17 Nov 2009

Poker Strategy

The importance of the arms race in poker

It's a well-known concept that almost all competitive areas of life come down to an 'arms race' between those involved. As each individual gets better, the other participants are forced to catch up and improve even more, or else die. Marcus Bateman examines the relevance of this theory to poker.

Be it in the development of more and more complex and destructive weaponry in human society, the constant and incredibly inefficient arms race between trees to get higher than each other, or the endless improvement in track times and ability across sports, arms races are a fundamental part of competitive life, and this has some interesting consequences on poker.

Poker is a constant arms race. Against your opponents you either have to develop the weapons to take advantage of mistakes you can see them making (such as bluffing them constantly if they are too tight), or develop ways to force them into making mistakes if they are not already making obvious ones (such as making key pieces of advertising to tilt your opponent and shake up their game). If you are not consistently coming up with ways to stay ahead of your opponent, they most likely are developing systems to stay ahead of you, and if you cannot keep up, you will lose in the long-term.

Here is where it gets strange. Despite poker being a constant arms race, it is a race that many people either do not understand, or cannot spot what is going on. Unlike in conventional warfare, where it is pretty obvious that if your opponent has a nuclear bomb and you do not, you are in trouble (such as the Japanese surrender after Hiroshima and Nagasaki), in poker, players who lack a nuclear bomb frequently play opponents who do have one, while actually believing that they have better weapons.

This is an odd phenomenon, but one brought about by the variance of the game. Skill in poker is disguised very well by the luck of the game, and strategies which are fundamentally flawed can end up paying big dividends in the short term, despite the fact that they have zero chance of winning in the long run. Staying on top of the arms race should be at the forefront of your thinking when playing.

There is always something new to learn about poker, and staying one step ahead of the opponents at your stake level is arguably the most fundamental thing you need to do to win in poker.

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