Experimentation in Life and Poker: Insights on Balance, Variance, and Growth

“No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong.” ~ Albert Einstein

Experimentation

For about a fortnight back in June 2021, the small inlet of Balluta Bay, close to where I live in St. Julian’s, Malta, underwent an ‘experimental beach re-nourishment’. The idea was to dredge sand from the middle of the bay and heap it onto the very modest, tiny sliver of sandy coastline that already existed in an effort to make it a more significant beach.

I remember scoffing when I read the proposal and was no more convinced when the two huge dredgers began their work, going back and forth each day. Like Sisyphus pushing his boulder up the hill each day only for it to roll down again, the mucky sand was picked up and unceremoniously dumped onto the beach, from where it was immediately lapped at by waves that dragged the bulk of it back into the ocean.

Suffice it to say, progress was slow. After a few days of dredging, an extra meter of beach was visible. A few days later, there was another meter, then another. My skepticism remained, though. ‘Surely the first significant storm, of which there are many in Malta, would be the immediate undoing of the whole endeavor,’ I thought.

Balance

From the beginning of my poker career, I have espoused the virtue of balance. In a time long before ‘game theory optimal’ (GTO) entered the poker vernacular, I understood the importance of and appreciated the elegance of a balanced line. Building up my bankroll in the late 2000s, my bread-and-butter games were 45-person Sit N Gos (SNGs) with a pool of a lot of regs. It seemed like all the loose-passive players had been eaten by the TAGs, who in turn were exploited by the LAGs.

Sophisticated players of the day were good at adapting to various dynamics and line-ups, but, to put it more simply, it seemed like the next choice was between morphing into a hyper-LAG or becoming a more balanced player. The hyper-LAG engaged in click-wars, check-raised all their draws, and barrelled relentlessly. The balanced player flatted more both in and out of position, defended the big blind wider, attacked certain board textures, was more cautious on others, thought about frequencies, counted combos, and generally had a larger variety of bet sizes.

I was in the latter camp and, as a coach, I hammered home a structured approach to my students. I thought of myself as a dance instructor, insisting that the steps be learned before improvisation could be considered. In the modern poker paradigm, this general advice still holds up. The majority of today’s best players initially develop a strong foundation in game theory, later learning how and when to make selective deviations.

Jedi & Padawan

When I first met Dara O’Kearney in 2011, a lot of our initial poker chats were about short-stack shoving and calling ranges, one of the only ‘solved’ areas of the game. Early in his career, long before he became one of the game’s pre-eminent strategy authors, Dara had worked out sub-20bbs un-exploitable ranges, a time-consuming inference process, but one that put him in an amazing spot in the days before shove charts or ‘snap-shove’. He had, and still has, a reputation for being something of a short-stack Jedi, and I guess in that regard I became his Padawan. My shoving and calling ranges were not quite as nailed down as his, but over time, they got to within a respectable proximity, usually a pip.

Another area of shared interest between Dara and me was ICM. It was an especially important concept for SNG grinders and perhaps even more so for satellite specialists, which we both became, albeit initially in slightly different formats. I battled in the 6-max hyper-turbo SNG satellite streets while Dara was crushing the more traditional scheduled MTT satellites and the very misunderstood 3x turbo satellites (now known as ‘splash satellites’).

On Dara’s advice, I segued across to the games he was playing and, with his help, came to understand and benefit from the enormous edge that existed in high ICM environments, particularly when the stacks were shallow. To say it was a print would be an understatement. I made almost $250,000 in these formats over the next two years, and my worst downswing was a mere $2800.

Occasional Deviations

The fundamental idea to which we became disciples was that prioritising game-theoretically sound fundamentals meant that we would be unexploitable, and every mistake our opponents made would make us money. Bear in mind, this was a time before PioSolver, so, without doubt, our ranges and frequencies were somewhat off. Nonetheless, our fidelity was to the idea of being balanced.

It is also important to point out that we would make exceptions versus specific opponents, deviating when we were very confident of a villain’s particular leak. This was, however, always viewed as a precarious thing, and for the most part, we stuck to our ranges, accepting that the balanced line would sometimes be the less profitable line. There was one very important reason for this.

In the fast-paced and varied real world of tournament poker, it’s hard to pinpoint the moment when your opponent has adjusted to something resembling GTO, and if they had, and your response was not GTO, they could have turned the tables on you. They would have begun exploiting you. They would have begun profiting off you. It was comforting to hear someone like Doug Polk echo this idea years after we adopted it as our North Star.

Variance Obscures

To some degree, at least, GTO versus non-GTO is a re-formulation of the old math vs. feel dichotomy. The proudly non-GTO guys back themselves in a guessing game, pouncing on perceived imbalances with imbalanced but effective counter-strategies. They strive to be the better guessers, the better estimators of what to do in a dark tunnel.

There are plenty of highly exploitable lines that extract maximum value from population tendencies, and it is certainly wise not to ignore them as a player. Short-stack pre-flop shoving ranges might be one solved bit of poker, but it’s almost always a game of approximation as the hand progresses, with vastly more complicated situations presenting vastly more opportunities for deviation and exploitation. This is where creativity can still be a big part of the game.

Nonetheless, to be innovative or avant-garde in this way comes with inherent risk. It can be like walking a tightrope blindfolded, unaware of the peril ahead. The main reason for that is that variance obscures a lot in poker. The field size of your average tournament, the buy-in relative to your bankroll, your table draw, and the turn of a card all conspire against the poker player, creating chaos, making it hard to figure out where you really stand. A high-wire, exploitative/exploitable approach adds another variable to the equation.

Leveler

The bottom line here is experimentation can be both illuminating and fun, exercising your poker brain and helping to make you more nimble in dynamic situations. Leaving the game tree and ‘taking it to the streets’ with your opponents can be rewarding.

If skiing off-piste brings you success, it might start to look as if your beach is getting re-nourished. For a few weeks in 2021, the sandy coastline at Balluta Bay was more than double its original size. Locals and holidaymakers had more room than ever before to stretch out.

I should warn you, however, that the inevitable storm did eventually come. The waves crashed violently onto the shore, loosening and then dragging the sand back to whence it came. By the time that two-day tempest blew itself out, that modest sliver of beach in Balluta Bay was never more wispy. The thing is, the sea is a great equalizer. Its relentlessness is a leveler, its certitude an almighty balancer.

David is a professional poker player, strategy writer, podcast producer, and poker brand ambassador. He has written over 600 blogs and articles on poker; including news, opinion and strategy. He has been a professional poker player since 2006 and is the producer and host of the 2-time GPI Global Poker Award winning podcast ‘The Chip Race.’ David has also been a brand ambassador for Unibet since 2017.