Product Description
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the bond an option markets were dominated by traders who had learned their craft by experience. They believed that there experience and intuition for trading were a renewable edge; this is, that they could make money just as they always had by continuing to trade as they always had. By the mid-1990s, a revolution in trading had occurred; the old school grizzled traders had been replaced by a new breed of quantitative analysts, applying mathematics to the "art" of trading and making of it a science. Similarly in poker, for decades, the highest level of pokers have been dominated by players who have learned the game by playing it, "road gamblers" who have cultivated intuition for the game and are adept at reading other players' hands from betting patterns and physical tells. Over the last five to ten years, a whole new breed has risen to prominence within the poker community. Applying the tools of computer science and mathematics to poker and sharing the information across the Internet, these players have challenged many of the assumptions that underlie traditional approaches to the game. One of the most important features of this new approach is a reliance on quantitative analysis and the application of mathematics to the game. The intent of this book is to provide an introduction to quantitative techniques as applied to poker and to a branch of mathematics that is particularly applicable to poker, game theory. There are mathematical techniques that can be applied for poker that are difficult and complex. But most of the mathematics of poker is really not terribly difficult, and the authors have sought to make seemingly difficult topics accessible to players without a very strong mathematical background.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 3.5 based on 36 reviews)

jiberish book

I bought this book and that was a big mistake. The beginning of the book was fine to me. Because almost everything was explained well. but, the more I read into the rest of the book, the more headaches I got.
July 05, 2008

wow A poker book for John Nash & A few others!!

When it comes to the everyday poker player this book gets ZERO stars!!
But - the title does say The Mathematics of Poker. and if you look at it as A complex math book with poker as it's subject then this book gets FIVE stars. unless you're working on, or have, A college Math degree then this book is not for you! The books you should read instead are "Texas Hold'em Odds and Probabilities" by Matthew Hilger - or "Killer Poker By The Numbers" by Tony Guerrera both of these books are way more practical!!!
April 15, 2008

Beginner's Beware

As an engineer, I was very excited to start reading this book, then as I started to read, I realized I was in serious trouble. I am the type of player who loves to read strategy poker books, (i.e Harrington on Hold Em, Theory of Poker) but this book in my opinion cannot teach you much about strategy because most of the math presented in the book is very abstract. The authors tell you in the first few pages that if you want to question the material or better understand the material you should refer to a math text because they don't want to scare readers away. However, it is the fact that they cannot present each mathematical truth in detail which causes the book to fail most readers who do not have a mathematical background. If a book could show you how to make the right play in a 3 handed poker game with a simple calculator as opposed to setting up multiple equations using graphs with several variables to accomplish the same goal, a reader would probably go with the calculator.

Overall, the book is very well written and presents great examples of mathematical proof of why a certain play is correct and why others are not correct. If you love mathematical proofs, poker, and working out equations, then you'll probably love this book. However, the book, in my opinion, uses very complicated equations to prove what many poker players probably already understand in a simpler, more straightforward context.
February 25, 2008

Save your money

I bought this book thinking it was going to contain analyses of poker. It does not. Let me repeat that. IT DOES NOT. What it does contain are analyses of simple poker-like games, the optimal strategies of which are easily determinable by anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of game theory. The authors, after wasting your time with simple, near obvious results then proceed to draw no useful conclusions applicable to the real game of poker as played for real money in the real world. But if you think having it on your bookshelf will make your poker library complete, then buy one today.
February 09, 2008

Get ready for the long haul....

Got this on a recommendation. It's been a while since I've used my brain to this extent. I've read other reviews saying that you don't need much math to get through it - don't believe it. I'm only halfway thru the book - there are nuggets of information, and hopefully some very useful info later on...but it's the type of book one would likely have to read a few times to get the gist of it. Unless you've got a math brain like Jesus Ferguson. Recommended to a certain extent.
January 25, 2008

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