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From poker perspectives:

Iggy said this in his latest post:

The correct attitude – the one you should always strive to have – is that you are ALWAYS even when the hand begins. No matter what’s happened previously – play your hand for what it’s worth NOW.

He goes on to make a mental note to follow his own advice. It is sound advice – but one of those things that’s easy to grasp intellectually, but damned hard to put into practice. I constantly struggle with the concept. It’s not easy to see your play as one long poker game. Variance – good and bad, doesn’t care if it’s today, tomorrow or ten years from now. It has no clock, no calendar. Poker is existential.

When I’m up, I’m cautious – ever ready for the inevitable downswing and to help thwart it, I try to hone my discipline, to recognize it and make adjustments. Having a firm stop-loss number is a must. When I’m down, I make an extra effort to remind myself it’s only temporary – if I remain disciplined.

Change of subject, sorta.

I engaged in some deep poker pondering this week when revisiting my efforts to understand game theory. I was re-reading a discussion of applications of game theory and ended up pondering Emmanuel Kant’s categorical imperative which states:

Act only on such a maxim through which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.

While the intention behind the imperative is aimed at the principles of morality, it got me to wondering what would happen if it was applied to the decisions we are faced with when playing poker. Was it even applicable? The following example of Kant’s imperative further intrigued me:

Always borrow money when in need and promise to pay it back without any intention of keeping the promise.

Follow that logically and you discover that, whereas this maxim is beneficial to the individual, it can’t fly as universal law – everyone would then break promises, making them irrelevant, therefore they’d cease to exist. This creates a logical contradiction – ultimately it’s not in an individual’s best interest to break the promise.

Is there a maxim for a poker player to act on that if willed, could become a universal “poker” law? For the poker player it’s in his individual interest to make the correct decision on each hand. It’s not in his individual interest for his opponents to do the same. Success in poker is predicated upon making consistent +EV decisions while your opponents make -EV mistakes. If everyone made the “correct” play all the time – i.e.: played by the book, then, theoretically, at best you will break even over the long term. Right?

Poker, then, would seem to require a little anarchy in order for the individual to achieve long term gain. Therefore, Kant’s categorical imperative isn’t applicable.

Hobbes “state of nature” may be more apt:

A person must always be suspicious that another will attack in order to maximize his/her own self-interest. Therefore, in order for a person to maximize his best interest, he must attack the other person before that other person can attack.

Anyway, it was fun to ponder. Even if it’s probably bullshit. Talk amongst your selves.

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