FACTS

The key of making intelligent decisions would be to understand that successful poker hasn’t been about winning hands, it would be about winning money. Since everyone would have the same chance of being dealt a winning hand, winning hands would be, in the long run, equally distributed among the players. Over time, the poker players who would make the best decisions would accumulate money.

Poker decisions would require knowledge of mathematical probabilities, but the game has been far more complex and could not be completely described mathematically. In blackjack, where the dealer would always play the same way, it would be possible to calculate the best decision for each hand. No such calculation would be possible in poker because you would be competing against different players, each of whom would play their own way. Not only would individual players differ, but also each poker table would develop its own group dynamics that would change as players would enter and leave the game. The replacement of a single passive player with an aggressive one could instantly have altered the mood of a poker tabel and necessitate changes in decision-making.The combination of mathematics, psychology, and social dynamics would make poker a rich and fascinating game.

Mastering poker would require hours and hours of playing in different settings with different psychological aspects of the game. They have thought poker was all about bluffing and reading body language. The fact is poker has had an underlying strategy that should be followed for the existence of any chances of survival, let alone winning. Correct strategy would base decisions on the knowledge available to you of the cards and the other poker players. You would never have perfect knowledge of your opponents, their cards, and the cards that were to come. Having been given imperfect information, you should have to assess what would be most likely to happen.

Before discussing the actual play of hands, it would be necessary to have the facts that intelligent decisions would be based on. This section, which would have been meant for use as a reference, would contain tables, graphs, and summaries of information and concepts. There would be five factors to consider in everydecision. After having summarized the five decision factors, each one would be discussed in detail. How knowledge of these factors would translate into actual play would be the subject of the next chapter.

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