• What is the fundamental theorem of poker?
The fundamental theorem of poker was written by David Sklansky. It states that: “Every time you play a hand differently from the way you would have played it if you could see all your opponent’s cards, they 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 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 hands the same way they would have played if they could see all your cards, you lose.”
What does this mean? Lets break this down a bit.
• How should we play if we could in fact see all our opponent’s cards?
Well, if we could see all our opponent’s cards, we would know exactly when we are winning or losing in a hand. In a general sense we should be betting when we have the best hand, and folding when we have the worst hand.
This is complicated slightly by the issue of pot odds. This will be covered in more detail in a later lecture, but for now, its sufficient to know that if we could see our opponent’s hole cards, we should be betting in a way which offers our opponents incorrect odds to call when we are winning in a hand, and we should fold whenever we are losing in a hand and our opponent offers us incorrect odds to call.
• So what are we trying to achieve when we play poker?
What we are essentially trying to do is to force our opponent to make mistakes. When our opponent calls without having the correct odds to do so, or when he allows us to call and outdraw him with correct odds, he is making a mistake. And as the fundamental theorem states, every time our opponent makes such a mistake, we gain. We are also trying to make as few mistakes as we can in our own play. We should be trying to fold as much as possible when we are being offered incorrect odds to draw, and to always offer our opponent incorrect odds to draw.
Since when my opponent makes a mistake, I gain, and when I make a mistake, my opponent gains, over time the sum total of my opponents mistakes minus my own mistakes will be my profit from the game. If I make less mistakes than my opponents, then I will win overall and become a profitable player.
• Why is the fundamental theorem important?
Well, as the title suggests, the fundamental theorem is absolutely fundamental to poker. Without a proper understanding of this theorem and what it entails, it is very difficult to become a profitable poker player. This theorem should underlie and inform every decision we ever make at a poker table.
It’s very easy sometimes to get caught up with ideas we hear about different playing styles, bluffing techniques, and bad beats, and somehow this simple theory can get lost in that. But it’s really important to try to keep this theorem always as your base for all other knowledge of poker to be built upon, and to try to understand how all these other ideas relate back to this fundamental theorem.
• How can we apply the fundamental theorem?
Poker is a game of imperfect information. In practice, we can’t see our opponent’s hole cards, so we can never know for certain in any particular situation what the correct action is. This is part of what makes poker such an interesting and complex game to learn and play.
But given we can’t see our opponent’s cards, how then can we apply the fundamental theorem to our play? Well, a lot of the concepts that will be covered in this lecture series will focus on that. All the concepts will relate to the fundamental theorem in some way, but especially some of the ideas, such as range assessment, range equity calculations, and expectation. We’ll also look at ways of adapting ideas taken from the fundamental theorem to work around the situation of imperfect information and make our play as optimal as possible.
Read Lecture One...
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