chess or poker
 

I have a question targeted primarily to the serious chess players in the poker community. I was wondering which game you think requires more skill. I know that is a very general question, but I was hoping that might generate some spirited discussion.

I am a chess master in the United States Chess Federation (though I have not been active in about three years - about the time that I have been playing poker seriously), and I have some pretty detailed opinions on this. I'll provide them later, but I was wondering what others thought on the matter.

Re: chess or poker
 

ummm i thought the answer was pretty obvious

Re: chess or poker
 

Without really being good at chess at all (or poker [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]), i would have to think it's chess. You can dictate the game more than with poker, as there are many moves that your opponent must have a direct and specifc response to, which top players are going to maniupulate. The same is true in poker, however, there is also more of a luck factor and it's a partical information game, whereas chess is not. For that primary reason, i would guess that the highest levels of chess require more skill.

Also Samo, wtf, you are a chess master, ex professional athlete, and poker master. WHERE ARE THE HOLES IN YOUR LIFE!?

Re: chess or poker
 

Question is too general IMO. You need to give us some quantifiable means of equating a skill level in chess with skill level in poker.

Also, how do you define skill?

Re: chess or poker
 

ggbman, thanks for the compliments man - I really appreciate it.

Some (but not nearly all) basic arguments for chess would be:

- no one can be a world class chess player without much much more study and experience than it takes to be a world class poker player

- the game is more analytical and requires more complex thought

- calculation is both more important and more difficult than in poker

- the margin between great players and good players is much more than in poker

Some (but again, not all) basics for poker:

- while the imagination/creativity factor is similar to that in chess, the psychological factor is greater

- in chess, it is nearly always best to play one exact move in a given situation in a game while poker is deeper than that; a plethora of factors enter every situation which can make the "right" play different in exactly the same situation on a different day or session.

- much more emotional control and general temerity is required in poker

- computers can beat all but the best humans in chess; computers on the other hand will probably never be able to beat the best humans in poker. this is probably indicative of the greater intangibles in poker than in chess.

- in poker, one has to be able to adjust much more for specific opponents, moods, etc.

There are more arguments on both sides, but I wanted to creat some initial points for discussion ...

Re: chess or poker
 

chess and it's not close. There is ZERO luck factor in chess. The better player will win in the short run AND long run.

Samo,

Pro athlete? Huh?

Re: chess or poker
 

He played soccer professionally.

Re: chess or poker
 

More skill is required in chess mainly because there are strategies in poker that can be simple yet effective, i.e., being random. In chess, it's a battle of intelligence, and there are no easy ways to win. There is no "pushing around" in chess, or purely psychological factors. Because there are more resources for a player to employ, poker offers a less skilled player overall more opportunities to outplay his villain.

Re: chess or poker
 

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He played soccer professionally.

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In the US or in a proper league?

Re: chess or poker
 

Megenoita, there is no way that a player can win at poker simply by "being random" or by "pushing around" when the situation does not call for it. Poker requires much more skill than that.

Re: chess or poker
 

[ QUOTE ]
chess and it's not close. There is ZERO luck factor in chess. The better player will win in the short run AND long run.

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There is an argument for there being luck in chess. Say you are playing against an amateur. This amateur continually makes his moves based on flawed logic, lack of experience or whatever, but he just happens to make the optimal move each time. Now is that luck? Where he accidently makes the right moves but for all the wrong reasons?

Re: chess or poker
 

Hold 'Em, the fact that there is much more of a luck factor in poker than in chess does not mean that it requires less skill than chess. It simply means that the better chess player will beat the worse chess player more often than the better poker player will beat the worse poker player. But that does not mean that poker requires less skill. I think you are making too loose of a correlation there.

Re: chess or poker
 

You'de have to check with him, i am pretty sure it was not in the US though.

Re: chess or poker
 

I'm surprised there was never a 2+2 chess tourney, I'm sure there's alot of posters who play. I think curtains used to be a GM or something if I'm remembering right.

Re: chess or poker
 

i'd say poker. i was a chess player before i got into poker as well, and i used tournament winnings from chess to start playing poker.

the reason I say poker, is that chess is about memorization more than anything. While having a good memory is important in poker too, the chess board is static, whereas you must constantly adjust to unique opponent's tendancies. the key to being good at chess is recognizing similar positions you've been in before and using the information you already know in order to make a good decision. if you are up against an unknown in poker, its impossible to do this, and you must adapt quickly if you want to win.

