System for Holdem?

Could there be any kind of betting system or strategy for holdem to guarantee an edge?

The moniker "Holdem" could apply to a lot of different games but the short answer is "no". Because if such a system existed, we'd all be playing it, thereby nullifying its usefulness.

Know when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em :)

The fact that there are bots playing online and winning money shows there is a profitable basic strategy in poker, at least at the lower minimum tables. However, one would need to interpret thousands of lines of computer code to understand it. I'm sure programmers could explain the gist of of its strategy, but they are probably are very tight-lipped about it.

Good poker strategy also requires the ability to randomize well, which human beings are notoriously bad at. For example, with a crappy hand you should bluff at least some of the time, but how do you make that decision on a hand by hand basis? That gives me a business idea, create a watch with a random number generator, for use at the tables.

Quote: Wizard

That gives me a business idea, create a watch with a random number generator, for use at the tables.

Already done.

It just has seconds alternately colored red and black, though, but your second hand is the ultimate randomizer.

Let me try and recall the exact brand and model. It's not a big brand, but a designer guy who does various slightly crazy watch face ideas, quartz inside, and costs a couple hundred.

Dan Harrington wrote about using your watch as a random number generator in his books. For example, in a situation where you would bluff 25% of the time, such as opening on the button, you would do so if the second hand was between 0 and 15 when you happen to look at it. You don't need a specially made watch for that.

Quote: Wizard

The fact that there are bots playing online and winning money shows there is a profitable basic strategy in poker, at least at the lower minimum tables. However, one would need to interpret thousands of lines of computer code to understand it. I'm sure programmers could explain the gist of of its strategy, but they are probably are very tight-lipped about it.

I'm not sure about how confidential that is -- there's a whole academic department at U of Alberta publishing papers on the topic, and several other universities are studying AI in the context of games. Here are just two:
Computer Poker Research Group at University of Alberta
Game AI Group at University of Auckland

I understand that a good poker strategy can be very complex. What I was more or less asking about was a "simple," or as much as could be expected, system that would mathematically yield even a small profit. An exaggerated example would be only playing AA and moving all-in every time. This would be impractical because the money won would not make up for the amount paid in blinds.

Although, that's actually pretty close to another example that comes from an old article in BLUFF Magazine:



Tell us about this system you’ve come up with.

I worked on this game theory, just for kicks. I worked out a guaranteed way to win $28 an hour in Vegas, which is a decent living for a lot of people, but it doesn’t really interest me much. But I needed to see if it would work.

There are so many maniacs at the casino. A lot of people watch TV and think they have figured out poker because they’ve watched it for an hour. They don’t realize it’s 12 hours of shooting and they’ve edited it down to an hour. All you see is bluffs gone bad and maniac moves that go well – and that’s not real poker.

So I worked it out with millions of simulations on the computer and then went and did it for a seven month period, five days a week, and it came out at $28.64 an hour. Here’s how it works. You play the low blind games. I would say the best ones to play are the $2/$5 games. In a low blind game, a bunch of chips is not strength, it’s vulnerability – unless you’re one of the best players around (and if you’re one of the best players around you wouldn’t be playing the $2/$5 games!). Too many people want to look at a flop and anybody playing the $2/$5 has only a certain level of ability. That means that their big chip stack in front of them, if they stay there long enough, is gonna get sucked out from under them.

What is the only move a pro would make if he was on a short stack? He would go all-in if he had A-A, K-K, Q-Q or A-K. So I’ve simplified the game down to one move, because that is the move the best pro in the world would make.

So, you buy in for $140 – let everyone else have the big stacks. You sit there and wait for one of those four hands. If you’ve got a maniac to your left, you limp in and let him raise it and go all-in when it comes back to you. You’re going to see one of those combos on average once in about 43 or 44 hands. So, say you’ve blinded down to about $120. If no one calls you when you go all in, you’ll have probably picked up about forty dollars. So now you’re at $160. Then you’ll blind down another $20 or so (your original buy-in), before you get a shot at it again. If someone does call you the first time, and you win, you’re at about $240 and you’re $100 ahead, so you cash out and put your name back on the list, or walk across the street to another casino and do the same thing.

It’s just money management. You cash out and buy back in for $140 and do the same thing again. It’s foolproof. It’s chump bait, because if you’re down to $140 and there are all these big stacks, and there’s already $60 in the pot, someone’s going to call you with a KJ suited or whatever.

Chris “Jesus” Ferguson – who’s a good friend of mine – took a dollar and turned it into $20,000 over a five-month period using my system – just for a lark in his spare time. Isn’t that funny? They’re a little tighter online than they are in Vegas, so what you want to do is play four screens at the same time, each with sixty dollars. Doing that will actually make you more money. That comes to $37 per hour and some change.

As the Wiz notes, there are bots that are quite variable in wagering regardless of the 2-card hand.

Outside of that play the top 4 dozen ranked pocket hands and fold the others, given the number of opponents. Even this is quite complex, as the Top 48 with 9 opponents is different than with 5 opponents.

GL n GG

Really an interesting thing to read here. Having a system for a holdem game would sure is kinda technical and it would really make things work out pretty well and it would be good. I just hoped that things would work out in this one for the long run.
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Pacific Poker