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...is
Dollars. Isn't it?
Actually,
the currency used to play poker is "G Bucks", or Galfond Bucks. (At
least for me it is anyway). Let me explain.
Phil
Galfond is a high stakes poker player, coach, thinker and general genius in the
poker world. He wrote an article in 2007 for ESPN about
the advancement of a widely celebrated theoretical idea - that of Sklansky
Bucks. As Phil explains in the article;
"Sklansky
Dollars allow you to assess how you're doing without your results being as
affected by luck. To keep track of how many Sklansky Dollars you win, you look
at the percent chance you had to win the hand when money went into the pot, and
multiply that by the money that goes in."
This is
your "Expected Value", as in the amount of money you should win based
on your all-in percentages over the long run. However, there is a gaping hole
in that theory. Basically, your decisions in poker are never uniform; you have
to adjust your play against your opponents to optimise your returns. So, you
might 5-bet shove 77 against one player, yet only do so with QQ+ vs another.
This is why "G Bucks" are so important. As Phil says;
"The
way that Galfond Dollars work is similar to the way Sklansky Dollars work.
However, instead of taking your hand and seeing how it does against your
opponent's hand, you take the entire range of your hand and see how it does
against his hand. (The next level would be taking range versus range, but that
gets very complicated mathematically.)"
So, to
decide whether your decisions are good ones, check out that article by Mr Galfond,
and then calculate your GEV (Galfond-Expected Value, a term I just made up) and
enjoy spending the imaginary monies. Moreover, make PokerStove your bank
manager, it will offer a very reasonable rate of return (in the long run, of
course).
But
what does this even matter anyway? Why is this imaginary currency worth so much
to me?
Well,
the point of all of this rambling is that poker is a game that uses money as
the way of keeping score, which it's not very good at! Consequently, you should
find another way to assure yourself in times of strife, as mentioned by
JimmyLegs in his excellent "Brain Fail" series here on CR; keep a
jotter by your laptop, and every time you get your money in good give yourself
a tick, and every time you get it in bad give yourself a cross. The object of
the game is simply to have more ticks than crosses (you can do this with
anything - jelly beans, stickers, whatever - just make sure you positively
reinforce good plays rather than good results). Find a way to make sure you are
motivated to make the correct decision; it's the only way you'll survive in
these shark-infested waters.
http://hadouk3n.tumblr.com/
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