Horse Antepost
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05 Mar 13
22:04
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Date Joined:
09 Mar 04
Hi Everyone,
Thought I'd post this here and get some views from you shrewd lot (it will get lost on the main forum)
As some of you know I focus primarily on racing as opposed to other sports when it comes to gambling. Now a couple years ago I started delving into Poker and actually found that a few of the skills I'd gained from Racing translated well to poker. For instance, an excellent understanding of the odds. As I got a bit deeper into I found some excellent material on other matters ie bankroll management and picking your spots.
Anyways this morning I was reading an interview on Highstakes DB with High Stakes Pro Ike Haxton and thought it was very interesting....
http://www.highstakesdb.com/3672-ike-haxton-talks-isildur1-the-full-tiltpokerstars-challenge-life-as-a-pokerstars-online-pro.aspx
Here's the bit that got me thinking (Ike talking about his upcomming match vs Victor Blom and then gets into the theoretical side of things):
Interviewer:
He seems to confuse a lot of people and seems to approach the game in a different way to, for example, yourself, Sauce and Kanu, who use GTO as the fundamental strategy. You were quite vocal in the Two Plus Two thread started by Hoss about GTO, and do you think that 'feel' players will be profitable at the higher stakes in the future?
Ike:
I think it's going to get harder and harder to get by without working hard away from the table. "Feel" only gets you so far without a strong fundamental understanding of the game. Having the feeling that someone folds too much to 3bets isn't worth anything if you're just wrong about what an optimal fold to 3bet frequency is. As the harder working, more game theory oriented players get closer to having good answers to those kinds of questions, it's going to be very difficult to compete with them on the basis of experience and guesswork.
In a world where no one is playing very well, staying one step ahead of your opponents in the guessing games is very important and that's what "feel players" excel at. If I'm not playing a guessing game with you, if I'm just making what I think are optimal plays, trying to outguess me doesn't get you anywhere.
Interviewer:
Could you please explain a situation in which a weakness of a ‘feel’ player is shown?
Ike:
It's easiest to think about this sort of thing relative to simple river spots: Suppose I sometimes have the nuts and sometimes have air and you always have a bluff-catcher and there's one pot sized bet left to play. If neither of us understands the underlying math of a situation like that, I'm just going to guess if you're going to fold or not and if I think you'll fold I'll bluff and if I don't think you'll fold I won't, and you'll call or not on the basis of what you guess I've guessed about you.
Right now, most of heads up no limit is still in that state. The more math/GT oriented among us might be able to quantify some simple stuff like "Folding 70% to a pot-sized 3bet at 100bb is certainly too much and 10% is certainly too little" but in the abstract nuts/air situation above I can tell you that you're supposed to fold exactly half the time. As we move toward having more exact answers, feel players will be in trouble.
________________
Very interesting....Feel Players vs Theoretical Math Based Players
I was just wondering how a concept like this translates to Horse Racing?
Gambling on racing is getting harder...you definetly require a more Math based statistical approach if you're to build a bankroll or have a lucrative time of things and I don't think that people who have a particular Feel for a winner or use their instinct are going to achieve much.
What's everyone's thoughts on that....particularly with the Festival just days away now. Maybe some people would like to compare their antepost betting to this and let me know what they think. Do pure Statistics gamblers have an edge over the gamblers who'll be betting on feel and instinct during the Festival?
Any ideas, thoughts, comments would be helpful.
Thought I'd post this here and get some views from you shrewd lot (it will get lost on the main forum)
As some of you know I focus primarily on racing as opposed to other sports when it comes to gambling. Now a couple years ago I started delving into Poker and actually found that a few of the skills I'd gained from Racing translated well to poker. For instance, an excellent understanding of the odds. As I got a bit deeper into I found some excellent material on other matters ie bankroll management and picking your spots.
Anyways this morning I was reading an interview on Highstakes DB with High Stakes Pro Ike Haxton and thought it was very interesting....
http://www.highstakesdb.com/3672-ike-haxton-talks-isildur1-the-full-tiltpokerstars-challenge-life-as-a-pokerstars-online-pro.aspx
Here's the bit that got me thinking (Ike talking about his upcomming match vs Victor Blom and then gets into the theoretical side of things):
Interviewer:
He seems to confuse a lot of people and seems to approach the game in a different way to, for example, yourself, Sauce and Kanu, who use GTO as the fundamental strategy. You were quite vocal in the Two Plus Two thread started by Hoss about GTO, and do you think that 'feel' players will be profitable at the higher stakes in the future?
Ike:
I think it's going to get harder and harder to get by without working hard away from the table. "Feel" only gets you so far without a strong fundamental understanding of the game. Having the feeling that someone folds too much to 3bets isn't worth anything if you're just wrong about what an optimal fold to 3bet frequency is. As the harder working, more game theory oriented players get closer to having good answers to those kinds of questions, it's going to be very difficult to compete with them on the basis of experience and guesswork.
In a world where no one is playing very well, staying one step ahead of your opponents in the guessing games is very important and that's what "feel players" excel at. If I'm not playing a guessing game with you, if I'm just making what I think are optimal plays, trying to outguess me doesn't get you anywhere.
Interviewer:
Could you please explain a situation in which a weakness of a ‘feel’ player is shown?
