In Defense of Math

There is a hypothetical poker match up that a number of poker authors have weighed in on, some of whom I normally I have a great deal of respect for. Much to my surprise, in every instance I have read about this, the verdict has been the same, and for the same wrong reason.

Before I explain what this hypothetical match up is, and why it seems everyone is wrong about it, I would like to point out that I am not weighing in on the actual debate, just commenting on the arguments used to reach the conclusion. (to be honest I am not sure the debate itself has any value, execept for someone trying to defend his own lack of skills)

The match up is usually stated something like this; imagine you have two players, one of whom is a powerhouse at the physcological side of the game but has no knowledge of the math involved, and the other who is a brilliant poker mathematician, but who doesn't have a firm grasp on physcological aspects of the game. The two players play each other, either heads up or just by sitting at the same full table. The question is, of the two who wins? Every author I've seen write about this declares that math loses to phsycology ever time.

The problem I see with this argument is that invariably authors are comparing skill sets of different levels. They tend to credit the phsycological player with being able to make consistant good reads of his opponents. They tend to give the math player nothing more than a knowledge of pot odds. One skill can be learned in a matter of a few days, the other takes years. Yet there are math skills relevent to poker that are as hard to learn as getting good reads. Learning to apply game theory, especially on the fly, is very difficult, but also very useful.

I suppose what I am trying to say is that I don't think it makes any sense to devalue math skills; which is what it seems anyone who make this arguement is trying to do. Having math skills can only be a credit to your game. Yes, math sometimes gets a bad rap because simple poker math is like a religion to some ABC players. But there are great mathematicians amoung the "name" players in the world, and they certainly are not ABC players.