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There's a lot of games where the "State" is important the most obvious of which being poker. In a game of poker you can devise a game theory optimal strategy f

There's a lot of games where the "State" is important the most obvious of which being poker. In a game of poker you can devise a game theory optimal strategy for any given position which is objectively the best, but that's not what most players do. They try to mix in exploitative strategies which abuse the tendencies of their opponents. These tendencies are revealed after extensive experience with the players. There is an aspect to this in chess as well, you can treat the best move as the one which is objectively best (Game theory optimal, as evaluated by chess engines usually), or you can treat the best move as the one people in general have a hard time responding well do or that your opponent doesn't play well against (Exploitative, as evaluated by opening database statistics or a players history). Yet once a tricky opening becomes popular, people wise up, and it starts becoming a bad opening again. Whereas old traps become forgotten and effective again. Whereas objectively good moves are always objectively good. Another huge aspect to winning the game is just playing against bad players. In chess players your performance is rated based on the rating the other player, so you shouldn't fear playing games against a stronger player. In Poker your performance is measured in dollars, and you should absolutely fear playing games against a stronger player. So to be most effective in poker, you want to know the history of the people you're playing, which is why poker tools like sharkscope exist which tell people which tables are filled with historical winners. You can play games in a stateless way and do pretty well, and the benefit to doing so is you learn skills that work against anything from the weakest to strongest opponents and allow you to play objectively good moves. But adopting a few stateful strategies can absolutely give you an edge against squishy humans. You can play the board, or you can play the player, at the end of the day all that matters is who won and who lost.

hackernewds 4y ago
> They try to mix in exploitative strategies which abuse the tendencies of their opponents. without knowledge of other players, how do pros wins consistently at casinos?
- faeriechangling 4y ago
  The longer you're at a table with somebody, the more information you learn about them. If they're a weak player, if they're a strong player, if they're too aggressive, if they're too passive, if they play with crappy cards, if they only play with good cards, if they have a tell. When you don't know much about the other players at a table, you tend to not use exploitative strategies as much and reply more on game theory optimal strategies and just play the cards you're dealt while you quietly gather information on your opponents tendencies so you can play the players. This might be enough to win on its own, or at least be good enough to just break even, presuming the other players are making enough mistakes.
  - tialaramex 4y ago
    Disregarding rake or table costs, the Game Theory Optimal strategy for a poker variant will always (on average over time) take money from all players who aren't also playing a GTO strategy. It would only break even (again, disregarding rake or similar table costs) against another GTO strategy, and there's no way casual players, which is where the money enters this system, would play a GTO strategy. You're lucky if they remember all the rules of the game without prompting from the dealer. For real poker variants, humans can't play an actual GTO strategy because it's too complicated. http://poker.srv.ualberta.ca/ http://poker.srv.ualberta.ca/ provides an essentially perfect derived GTO strategy for Heads Up, Limit Texas Hold'em. It's... a lot, trying to "simplify" it will make it leak money (where Cepheus takes option A 62% of the time, B 38% of the time, simplifying to fifty-fifty will lose a little money) and trying to "improve" it (e.g. let's take on more of these potentially weak opposing hands) is likely to open gaping holes in your play that can be exploited by others.
    - faeriechangling 4y ago
      Yeah this is all true, I’m talking pragmatically to a huge extent here since humans don’t and can’t play perfectly and they do play at raked tables. You can’t exploit perfect play, you just end up being the one getting exploited.

hackernewds 4y ago

> They try to mix in exploitative strategies which abuse the tendencies of their opponents. without knowledge of other players, how do pros wins consistently at casinos?

faeriechangling 4y ago
The longer you're at a table with somebody, the more information you learn about them. If they're a weak player, if they're a strong player, if they're too aggressive, if they're too passive, if they play with crappy cards, if they only play with good cards, if they have a tell. When you don't know much about the other players at a table, you tend to not use exploitative strategies as much and reply more on game theory optimal strategies and just play the cards you're dealt while you quietly gather information on your opponents tendencies so you can play the players. This might be enough to win on its own, or at least be good enough to just break even, presuming the other players are making enough mistakes.
- tialaramex 4y ago
  Disregarding rake or table costs, the Game Theory Optimal strategy for a poker variant will always (on average over time) take money from all players who aren't also playing a GTO strategy. It would only break even (again, disregarding rake or similar table costs) against another GTO strategy, and there's no way casual players, which is where the money enters this system, would play a GTO strategy. You're lucky if they remember all the rules of the game without prompting from the dealer. For real poker variants, humans can't play an actual GTO strategy because it's too complicated. http://poker.srv.ualberta.ca/ http://poker.srv.ualberta.ca/ provides an essentially perfect derived GTO strategy for Heads Up, Limit Texas Hold'em. It's... a lot, trying to "simplify" it will make it leak money (where Cepheus takes option A 62% of the time, B 38% of the time, simplifying to fifty-fifty will lose a little money) and trying to "improve" it (e.g. let's take on more of these potentially weak opposing hands) is likely to open gaping holes in your play that can be exploited by others.
  - faeriechangling 4y ago
    Yeah this is all true, I’m talking pragmatically to a huge extent here since humans don’t and can’t play perfectly and they do play at raked tables. You can’t exploit perfect play, you just end up being the one getting exploited.