Has Sklansky or anyone done a

[ed8383]

calculation on what the percentage of luck vs skill is in big tournaments, specially the main event? is there even such a thing? im just wondering since pros talk about how in the old days it was more about skill. The field is so large now skill must have taken a backseat to luck.

[technologic]

[ QUOTE ]
calculation on what the percentage of luck vs skill is in big tournaments, specially the main event? is there even such a thing? im just wondering since pros talk about how in the old days it was more about skill. The field is so large now skill must have taken a backseat to luck.

[/ QUOTE ]

no, i pretty much pwned the world series cause i'm awesome.

[DVaut1]

[ QUOTE ]
The field is so large now skill must have taken a backseat to luck.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think it's fair to say it takes both more luck and more skill to win the ME now than it did 20-30 years ago. I think it's a mistake to assume they're mutually exclusive.

[Farfenugen]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
calculation on what the percentage of luck vs skill is in big tournaments, specially the main event? is there even such a thing? im just wondering since pros talk about how in the old days it was more about skill. The field is so large now skill must have taken a backseat to luck.

[/ QUOTE ]

no, i pretty much pwned the world series cause i'm awesome.

[/ QUOTE ]

lol, nh

[WSOPChump]

basically the only thing you need to know is that the high number of bad players is good for you in the long run.
if your only concern was winning the main event bracelet than it sucks otherwise it rules.

[Solitare]

[ QUOTE ]
im just wondering since pros talk about how in the old days it was more about skill.

[/ QUOTE ]
The pros that say this don't know what they are talking about.

Few years back when the WSOP was mostly pros, the skill difference between one player and another was relatively small -- one pro is pretty much like another. So luck actually played a bigger part in determining the winner, since the skill differences were small.

Now with tons of people in the WSOP -- pros, skilled amateurs, total donks -- the skill range is wider. Skill should play a wider roll than it did in the past because of the greater skill differences.

[DVaut1]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
im just wondering since pros talk about how in the old days it was more about skill.

[/ QUOTE ]
The pros that say this don't know what they are talking about.

Few years back when the WSOP was mostly pros, the skill difference between one player and another was relatively small -- one pro is pretty much like another. So luck actually played a bigger part in determining the winner, since the skill differences were small.

Now with tons of people in the WSOP -- pros, skilled amateurs, total donks -- the skill range is wider. Skill should play a wider roll than it did in the past because of the greater skill differences.

[/ QUOTE ]

Skill plays a bigger role because there are 8500 players instead of 200, and the structure has remained similar, so it takes much longer to finish the tournament now than it did 30 years ago, hence --> there are many more hands played --> to go deep means those players will face many more decisions over the course of those numerous hands (remembering that the quanitity of hands played in an 8500+ entrant tournament is substantially more than than quantity of hands played in a 200 entrant tournament) --> all of which enables skilled players to apply edges more frequently --> hence why a player needs more skill to win in 2006 than he/she would have in 1976. Like any game of skill, in poker, the more decisions the player is faced with, the more skill will need to be applied in order to succeed.

This does not mean you don't also need more luck to win in 2006 than you did in 1976. Of course, you do. I don't think skill and luck are zero-sum entities here, where if a player needs more luck to win, he is therefore utilizing less skill. That seems categorically false.

[RoundTower]

[ QUOTE ]
calculation on what the percentage of luck vs skill is in big tournaments, specially the main event?

[/ QUOTE ]
According to Sklansky on WSOP, 38%.

[AceLuby]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
calculation on what the percentage of luck vs skill is in big tournaments, specially the main event?

[/ QUOTE ]
According to Sklansky on WSOP, 38%.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think I read that too...

[THAY3R]

Think of it this way. (I'm just making these numbers up, but they are probably somewhat accurate.)

A) 8000 Person tourney. A top player has a 1 in 2000 chance of winning it.


B) 50 person tourney. A top player has a 1 in 30 chance of winning it.


How does B have more skill involved than A?


Also, compare expert STT'ers ROI with expert MTT'ers ROI.


It seems to be obvious that the more people, the more skill is involved to win.

[alphatmw]

what?! it takes more luck to win. does johnny chan need to get BETTER to win a bracelet now? or does he need to be luckier for a longer run of cards? does doyle need to study poker harder to win nowadays? or does he need to avoid bad beats against more players?

the best 100 players in the world right now will probably never win a main event bracelet in their lives. doesn't that say something to you?

[Sykes]

[ QUOTE ]
Think of it this way. (I'm just making these numbers up, but they are probably somewhat accurate.)

A) 8000 Person tourney. A top player has a 1 in 2000 chance of winning it.


B) 50 person tourney. A top player has a 1 in 30 chance of winning it.


How does B have more skill involved than A?


Also, compare expert STT'ers ROI with expert MTT'ers ROI.


It seems to be obvious that the more people, the more skill is involved to win.

[/ QUOTE ]

MTTs are insanely higher, but you guys have more variance.

[mornelth]

[ QUOTE ]
what?! it takes more luck to win. does johnny chan need to get BETTER to win a bracelet now? or does he need to be luckier for a longer run of cards? does doyle need to study poker harder to win nowadays? or does he need to avoid bad beats against more players?

the best 100 players in the world right now will probably never win a main event bracelet in their lives. doesn't that say something to you?

