Poker Game Theory: a New Way to Think About the Game
To most people, poker is a game of skill involving a lot of a luck, but in reality it is so much more than that. Of course, as with any gambling, luck plays a very heavy part, but the skill lies within actually manipulating said “luck”. In all gambling, it’s up to chance, and in terms of a casino, it’s highly likely that most gambling games are favored to the house, giving players an even lower chance of winning. Poker, on the other hand, is an exception. In addition to just pure chance, the element of having another player(s) against you changes up the game completely. Not only are you fighting for your own luck but against other players luck as well.
The article I found generally discusses how complex poker can really be as well as the GTO poker strategy to help players succeed more in game. GTO stands for Game Theory Optimal and the article describes the strategy based on this that, if used correctly, can create an almost “perfect” play style that will be almost unbeatable by opponents. The article describes that no matter what the pot or hand is, every single decision can influence the chances of winning, which is not only true but adds even more to the thrill of the game. The idea that a single raise or call can completely change the balance of the game and add more money to your pockets is exciting. This method presented doesn’t only allow for a good strategy for your own hand, but a good strategy for countering your opponents, as your opponents are the second part of the game to deal with, aside deciding what hand to stay with. When playing with any hand, there’s two simple ideas: playing and betting as a bluff or for value. The main idea is to create some sort of combination of these strategies in order to throw off opponents and maximize the profit you gain. This is where the game theory in class comes in.
The example the article shows about value betting and bluffing is much like an outcome matrix as we learned in class. It relates to game theory and the Nash equilibrium with different mixed and pure strategies we learned about in class. Much like in the Prisoner’s Dilemma, one can think about the strategy as a matrix with two sides, one being you and the other being your opponent(s). On your side, you can either choose the option to value bet, meaning you bet big to win, or bluff, meaning you bet big to bluff out your opponents. Assuming you win when your opponent calls the value bet and lose when your opponent calls the bluff, we can then think of a pure strategy. If you chose to value bet 100% of the time, the opponent would then fold 100% of the time, allowing you to win. If you chose to bluff 100% of the time, the opponent would call 100% of the time, making you lose. In this sense it’s a pure strategy if we think of value betting as being p = 1 or 0 and bluffing being q = 1 or 0. The article describes two other scenarios that describe a mixed strategy in the Nash equilibrium. One scenario is a strategy of a 50-50 between bluffing and value betting. Assuming the opponent always calls, let’s say 100 dollars is in the pot from each player, winning half the time would net 100 dollars, while losing half the time would make you lose 50 dollars, leaving you with a profit of 50 dollars. If this is the case, just like the article states, only value betting would be more profitable. The idea from the article, though, is that the best GTO is a balance between 33% bluff and 67% value betting. This could be calculated through the p and q values of the Nash equilibrium, showing another kind of mixed strategy.
The article states that this method allows you to gain 100 dollars for every action the opponent takes, making it “unbeatable”. Its flexibility lies within changing these percents, meaning changing the mixed strategies, in order to adapt to your opponents’ strategies. The article goes on to talk about how this GTO based strategy is the best way to profit in the game and how it gets rid of some bad habits in the game, but what matters most is the idea that even if the GTO strategy is rationally the optimal way to play, poker is still a game of chance. As we’ve seen we are able to manipulate the chances and opponents to raise our chances of winning, but unlike the scenarios given and matrix created from it, not everything will follow those scenarios. Everyone has their own way of playing and people have different ways of psyching out their opponents. Although the game theory displayed in the article indeed is an interesting way to play and ensure some amount of profit, the game of poker is uncertain and relies on many different variables, truly making it a fun way to gamble.
Sources:
https://upswingpoker.com/gto-poker-game-theory-optimal-strategy/