"Mistakes" ACCORDING
TO THE FUNDAMENTAL THEOREM OF POKER
It is very important to understand that when we talk about making
a mistake according to the Fundamental Theorem of Poker, we're
not necessarily talking about playing badly. We're talking about
a very strange kind of mistake -playing differently from the way
you would if you could see all your opponents' cards. If You have
a royal flush and someone has a king-high straight flush, that
player is making a mistake to call me. But a player surely cannot
be accused of playing badly by calling or, as is much more likely,
raising with a king-high straight flush. Since he doesn't know
what You have, he is making a mistake in a different sense of the
word.
In advanced poker you are constantly trying to make your opponent
or opponents play in a way that would be incorrect if they knew
what you had. Anytime they play in the right way on the basis of
what you have, you have not gained a thing. According to the Fundamental
Theorem of Poker, you play winning poker by playing as closely
as possible to the way you would play if you could see all your
opponents' cards; and you try to make your opponents play as far
away from this Utopian level as possible. The first goal is accomplished
mainly by reading hands and players accurately, because the closer
you can come to figuring out someone else's hand, the fewer Fundamental
Theorem mistakes you will make. The second goal is accomplished
by playing deceptively.