[/ QUOTE ]

That's cause there are 8,000 donks GUNNING for Johnny and Doyle and other pro's... If I go to WSOP ME I would like to

a) Cash
b) Win
c) Knock out a famous Pro

a) may be achieavble, b) is highly unlikely, c)... I just need to get lucky on ONE HAND... and I'll have a story to tell till the end of my days...

[Zetack]

[ QUOTE ]
what?! it takes more luck to win. does johnny chan need to get BETTER to win a bracelet now? or does he need to be luckier for a longer run of cards? does doyle need to study poker harder to win nowadays? or does he need to avoid bad beats against more players?

the best 100 players in the world right now will probably never win a main event bracelet in their lives. doesn't that say something to you?

[/ QUOTE ]

I dunno.

Say your top hundred pros will play an average of 30 more ME's before they croak (most of these guys are under 40).

That's collectively 3000 ME's for the group over the course of their lives. If you postulate that a top hundred pro is about 4 times more likely than the average player to win and that fields stabilize at 12,000 players, you would actually expect one of the top hundred pros to win the ME over the course of their lives.

I'm no math guy, but even if the fields get up toward 25,000 people, I think you're looking at 50/50 to have a top hundred winner over the course of the current top hundred player's lives.

Correct me if I'm wrong there.

--Zetack

[[Phill]]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Think of it this way. (I'm just making these numbers up, but they are probably somewhat accurate.)

A) 8000 Person tourney. A top player has a 1 in 2000 chance of winning it.


B) 50 person tourney. A top player has a 1 in 30 chance of winning it.


How does B have more skill involved than A?


Also, compare expert STT'ers ROI with expert MTT'ers ROI.


It seems to be obvious that the more people, the more skill is involved to win.

[/ QUOTE ]

MTTs are insanely higher, but you guys have more variance.

[/ QUOTE ]

And it takes more time to complete the avg MTT so the $/hr earn is prolly more similar that youd imagine.

/hijack

[fl0w]

Uhh...

[NoahSD]

How do you quantify what % a tournament is luck? That makes no sense.

[benfranklin]

[ QUOTE ]
How do you quantify what % a tournament is luck? That makes no sense.

[/ QUOTE ]

This would be a lonely place if posts were required to make sense.

[JackOfSpeed]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
what?! it takes more luck to win. does johnny chan need to get BETTER to win a bracelet now? or does he need to be luckier for a longer run of cards? does doyle need to study poker harder to win nowadays? or does he need to avoid bad beats against more players?

the best 100 players in the world right now will probably never win a main event bracelet in their lives. doesn't that say something to you?

[/ QUOTE ]

That's cause there are 8,000 donks GUNNING for Johnny and Doyle and other pro's... If I go to WSOP ME I would like to

a) Cash
b) Win
c) Knock out a famous Pro

a) may be achieavble, b) is highly unlikely, c)... I just need to get lucky on ONE HAND... and I'll have a story to tell till the end of my days...

[/ QUOTE ]

By this logic, the pros should often be able to play straightforward TAG and build up massive chipstacks. Sure, they're more likely to go broke eventually from one of the donks looking for a story to tell, but we should also see a handful with huuuuuge stacks. Negeranu had this in 2006, but he was LAGgging, and donked all his chips off anyway within the course of about 8 hours.

[Colonel Kataffy]

[ QUOTE ]
what?! it takes more luck to win. does johnny chan need to get BETTER to win a bracelet now? or does he need to be luckier for a longer run of cards? does doyle need to study poker harder to win nowadays? or does he need to avoid bad beats against more players?

the best 100 players in the world right now will probably never win a main event bracelet in their lives. doesn't that say something to you?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, these days it is more unlikely that Doyle and Chan will win the bracelet, but this poker isn't played for bracelets, its played for money. Pros today are much much more likely to win a 7-figure prize. Infact the best 100 pros are way more likely to win a million dollars at a poker tournament than they ever were. Poker must be getting easier, right?

[NoahSD]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
How do you quantify what % a tournament is luck? That makes no sense.

[/ QUOTE ]

This would be a lonely place if posts were required to make sense.

[/ QUOTE ]

/images/graemlins/smile.gif

[Moovyz]

Ended up being an intersesting discussion. For my opinion (as I don't believe in an entity called luck, only in standard deviations) the varience is going to be higher in any event this big, filled with this many inexperienced players. Alan Cunningham AND others who made it very deep proved that it takes a great deal of skill to get far in an event like this. I don't think there is an argument that skilled players will fare worse now, they simply have a larger deviation in the amount of times they will reach the final table or cash, but the payoff is equally greater. There is one aspect of skill that will play a greater part... a great reader of players (ie: able to pick up tells or betting patterns of bad players)will do better by avoiding bad beats more often. JMHO

[Dire]

Jamie Gold is obviously the most skilled tournament player in the world. Just ask him.

[JJNJustin]

There is no need to calculate. Tournaments are all luck.

-J

[MCS]

[ QUOTE ]
How do you quantify what % a tournament is luck? That makes no sense.

[/ QUOTE ]

Agreed.

I never understand when I hear people saying things like, "Tournaments are 80% luck."

What does that even mean?