Speed maths book?

[NeilC]

I was wondering, anyone recommend any good books for doing mental arithmetic quickly and easily.

My main motivation is playing poker. I need to be able to do quick maths related to odds and percentages mostly involving multiplication and division. My current mental maths skills seem pretty weak to me. I know there are various tricks and systems around.

[andyandy]

I was wondering, anyone recommend any good books for doing mental arithmetic quickly and easily.

My main motivation is playing poker. I need to be able to do quick maths related to odds and percentages mostly involving multiplication and division. My current mental maths skills seem pretty weak to me. I know there are various tricks and systems around.

i don't know of any specific books - but do you use the "outs" system? (http://casinogambling.about.com/library/weekly/aa050103.htm) I always find that the easiest way to work out odds and expected value....

say with 4 cards suited on the flop, you've got another 9 suited cards you can hit - so you have 9x2=~18% chance of hitting on the turn and 18% on the river

[NeilC]

Yeah I know all that already. I memorised the odds and percentages for various outs ages ago so I don't need to do that maths at all.

But it would be handy to be able to do some quick divisions etc for equity calculations and using Harrington's M and Q

[andyandy]

Yeah I know all that already. I memorised the odds and percentages for various outs ages ago so I don't need to do that maths at all.

But it would be handy to be able to do some quick divisions etc for equity calculations and using Harrington's M and Q

fair enough - calculating the outs is good enough for me :D

what is Harrington's M and Q? Is it a secret formula that's going to win me millions? :)

[NeilC]

M is a way of looking at the effect of stack sizes and tournament progression.

You take the "cost per round" and divide it into your chip stack. So if the blinds are 50/100 and you have 1000 left your M is about 7, assuming a full 10 players at the table (if there are less you multiply the M proportionally - e.g. for 5 players you'd multiply it by 10/5=2 to get an M of 14). He then provides Zones for various M ranges: Green, Orance, Yellow and Red. For example, Red is for Ms of 5 or less and this means that you should only ever push all in or fold when entering a pot. There is more detailed advice on strategy for the zones in the book: Harrington On Hold'em Vol II.