socioviews
60 posts
Apr 23, 2025
9:20 AM
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Poker strategy is a set of choices that describes players' actions in poker. It outlines a plan to maximize the profit in a poker game. The characteristics of poker strategies are influenced by game-theoretic properties of poker, such as imperfect information and the element of chance. Consequently, mixed strategies, methods of deception, and probabilistic considerations are common features of effective poker strategies.
An example for the elaborateness of a well-thought-out poker strategy is the complexity of a decision in a single poker hand, which is reflected in the multitude of factors to be considered, such as the number of opponents, position at the table, opponents' playing styles and their perception of the player's own playing style, previous actions, pot size, stack size and some other circumstances like the stage of the tournament.
Certain strategies proved to be more successful over the long run. This justifies the view that skill plays an important role in poker, which was the object of the debate of the legality of online poker in U.S.
In 2015 it was announced that the heads-up limit Hold'em (a variant of Texas Hold'em with restrictions on the betting structure played by two players) was essentially solved, meaning that a sufficient approximation of a Nash equilibrium was computed, making this the first nontrivial game of imperfect information played by humans to be essentially solved by a computer.
The fundamental theorem of poker formulates a criterion for deciding whether the most profitable decision has been made which applies to almost all considerations, with a few exceptions. Although it provides the theoretical basis for most poker techniques, due to the fact that we never know other players' hands with 100% certainty, it has limited applications in practice in its original form.
Instead of putting an opponent on a specific hand, a more applicable approach is to try to determine the best play against a range--the set of possible hands he could be holding in this situation. This approach clears some misunderstandings which arise in the use of the fundamental theorem of poker in practice:
While the fundamental theorem of poker implies that calling was the wrong play (if you would have known that the opponent has a higher straight flush you would have folded), folding a straight flush under these circumstances is not profitable in the long run because there is only one hand in opponent's range (presumed to contain more hands) that beats yours.
Odds
The profitability of a play in poker is determined on the basis of the risk vs. reward concept. This concept takes a simple mathematical form in the definitions of various odds and the relations between them. The most common use of odds is the comparison of drawing odds and pot odds. Check out best poker game apps.
A drawing hand is a hand that has little value in the current situation but can improve significantly through certain future cards (outs) which are said to complete a draw. Drawing odds are defined as the ratio of the probability that a hand will not complete the draw to the probability that a hand will complete a draw, calculated as
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