No_Neck 0 Posted April 14, 2007 Share Posted April 14, 2007 ArticlePhysicist Unlocks Secrets of Texas Hold 'EmA new model of poker player behavior reproduces results from actual games By Christopher Mims Clément Sire isn't just a statistical physicist—he's also a champion bridge player. Combining his love of physics and games, he has created a model of the poker variant Texas hold 'em that enables him to do everything from predicting the length of a tournament to figuring out his ranking simply by assessing the average size of his opponents' fortunes. It may seem like an odd way to spend his time. After all, isn't physics supposed to be about particle colliders and superconductivity? "Physicists," Sire explains, "are now more than ever involved in the study of complex systems that do not belong to the traditional realm of their science." Sire, of the Laboratory of Theoretical Physics, University of Toulouse, France, published his work Universal Statistical Properties of Poker Tournaments on arXiv.org. He used real data from online poker tournaments and found that it matched the results of his model. "What's exceptional about this paper is that Clément somehow took what seems to be a complex and mysterious system and quantified it [with the tools of statistical mechanics] in a very precise way," says Sidney Redner, a physicist at Boston University who works on related problems. Poker is an especially attractive subject, because it's one of the few truly isolated systems. Unlike, say, the stock market, which is often governed by factors such as politics, war and weather, poker tournaments are not affected by external phenomena. As a result, even Sire's simplified model of Texas hold 'em appears to mathematically express many features of the game that experienced players would recognize. In the model, poker hands are represented by a random value between 0 (bad) and 1 (best possible). The "blind,'' or minimum, bet for any table of 10 players gradually increases as the tournament progresses. In any given hand, players can either fold, bet the blind, or go "all-in," as in bet all of their chips. Sire's model includes functions that reproduce the most basic tasks a poker player must carry out, such as deciding whether to bet strictly on the strength of his or her hand. Using the model, Sire discovered that there is an optimal value for a player's tendency to go all-in. This value, which he calls q, varies depending on whether a player has few or many chips. But any player, whose average tendency to bet the farm deviates from q, is going to win less often than a player whose tendency to go all-in is closer to q, he says. Link to post Share on other sites
fiftytwo52 0 Posted April 14, 2007 Share Posted April 14, 2007 Based on the sections of the article you posted, Sire doesn't seem to have discovered anything of value. He simply states obvious things, like "your chip count determines how often you should go all in". Also, when he states that poker tournaments are not affect by outside sources, he forgets that the players themselves play a major role in the outcome of the tournament, as not everyone uses optimal strategy. His model is just based on betting the strength of one's own hand, so I really think he'll be able to come up with a really good, winning system. Just my 2c Link to post Share on other sites
joeythep 0 Posted April 14, 2007 Share Posted April 14, 2007 He simply states obvious things, like "your chip count determines how often you should go all in"."As a result, even Sire's simplified model of Texas hold 'em appears to mathematically express many features of the game that experienced players would recognize."Sire's research isn't supposed to be some grand new insights into texas hold 'em, merely that now they're expressed in ways that only an MIT grad would understand. Link to post Share on other sites
Flushgarden 0 Posted April 14, 2007 Share Posted April 14, 2007 In any given hand, players can either fold, bet the blind, or go "all-in," as in bet all of their chips.What?Smash? Is that what he's implicating for tournaments? Or does he just not know the rules of NL holdem? With a statement like that its gotta be one or the other, right? Link to post Share on other sites
blacktie31 0 Posted April 14, 2007 Share Posted April 14, 2007 It turns out that the distribution of the "stack," or fortune, of the chip leaders across tournaments mirrors the pattern found in the distribution of maximum temperatures during every August in history or countless other natural phenomena where physicists have attempted to predict the nature of extreme values. This pattern, called the Gumbel distribution, means that the frequency with which chip leaders accrue fortunes of any given size is, in a way, a natural phenomenon that arises as much from the characteristics of the game being played as from the dispositions and abilities of those playing it. "To have the Gumbel distribution show up here makes sense in hindsight," says Redner, "but it is beautiful to see someone find it in this area for the first time."Scientific proof ofLOL Donkaments Link to post Share on other sites
simo_8ball 0 Posted April 14, 2007 Share Posted April 14, 2007 Bill Chen figured this all out when he was 5.True story. Link to post Share on other sites
pokerinc 0 Posted April 14, 2007 Share Posted April 14, 2007 Is that the whole article or edited down? I haven't checked the link.There's really nothing of value in his experiment if the actions are limited to fold call all in. Maybe his technology is what's used to write the AI for my cell phone 'texas hold em all stars' game *avoiding cheap shot at Stacked*. But that's about it. Link to post Share on other sites
ErikRyland1 0 Posted April 14, 2007 Share Posted April 14, 2007 Im only 17 dude. I'll let the grown ups understand this thread. Link to post Share on other sites
HermanKahn 0 Posted April 15, 2007 Share Posted April 15, 2007 Based on the sections of the article you posted, Sire doesn't seem to have discovered anything of value. He simply states obvious things, like "your chip count determines how often you should go all in". Also, when he states that poker tournaments are not affect by outside sources, he forgets that the players themselves play a major role in the outcome of the tournament, as not everyone uses optimal strategy. His model is just based on betting the strength of one's own hand, so I really think he'll be able to come up with a really good, winning system. Just my 2cIf he ever came up with anything useful, IMO he ought to keep his f*cking mouth shut and START USING IT instead of showing off. How much do you think he'd make from any benefits that come from getting it published versus how much he stands to make at the table? Damn, I guess that's why he's a theoretical physicist instead of a quantitative analyst.Im only 17 dude. I'll let the grown ups understand this thread.Is it really necessary to keep reminding everyone what a sweet-cheeked little catamite you are? We've all got the picture.- Link to post Share on other sites
DunkinDonuts 0 Posted April 15, 2007 Share Posted April 15, 2007 Im only 17 dude. I'll let the grown ups understand this thread.There's more money in modeling for JCPenney catalogs than in poker. Take my advice; I speak from experience. Link to post Share on other sites
ErikRyland1 0 Posted April 15, 2007 Share Posted April 15, 2007 There's more money in modeling for JCPenney catalogs than in poker. Take my advice; I speak from experience.Wanna be my agent ? Link to post Share on other sites
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