How many cards a poker player sees in a hand is seven out of fifty-two: two pocket cards plus the five on the board. The other forty-five are never seen — and they weigh all the same, because the way they lie shapes the possible combinations and the texture of the board. That number is where the real count starts: how much information a player actually acquires, phase after phase.
- Beyond the river: 100% is in the deck
- If you could see the whole deck
- Seven cards out of fifty-two
- Informational influence
- How much each phase gives you
Beyond the river: 100% is in the deck
In the previous article we saw that 100% of the available information comes if and only if the hand reaches the river with all components revealed. That remains true. But the study adds a qualification that widens the picture rather than contradicting it.
It is true that only by reaching the river can all the information concerning that spot be received. Yet, because of the informational primacy of the individual elements, 100% of the information is contained in the entire deck of fifty-two cards.
The difference is not a formal one. It means completeness has to account for the unseen arrangement of every component inside the deck: the cards nobody will ever see in that hand are not neutral. Depending on how they happen to lie, they shape the combinations of the players’ pocket cards and the texture of the board.
Texture is the way the individual elements happen to lie along the board, giving rise to the valuable combinations that define the best five-card hand. The study compares it to syntax in linguistics: what matters is not only which cards are there, but how they stand together.
If you could see the whole deck
The study takes the argument to its limit with a thought experiment. If, after the initial deal, you could see all fifty-two elements of the deck, you would genuinely have 100% of the information available.
And with that 100% in hand, you could potentially identify 100% of the skills you possess, while at the same time triggering the development of new ones: as far as what the author calls predictive pseudo-skills, that is, the capacity to define the board before it is even revealed, knowing how the cards will progressively unfold and the sequence of combinations they will form.
It would be, as the study notes, quite an advantage. Since it is not available, it serves to frame the problem: it states the theoretical maximum against which to measure what a player really holds.
Seven cards out of fifty-two
In reality the access is far narrower. Each player will be able to see, progressively, only the five elements of the board plus their own two pocket cards: seven cards out of fifty-two.
All the others stay face down for the whole duration of the hand and, as we have just seen, keep influencing its outcome all the same. It follows that only a portion of the total information contained in the deck can be known.
The question therefore shifts from how many cards are seen to how much information those few cards make accessible — and at which point in the hand.
Informational influence
At this point it becomes necessary to understand the informational influence of the known elements: how much information the few visible ones progressively make accessible in each phase of the spot. It is a quantity, not an impression, and to be one it needs a starting definition — that of what information is, established at the outset.
The study defines it by taking a term from social psychology (Deutsch and Gerard, 1955) and specialising it: in this context, informational influence is the quantity through which it is possible to identify the skills needed to face and beat one’s opponents.
Its contribution is fundamental to the Skill Poker Index model, because it is in this condition that the qualitative difference between one player and another is generated. Whoever selects the available information better, and relates it better, arrives at a clearer definition of the situation.
How much each phase gives you
The calculation is straightforward: the informational influence of a phase is obtained by multiplying the informational value of the single card by the number of elements known in that phase.
We already met the value of the single card when the series opened: every card in the deck is worth 1.92% of the total possible information.
On the known elements, however, a clarification is needed. They are not only the revealed ones: consistently with the logic of completeness, the card burned before each opening counts too, since even while staying face down it still affects the composition of the board. Pre-flop, then, you know only your own two pocket cards; on the flop the three revealed elements are added, plus the burned card; and so on for the phases that follow.
| Phase | Known elements | Informational influence |
|---|---|---|
| Pre-flop | 2 | 3.84% |
| Flop | 6 | 11.52% |
| Turn | 8 | 15.36% |
| River | 10 | 19.2% |
The count, phase by phase, is therefore immediate: two elements pre-flop give 3.84%, six on the flop 11.52%, eight on the turn 15.36%, ten at the river 19.2%. Every element entering the count always adds the same 1.92%; what changes from one phase to the next is how many enter.
A value such as 19.2% at the river should be read for what it is: it means that the structure of the board, the way the elements combine with one another and the pocket cards involved express just under a fifth of the total possible information contained in the deck.
In the next article we will see with which tools that value is built, and why the language of poker can be broken down into elementary units the way words are.
