I was talking with a certain friend today. This certain friend has a grandmother with a certain vase I may have broke. He said that he believes my recent struggles in the online poker forum could be due to the use of software. Now, I use software to essentially tell me how other opponents play. It records the hands and gives me hundreds of statistics to sort through that could influence my decision one way or the other. The question that remains simple. Is poker really a game about software and definitive math?
Most online players have been able to sort out the variance, that is the fluctuations of random luck from expectation, by playing a high volume of tournaments. The idea would be that the larger the sample size of tournaments, the more likely the expectation would float towards the probable result. This software helps players keep track of their opponents. Undoubtedly, opponent's tendencies are certainly important. Is this software though really helping me out in the long term? I questioned my friend's idea, but began thinking about it more in depth. Is it possible that I'm giving away my edge by thinking the software will allow me to play more tournaments at once than I am truly capable of? Ultimately, I've essentially trained myself to make spot on decisions based on hundreds of variables over the past few years learning poker. I've removed the importance of a single decision and replaced it with the idea that the long term range of these decisions will ultimately prove profitable. At the same time, I've probably allowed myself to play so many tournaments at once that I truly lose the feel of how one particular set of opponents is playing.
This idea that the software is hurting might not be a bad once. While my friend suggested that the numbers the software was giving me was hurting my decision making ability, I think what is really hurting me is that the software is giving me definitive numbers, but removing the intangible variables. Do the best players in the world appear to be overtly mathematical and reliant on statistics only? Surely, they are nowhere near that description. I think my conclusion coming out of this thought process is that while the software may give me more statistical information, it's covering up the instinctual processes that are so important to learning and developing as a poker player.