ADJUST YOUR PLAY TO CONDITIONS

A common technique for training people to make critical decisions in real-time, under stress, would be the use of computer simulations as a substitute for experience. Do you need to learn how to land a fully loaded 747 airliner in a thunderstorm with half of its engines out? With modern computer simulators, a pilot could practice this maneuver re-weapons by practicing with life-size videos of realistic encounters.

They could learn when it would be correct to shoot someone and when it would be a mistake, again without actual lives being at risk. For poker game players, computers have been programmed to simulate opponents. Without actual money or prestige on the line, students of a game could spend hours practicing under realistic conditions. Chess players, for instance, could routinely train with personal computers against inexpensive computer programs that play at the master level. While computers have played chess differently than humans, that difference has become harder to detect.

For the average chess player, it has been difficult to beat a computer. Today, chess programs that have run on powerful machines have routinely beaten grandmaster's. If you would want a strong opponent, with infinite patience, to teach you chess, computers would be a good substitute. You should learn to play chess well against a computer and you would be on your way to beating people. Could you possibly learn poker by playing against a computer? There have been computer simulations of live casino poker available for purchase. Sid would recommend use of poker programs to teach the mechanics of the game, acting in turn, placing bets, reading cards, and counting winnings.

But you should be warned; succeeding against a computer would tell you nothing about success against people. Unlike in chess, it would be easy for a mediocre poker player to beat a computer. It would also be instructive to examine the reasons why the two games (chess and poker) have been so different in this respect. Chess has had a clearly defined object: checkmating your opponent’s King. All chess moves and the plans motivating them have had checkmate as their long-range goal.

Since checkmate has easily defined mathematically, programming the computer’s goal has been straightforward. Poker too has had a straightforward object: winning money. The problem has been that money means different things to different people, and to a computer, money has meant nothing. To complicate matters further, money could mean different things to the same person. When Sid has played poker on the last Friday of every month, year after year, with the same six friends, the motivation had been to socialize and be entertained.

The difference between a good or bad night had been whether he had won or lost twenty dollars. That had not been a meaningful amount of money to any of them. The result had been an evening where they had played loose junk poker games that had required no strategic thinking. When Sid had played in Atlantic City, he had behaved differently. He had risked several hundred dollars with the goal of winning a few hundred. To Sid, the amount of money was meaningful, but not an amount so large that it would have caused him financial harm if he had lost. Unlike Friday night poker, the games Sid had played in were tightly structured. His motivation had been the thrill of competition. He had put on his game face and thought carefully about the decisions he had made. He had felt good when he had won, frustrated when he had lost.

Sid had not played Holdem poker at the ten/twenty dollar level or above. At these stakes, he would have had to risk one or more thousand dollars. He could have afforded to lose thousand dollars, but he had been unwilling to. There would have been no fun playing poker with money that he would have been unwilling to lose. He would have been unable to make the correct decisions. Constantly, he had thought about the money, rather than whether the bet or raise he had made was right for the situation. Sid certainly wouldn’t have risked an amount of money that could have lead to financial ruin.

If you were routinely risking financial ruin in any activity (poker, blackjack, slots, investing, shopping), you would have a serious problem and should immediately stop the activity and seek professional help. For poker to be meaningful competitive activity, the amount of money at stake would have to be large enough that poker players would find it worth winning and protecting, but no so large that they would fear losing.

Sid had told you his motivations and budget limitations. Each of his opponents has had a different set of reasons for playing and a different budget. Even though they have played in the same game, the meaning of the money has been different for each of them. At a poker table, why people have played the way they have had depended not so much on the cards they have been dealt, but what the money has meant to them and their reasons for playing. That would mean he would have to adjust his play to them. It would be the inability to adjust that would make computer programs bad for poker. Chess players would have to adjust to changing situations, but not in the same way poker player would.

Chess positions have usually had a best plan of action and often a best move. It would be the position that would matter, not the opponent. Chess players have been taught to always assume their opponent would make the best move and to plan accordingly. If their opponent were to fail to make the best move, the task would usually become easier. Mastering chess would involve learning thousands of positions and the best plan of action for each of them. However, in poker, best play would depend not on the cards, but the situation. Players would have to make continual adjustments to their underlying strategy. For the same cards, correct strategy might change completely depending on the situation. You should consider a five-hour session Sid had playing poker in Atlantic City.

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