practical player |Poker Strategy|

The precise percentage of the time each choice of action should be adopted in the poker-strategy situations listed above depends on the amount of a potential bet, the amount in the pot, the importance of the particular amounts of money to each player involved, and so forth. For the practical player, it is important to appreciate two facts:

(1) A theoretical optimum strategy always exists. (This strategy, remember, consists of taking each of the possible actions a certain percentage of the time.)

(2) A player can take advantage of his opponents' deviation from his own optimum strategy; but by doing so, he runs the risk that he has misjudged the direction in which his opponent deviated from the theoretical ideal. (Examine the coin-matching game if you are having trouble visualizing this.)

As stated before, it is unclear whether or not this theory has any practical application in a poker game. We can use this theory to make a simplification of one particular poker analysis. Poker situations do not necessarily consist of endless bluff and double bluff. In each strategy situation, there is theoretically optimum (percentage) strategy, and it is only through deviations from this strategy that a player can win or lose against his fair share of the pot (in long-range considerations).