The Fundamental Theory of Poker

Pud's Poker Progress / Matthew Pitt / 06 January 2009 / Leave a Comment

Back in the late 1990's, there were many billboards around my home town of Leeds that bared the face of French footballer, Eric Cantona and the slogan, "1966 was a great year for English football. Eric was born." If there were to be a similar advertisement in poker it would read something like, "1947 was a great year for poker. David Sklansky was born."

Sklansky was born and raised in Teaneck, New Jersey and is held in the highest regards for his poker and gambling theories. Despite being a successful poker player, with three World Series of Poker bracelets to his name, Sklansky will be best remembered for the thirteen books he has authored and co-authored, with 'The Theory of Poker' considered to be the quintessential poker primer.

On pages 17-18 of 'The Theory of Poker,' Sklansky describes what he calls 'The Fundamental Theory of Poker' which is the foundations to most poker strategy. It reads, "Every time you play a hand differently from the way you would have played it if you could see all your opponents' cards, the gain; and every time you play your hand the same way you would have played it if you could see all their cards, they lose. Conversely, every time your opponents play their hands differently from the way they would have if they could see all your cards, you gain; and every time they play their hand the same way they would have played if they could see all your cards, you lose."

Whilst this seems quite complicated, in actual fact the theory is relatively simple. Suppose you are playing limit Hold'em and are dealt black eights and limp in and everyone else folds to the big blind, who checks. The flop comes Ac Kd Jd and the big blind bets. In this example we should fold as the board is too dangerous for a pair of eights and even hitting one of our two remaining eights, one could complete a flush.

However, if somehow we knew our opponent held Td 9d the correct play would be to raise, despite this giving the big blind correct odds to call us. By calling we would give the big blind infinite odds, which makes us less money in the long run than raising would. Therefore, if we fold or call, we are playing our hand differently from how we would if we could see our opponents cards and as a result, we lose. Despite this being a good fold based on the incomplete information available to us, we have made a "mistake" in the sense we would not have folded or called if we knew the big blind held Td 9d.

The above example also shows how important it is in poker to attempt to induce your opponents to make mistakes during play. In this hand, the big blind has bet his flush draw on a semi-bluff, knowing even if he is called he will still have outs, hoping to make his opponent to fold a better holding than his. Deception is key in poker.

Related Readings

Multiple level thinking - Matthew Pitt
Being first in - Marcus Bateman
The Semi Bluff - WSOPE
Betfair Poker by Numbers - Betfair Poker