ee the first time I went through it. But then I re-read the part I didn't like and realized you referred to allllll of your advice being 100000000000% better than any single piece of advice.

At first I thought it said that anya dvice you give is 10000000000% better than any other piece of advice.

But even if you did say that I would just smile and nod and keep reading lol
I still have trouble following some of the theories and such, but I'm getting better.

Good post.

The problem isn´t that your advice is bad or "too advanced", but that 99% of online poker community is used to get advice spoonfed. Here´s the chance to get the spoon and feed yourself peoples, so take it.

thanks. your stuff is normally challenging, being challenged makes me think, thinking deeply about poker makes me understand it better, understanding poker better is a good thing.
at the moment i'm thinking too infrequently cos i'm spending time playing instead. that will change in may. looking forward to re-reading/studying a bunch of posts here.

also, i read the shania chain once in a while to remind me that poker is closer to abstract than starting hand charts...
oh, i also stopped min-raising so often

one more thing. when i first read isf theorem i thought 'so what?' then i started to learn. i thought 'so what does this mean?' now i'm addressing 'how do i apply what this means to improve my game?' the new and improved version looks good.

I like your posts nearly as much as your avatar. Smile

I was thinking about this overnight. I think perhaps that for us low stakes guys, rather than thinking "That doesnt apply at my level", we should be thinking "How can I apply that at my level?". Theres a difference between playing like a high stakes player, and using the same concepts as a high stakes player but applying them to a low stakes game.

Not always as easy done as said, but just spending time thinking about these things could improve your lowstakes game as well as preparing you for higher stakes.

is there a place where i can find "the best of isf's posts and thoughts on poker"?

links please?

Check ISFs full blog out Flomo.

Robb, you will find sooner or later that FTR becomes a #1, #4 and #5. with #1 absorbing more and more posters. It gets worse when they all change avatars for the beginning of the month, because now you get sucked in to rereading the garbage.

I've now read the ISF theory posts and the Shania post. Good shit on the ISF theory.

I'm totally with you (ISF) that learning theory is wayyy wayyyy wayyy better than memorizing tips, guideline, charts, whatever.

However, I will say this:
I understand the Shania post (i believe). I appreciate it. It's pretty, like mommy. But also like mommy, quite elusive, distant. I've thought about it quite a bit (in the 20 minutes since reading it), and I feel I have no idea how to apply it to my game, or anyone else's game for that matter. At least in a way that's not open experimentation. Understanding that ranges affect the individual values of the hands contained within them and that adjusting ranges as a whole affects potential profits is one thing. Determining an ideal range to play for any given situation while sitting at a poker table is quite another. While I can do the latter to some extent based off of experience and what I know of the ranges of my opps, anyone who could explain more concretely how to apply this theory would have my undying gratitude. I'm sort of left wondering if I'm not good enough to apply it, if applying it is a long and hazy process involving experimentation + skill + experience and even then cannot be perfected, or if I simply don't fully understand the theory.

I do appreciate it though.

More on-topic, I don't know what problem people had with the ISF theory or any advice I've seen you post, as it's been insightful and helpful, and you haven't even been stingy with helping people apply your theory. Perhaps microstakes ranges are so big/unpredictable that it didn't even occur to some newbs that thinking in terms of ranges is helpful (I don't know -- I don't play online). Perhaps they simply didn't understand it at all. Perhaps people don't like theory, as you say.... Eh, screw em - plenty of us newbsy guys want more intelligent theory. Um, please.

Also, I aspire to someday be a #3 in Robb's hierarchy of posters. This would mean that my posts are sometimes read fully, but also that I can get drunk and rant violently about my wife to pokerhead strangers who generally put up with it because they're nice.

I dont think you determine ideal ranges sitting at the table cowboy, instead you work on your ranges away from the table and somewhat use the appropriate predetermined range to suit the situation.

well, i guess i will contribute a #1-type post here...lol.

i can see where Muzz is coming from.

but...

i, personally, believe that if Danny is arrogant, so be it. he's certainly deserved it. when i started here at FTR, i dont think ISF was much more experienced than i was. however, one has shot up with meteoric speed, compared to me. hmmmm, we are both arrogant. we can both come across as douchebags, yet one is CLEARLY a better thinker than the other. (i'll let y'all decide who is who) so, i'll take whatever bone ISF decides to toss my way. and, douche or not, i will try and absorb it the best i can.

