
MIT Poker Course: Can a little calculus make a total novice into a gambling pro? - randycupertino
https://mentalfloss.atavist.com/secrets-of-the-mit-poker-course
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swang
Short answer: no

Longer answer: as a novice, calculus is probably the least of your worries.
you can get up to par just knowing some algebra-level concepts, and also
ratios/odds, and multiplication.

Whenever a site writes an article and then goes to play a tournament, it
always annoys me that they never bother writing more clearly about it (I know
it's also a brevity and reader attention span thing, but still). Should the
author have just called with AQ? Who knows, it all depends on who raised,
which position that player raised from, the author's current position, and the
stack of each player (there's more but at least what I mentioned).

Position is one of the most important concepts in poker, and it's simple to
understand and explain. The fact that this article never uses that word once
means it has failed, even as a basic introductory article.

Back to the tournament: the author suddenly remembering effective stack, while
also having an M barely >0\. This is hilariously awful. It also means that the
author losing was probably not unlucky since the author barely had any chips.
I just glossed through the MIT site, and if you read page 10 on the tournament
lecture from the MIT website, it pretty much spells this out.

~~~
bcassedy
Also, there's just some plain painful stuff in there. "(the flop) reveals the
straight I've been chasing is no longer a possibility"? You don't really
"chase a straight" preflop and AQ is a not a hand that even the biggest noob
would refer to in that way preflop. It seems the author just wanted to include
something about "chasing", context be damned.

~~~
mapunk
I got the same feeling reading the article, but you have to realize that it's
written by a self-proclaimed "total novice." There's obviously going to be
some misuse of poker concepts and terminology.

------
hucker
Link to the actual course (as the article doesn't really provide any
information, much less answer the question posed in the title):
[http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/sloan-school-of-
management/15-s50...](http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/sloan-school-of-
management/15-s50-poker-theory-and-analytics-january-iap-2015/)

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compactmani
Someone drops the c-bomb in the title thinking it will appeal to a technical
audience (because like math is like calculus right? and like poker is like
math right?) then rambles about watching an online course and going to a
casino. Not super exciting.

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neeel
It's just a story about some guy going to a casino. Next to no insight of how
calculus can or did help.

~~~
mapunk
tl;dr - It can't turn a novice into a pro

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ChicagoBoy11
Would love to know if anyone who officially took the class later found success
as an online poker pro.

~~~
mapunk
I've never taken the class, but as someone who plays semi-professionally, it
sounds like the class would be a great start for someone who has played poker
recreationally and is looking to understand some of the basic strategies of
tournament poker. It might turn a losing recreational player into a small
winner at lower stakes, but it by no means would all of a sudden make them
some sort of professional.

It sounds like the course introduces concepts that would otherwise take a
while to learn by yourself (M, implied odds, etc); however, understanding
those concepts alone won't make you a winning player. Experience and
surrounding yourself with other successful players are the two biggest
factors. Most online pros have literally played millions of hands and have
other poker friends to discuss strategy with. If you don't have those two
things it's very difficult to succeed playing poker professionally.

~~~
TheCowboy
It's important to mention that the reason a lot of us left poker is that the
current climate for the games is abysmal. Government legislation and
fragmentation of the markets, along with corporations imposing rake structures
that make poker less profitable for players.

If anyone can become a pro if they are smart enough and work hard enough is
still true, anyone with the same qualities can make even more in the tech
sector with way less effort and stress.

