Originally Posted by coach belly View Post
Originally Posted by Half Smoke View Post
they may be able to predict that it's positive
Is there a mathematical basis for their predictions?

Is a mathematical basis required for the guesstimates to be valid?

If not math, then what criteria could they use?

I've read Main Event estimates, going back years, ranging from +200 to roughly +400 for a Chris Ferguson type player (mathematically precise) versus the run-of-the-mill player. That stuff was dated; I have no idea if it is ballpark current. I've never looked closely into it, but I presume all you have to do is plug in ranges of non-optimal but intelligent decisions versus optimal decisions and the effects of those non-optimal decisions, operating on the premise that you can assign percentages of the field various deviations from optimal. I know folks have done the work and run the simulations. But that was years ago, more than a decade.

I have to think it's also a papers/scissors/rock simulation in that the play style of chunks of the poker-playing demography has changed dramatically over the decades, so what is "optimal" depends on the average behaviors of the players at the table, which change like fashion. So what works versus a table heavy with 80's-style players is not what is optimal versus 2020's style players. I don't really follow it much, but Negreanu for example was not a "small pair versus AK" guy 25 years ago, in fact he actually stated that more than once, but now his language is completely different in how he discusses those hands. He is a small pair vs. AK guy now. In fact, some of Negreanu's analyses come at things from what he says are "Old School" and then "New School" perspectives, underlining the dramatic differences.

I'm strictly an amateur. I've played the easiest tournament game (No Limit Hold 'Em) 99% of the time, and I've only played maybe 4000 tournaments in my life. That's nothing. When someone like me sits down against players like Todd, they can spin my head around like The Exorcist. And they can make precise shifts in optimal as number of players and category/profile of players at tables change. I can't do that.