that said, Danny, i think your frustration with some of us not being "able to absorb" your writing resides in HOW we think. i tend to memorize everything. it has been easier, in life, to do so. i just think that way...naturally. is it right? probably not. i have an autistic son (who is 6 now), and i can tell you first-hand that the "apple doesnt fall far from the tree." you can trace it right up to MY father. my son will never read "phonetically." he will always memorize letter combinations...and never understand that the words MEAN something. that "drill" where you can jumble up the letters in a word, but as long as you keep the first and last letter in the correct place, you can still read just as fast? my son is the only person i know that cant even attempt it. hasnt a clue what those words are. never will.

point is: most people simply THINK differently than you do. hmmmm, perhaps that is why you have shot up faster. perhaps work ethic. perhaps talent. i, for one, will give you all three. but, it doesnt change the way a brain thinks. take all the $$ in the world and divide it equally among every person...and in a year, or faster, the same 3% will have all the money right back in their pockets. why? they think differently. period.

the nice part is, unlike my son (unfortunately, so far), the rest of us SHOULD be able to recognize we dont think like you. and, we SHOULD work like a dog to absorb what you put on paper.

i, for one, am doing so...hard as it may be. and, will continue to do so. i can only hope that Muzz, and others thinking the same things, will do so, too.

*Last edited by wesrman on Tue, 19 Feb 2008, 12:20am; edited 1 time in total*

I would imagine he means to sit down and determine optimal ranges for different situations that are likely to occur, and that way you don't have to try and work out what range you should be playing once you have recognized the situation because you have determined that ahead of time.

Ok, that does make sense. Thanks.

Any tips on how to move from Shania theory to figuring out an ideal range for a probable situation in advance?

dont get me wrong, i was not saying that memorizing was better. i was saying that some people, naturally being the operative word, learn that way.

and, retraining the brain, no matter how necessary, is difficult to impossible...depending on the person.

i understand you are trying to lead a horse to water, but sometimes you are dealing with jackasses. thats all i meant.

isf
please tell me bacon is OK and will not make me sick

i was .. ...... never mind the rest won't get it

So I finally got around to reading that Shania post/thread and think about it a little bit and like holy shit wtf did you just do to my brain? That post/thread made soooooo much stuff I know/feel about poker just *click* or whatever. Tyvm for exposing me to this.

Wow I have to say the Shania post opened my eyes. Thanks for posting it

Touche. Indeed the engine example wasn't so great, but my point is exactly that not many people who drive cars want to become really great at it, but a professional race car driver does. Similarly, most people play poker for fun and don't even realize that there IS theory and strategy behind the game. Serious poker players are fortunately a small minority.

I think you mean that every poker player HERE wants to get better.

*goes back to re-reading Shania*

eugmac

Previous discussion thread re: Shania (Fnord's)

http://www.flopturnriver.com/phpBB2/forum/i-have-met-shania-t12208.html#100882

Quite a bit of what ISF is talking about is shown in the "KK on A high flop"thread by gabe. I am sure you have all read it by now. There is this light bulb that goes on when you realize what he is talking about and then the concept no longer applies to just KK on A high flops. You can memorise what to do with KK there, but what about QQ on a k high flop or KK on an A turn? What about JTs when you flop the nuts? They alls tart to become more obvious when you understand the concept behind checking the flop. You start to know what to do when your WB/WA. There is 169 hands in poker and a million flops and turn cards that can come after. You can't memorize moves based on the cards, the board and the 1000's of opponents stats you will encounter, you need to learn the concepts that allow you to dissolve the information and situations into obvious lines to take because of the opponents range, how it is effected by the board, previous actions and the money behind. It's a jigsaw puzzle, and you need to solve it, but once you do, the light bulb goes on, and you will know you have figured it out.

*Last edited by frosst on Wed, 20 Feb 2008, 4:11pm; edited 2 times in total*

one thing i think should be considered is not only how us noobs ask to be taught (i.e. "show me how to play xx in this situation") but also how we are taught. I see alot of responses to hh in which people say, bet x amount, fold, raise.......and not alot of "why did you take the action you took?" or "what kind of player is he?" After all, if we are to grow as poker players, we need to learn how to play people in situations as well as the cards, correct? Imho, i would think there should be a standard guideline for posting hh's, for example including more than just x/x/x. If you are playing against a tagg that never folds to c-bets, and in fact rr's alot, you would play the hand differently than a tagg that folds to c-bets 80% of the time. Telling someone that posts a hh to bet x amount could lessen EV and, in fact, teach him wrong. Asking for more info, i would think, would teach people to look for more info, and advance the learning exponentially, as well as help to understand why they are supposed to play a hand in a certain way

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