14 Responses to “TPE Theory: The Mathematics of MTTs (Part 2)”

  1. bennymacca

    As an electronic engineer this series is making me feel like i am back in a university lecture theatre, and i love it!

    For those whose maths isnt that great you might want to watch it a few times or pause and scribble on a bit of paper, but other than that its excellent.

  2. bennymacca

    i understand why you didnt in order to make it more acessible, but I think this video would have benefited from using the combination notation, especially on the slide 28 mins in

  3. loxxii

    I teach 8th grade math and permutations and combinations always blows everybody’s mind. Im going to throw in my math shorthand below so everyone can skip it if they hate it.

    Poker.
    My thought is that this is only a flip if you keep AK in his range which I think you only do by not getting it in on the flop. This would lead me to just call and then get it in on non spade turns. I didnt put much thought into this statement so I could be completely wrong.

    Math
    I teach my kids to remember unit fractions in cases like this. All of these are just derivatives of 1/7 which is ~ 14% (easy to remember since 14 is the next multiple of 7) So…

    3/42 = 1/14 = half of 1/7 ~ 7% and 50% of that is ~ 3.5%
    21/42 = 1/2 = 50% and 25% of that is 12.5%
    18/42 = 3/7 = 3 times 1/7 ~ 42% and 75% of that ~ 31% (very rough estimate of 3/4 40% = 30% + 1% to counter rounding 42% down. close enough for poker i guess)
    Then just add them up like money (works with kids) $3.50 + $12.50 + $31.00 = $48.00 or 48% equity which is close to the 48.2% you got. This may be hard for a lot of people or not accurate enough for math people. But imo, simplifying to unit fractions, rounding, and adding up money could make this a little easier for some people.

    Im sure others may have some shortcuts they like better and I would love to see them.

  4. Merby

    Yeah, if I were to redo the series, I would have included a ~5 minute discussion on combinations and permutations in this video. It comes up a few times in the series and I finally concede defeat and use a bit of notation.

    At the time of this video recording, I felt it wasn’t yet needed and was reluctant to add another 5 minutes into an already 42 minute video.

  5. Merby

    Your poker comment is right on point, loxxii. We are a coin flip against that particular range, but a lot of our equity comes from the AK and AQ hands that whiffed the flop. As the hand develops, we would expect our opponent to be less and less likely to want to continue with those hands and so if he shows continued interest in this pot, our equity will drop as a result of our refinements on his hand range.

    It also underscores the point that our confidence in the choice that the math says is correct is directly related to our confidence in the hand range we assigned to the villain.

    As for your math summary, yeah since we are just going for a quick and dirty estimate of our equity, it is worthwhile using any approximations that you are comfortable making.

  6. excelvba1

    Ok, I know much of this is obvious to many but I feel that there is a spot at location 13:13 that you can be more specific. Let the student know that if you have a choice of 6 combinations of the remaining 3 8’s and 3 9’s that the way you figure this out is to multiply the total number of cards times one less that same number. 6 X 5 (let them know that this is known as factorial 6). Then reinforce that of these 30 ways it does not matter what order these 2 runner runner cards come out in.
    Your statement 6.5 over 2 = 15 confused me at first. If you stated 6 X 5 over 2 (explaining the order does not matter that is why you divide by 2) it would make things much clearer for someone learning this for the first time.
    Please understand this is one of the best explanations I have ever seen
    but we sometime must be over obvious to insure we do not lose anyone who want to understand every aspect. I know from experience when I come across something in math where I feel a little lost I lose my incentive to continue.

  7. Funkywabbit

    Signed up to TPE after seeing the first video in this series. Great teacher and thumbs up for finding the time to put this presentation together.

  8. _mza_

    I’m sure I’m missing something but for the formula for spade runouts:

    9 * 36 + 9 * 8 / 2 = 360

    Why do we divide 9*8 by 2 and not the 9*36? Order doesn’t matter in either case, no?

  9. ColdZer0

    You only need to divide by 2 if both factors include overlapping cards. When you calculate 9*8 the 8 cards from the second factor are already included in the first 9 so you have to divide to avoid having the same outcome twice. When you calculate 9*36, the first factor does not include a any non-spade cards and the second factor does not include any spade cards so you have no overlapping cards, therefor you don’t need to divide by 2.

  10. MrBrun

    I got Pokerstove again after not using it for some years and instantly got a warning from Pokerstars that Pokerstove is a forbidden software to run in conjunction with the poker client. They don’t take issue with using it when client is not running.

  11. 5tarlord

    Hey cheers for the break down. I had to stop the video and quickly attempt the math and seeing this post helped me out. I haven’t forgotten as much as I though from school.

  12. humanplayer

    Great video. I hope no one else watches and learns the real math behind fold, call and raise. Just kidding, I do want my opponents to learn the importance of math, so they fold when my raise says fold.

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