Michael Stelzer

Literary Titan Award
International impact book award

Mathematical Strategies to Winning No-Limit Texas Hold’em shows players how a changing deck alters familiar odds and how to turn those calculations into decisions at the table. What first led you to question the ideal probability model?

I have watched several videos and read many books which analyzes poker probability, and felt that the stated probabilities seemed much higher than what would be expected, from a mathematical viewpoint. Upon reverse engineering several of these probabilities, I have concluded that the ideal model always assumes that the round is played with ten players and that every ‘out’ is still expected to be in the deck. This is a best-case scenario and rarely occurs in real life. As more pocket hands are dealt, the probability that a desired ‘out’ may be dealt to another player or serve as a burn card increases, removing the probability of it appearing on ‘the board’. But, if you assume that these ‘outs’ are still in the deck, there is an increased probability that they will appear on ‘the board’ due to the smaller number of cards remaining in the deck.