Ike:
It's easiest to think about this sort of thing relative to simple river spots: Suppose I sometimes have the nuts and sometimes have air and you always have a bluff-catcher and there's one pot sized bet left to play. If neither of us understands the underlying math of a situation like that, I'm just going to guess if you're going to fold or not and if I think you'll fold I'll bluff and if I don't think you'll fold I won't, and you'll call or not on the basis of what you guess I've guessed about you.
Right now, most of heads up no limit is still in that state. The more math/GT oriented among us might be able to quantify some simple stuff like "Folding 70% to a pot-sized 3bet at 100bb is certainly too much and 10% is certainly too little" but in the abstract nuts/air situation above I can tell you that you're supposed to fold exactly half the time. As we move toward having more exact answers, feel players will be in trouble.
________________
Very interesting....Feel Players vs Theoretical Math Based Players
I was just wondering how a concept like this translates to Horse Racing?
Gambling on racing is getting harder...you definetly require a more Math based statistical approach if you're to build a bankroll or have a lucrative time of things and I don't think that people who have a particular Feel for a winner or use their instinct are going to achieve much.
What's everyone's thoughts on that....particularly with the Festival just days away now. Maybe some people would like to compare their antepost betting to this and let me know what they think. Do pure Statistics gamblers have an edge over the gamblers who'll be betting on feel and instinct during the Festival?
Any ideas, thoughts, comments would be helpful.
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That is interesting! Sure youll get more knowledgable posts from more knowledgable posters but imo...
Sounds like a typical stats person who assumes nobody else can do the maths AND apply 'feel' to that knowledge. If the house always wins, and if all the players know the maths, then you want to be the player with the best feel. Its all well and good rinsing your mates in a saturday night poker game purely because youve got o level maths but with betfair horses and pro-poker, the maths will only tell you that you need to improve your feel.
"Feel" only gets you so far without a strong fundamental understanding of the game = No ambition imo
Is he any good? Im crap at both by the way
Sounds like a typical stats person who assumes nobody else can do the maths AND apply 'feel' to that knowledge. If the house always wins, and if all the players know the maths, then you want to be the player with the best feel. Its all well and good rinsing your mates in a saturday night poker game purely because youve got o level maths but with betfair horses and pro-poker, the maths will only tell you that you need to improve your feel.
"Feel" only gets you so far without a strong fundamental understanding of the game = No ambition imo
Is he any good? Im crap at both by the way
I don't really think they do translate. I'm guessing he's talking about online poker, and in that context I see his point. But most big money poker is played face to face, and that's when the "feel" player comes into his own. You may thin you are just betting to rules, but that doesn't mean to won't have a tell that Doyle Brunson could spot from the other end of the room. And if the other guy KNOWs what you've got, and you're just betting on probabilities, you're dead.
The thing about racing is that the participants aren't betting, so you can't really bluff. You could start laying 20-1 about Sprinter Sacre in his next race, and unlike in poker he isn't going to think "wow, what's he got", he isn't going to know, or care. But do feel free to lay me 20-1 on Sprinter Sacre if you'd like to test my theory.
The thing about racing is that the participants aren't betting, so you can't really bluff. You could start laying 20-1 about Sprinter Sacre in his next race, and unlike in poker he isn't going to think "wow, what's he got", he isn't going to know, or care. But do feel free to lay me 20-1 on Sprinter Sacre if you'd like to test my theory.
not sure your getting the point gonner is making, I think he is trying to say is there more value in the feel of racing than in the natural form book, so if you just get to know what you feel will happen with watching racing than actually taking form as gospel,
then is that going to better long term profit.and it is good to try and analyse every aspect of racing, the form is important but the question I have been asking my self since I joined the betfair sight is what part of form do you take as most important factor, and I have tried every thing to see if I can get the single most important part to start as foundation and work from there, I have changed it do many times but hopefully im getting there and the answer is in the form book not feel once you except that its just finding it.
then is that going to better long term profit.and it is good to try and analyse every aspect of racing, the form is important but the question I have been asking my self since I joined the betfair sight is what part of form do you take as most important factor, and I have tried every thing to see if I can get the single most important part to start as foundation and work from there, I have changed it do many times but hopefully im getting there and the answer is in the form book not feel once you except that its just finding it.
Ike Haxton is an extremely succesful poker play, both online and live. My 2c on what he is referring to here.....he would probably have a database of thousands of hands he is played with a lot of the other top online pros. He can perform some very deep analysis of the tendencies of those pros..e.g, as referred to above, the frequency of folding to a 3-bet. By applying sound mathematical analysis to those specifc tendencies, he can formulate an optimal strategy for tackling a given player.
Of course the best players will sense (feel, if you will), when a player is playing a certain way against them and adjust their game accordingly, meaning our man will then have to adjust his strategy to remain "optimal". Poker is complex and sophisticated game....
A fair analogy with horseracing though is that as the markets become more sophisticated (e.g. the rise of betfair) and information generally more available to all, there will be no substitute for hard work to stay ahead of the game.
Of course the best players will sense (feel, if you will), when a player is playing a certain way against them and adjust their game accordingly, meaning our man will then have to adjust his strategy to remain "optimal". Poker is complex and sophisticated game....
A fair analogy with horseracing though is that as the markets become more sophisticated (e.g. the rise of betfair) and information generally more available to all, there will be no substitute for hard work to stay ahead of the game.
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