Re: chess or poker
 

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Megenoita, there is no way that a player can win at poker simply by "being random" or by "pushing around" when the situation does not call for it. Poker requires much more skill than that.

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I didn't say that a player can win in poker by "simply" being random. What I mean is that in poker, there are many strategies a poker player can employ that will win him pots and keep people on their toes, and they're pretty simple--they don't take a lot of intelligence to work. The reason that it works is because opponents have exploitable weaknesses that, although they are strong aside from this one or two obvious deficiencies, those are enough to make the opponents profitable to play against.

If you are comparing world class players against world class players, I think you can argue for poker being as intricate as chess. But at most levels, I don't think it is-it's too simple to win.

Re: chess or poker
 

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chess and it's not close. There is ZERO luck factor in chess. The better player will win in the short run AND long run.

Samo,

Pro athlete? Huh?

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it does not follow that because there is more luck in poker, there must also be less skill.

Re: chess or poker
 

Not only that, but there's really not luck in poker theoretically. If samo and I play head's up, whether I win or not, he was the better player, and he played better.

Re: chess or poker
 

Probably chess, although poker against near-perfect opponents would get pretty deep.

Quick Recap on Samoleus, for those who haven't been keeping up:

Uber 49/27ish super-successful LAG, to the tune of 6 million+

Pro Soccer player

Pro Chess Player

Holds down job + family

Donates 2 mil to cancer research + drops 2 mil on a crib

Has the most unbelievable parlay of events in a 6 hour session (far beyond any powerball odds)

Planet of origin still unknown

Re: chess or poker
 

who did you play football for samoleus?

Re: chess or poker
 

I am not good at Chess and I doubt I would be good at it because I suspect it might require high innate spatial ability which I score in the bottom.

You might need to be much more well rounded in your innate thinking abilities to be good at Chess then poker. I figure mathematical speed may be the most important skill in poker.

A lot of the decisions have endless amount of variables, and you need to be good at quesstimating a reasonable solution.

Re: chess or poker
 

I am interested in this samo, details about this would be appreciated.

Re: chess or poker
 

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chess and it's not close. There is ZERO luck factor in chess. The better player will win in the short run AND long run.


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lol.

Re: chess or poker
 

im nowhere near the best in the world @ nlhe, yet i guarantee i could beat any computer program in nlhe over a long period of time. However computer programs can rival top chess players, b/c in chess there is much more of a 'right' move than in poker. The fact that a computer can be better @ chess than poker can be used as an argument for both being more difficult. Both are v interesting and complex games imo.

Re: chess or poker
 

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im nowhere near the best in the world @ nlhe

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I sincerely doubt that this is true.

Re: chess or poker
 

obviously chess, not even remotely close. Ask any titled chessplayer and I'm pretty sure they will give you the same answer.

Re: chess or poker
 

Maybe a better question would be why play chess when the financial rewards from poker are huge in comparison? I used to play chess and know several top players; their various jobs - waiter, taxi driver, or just plain unemployed - put them right at the bottom of the social ladder. Yet some of them are brilliant and could have been top scientists, engineers etc. Instead they spend hours every day training to hopefully win some pathetically small prize (in comparison to poker). I know a lot of them think they're extremely smart; how smart can they be when their game of choice has such inferior rewards?

Re: chess or poker
 

Chess, by FAR. This shoudln't even be questioned.

Re: chess or poker
 

[ QUOTE ]
im nowhere near the best in the world @ nlhe, yet i guarantee i could beat any computer program in nlhe over a long period of time. However computer programs can rival top chess players, b/c in chess there is much more of a 'right' move than in poker. The fact that a computer can be better @ chess than poker can be used as an argument for both being more difficult. Both are v interesting and complex games imo.

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I don't believe any person has beat Hydra yet, in a series of matches of course.

Re: chess or poker
 

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There is ZERO luck factor in chess

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There is some hidden luck factor in chess HEK. Its of course not even close to poker but there is luck involved and its significant.

Re: chess or poker
 

fwiw, there are no computer programs that can consistently beat a competent human chess player at chess960. by randomizing the starting positions you completely negate what gives the computer whatever edge it may have.

i don't know really understand the question so i will just say this: i think the correlation between raw intelligence and 'poker skill' as defined by longterm winrate is far, far smaller than the correlation between raw intelligence and chess skill after X amount of time invested. with that said, the complexity of poker, especially no limit poker with very deep stacks, is almost assuredly greater than that of standard chess.

Re: chess or poker
 

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obviously chess, not even remotely close. Ask any titled chessplayer and I'm pretty sure they will give you the same answer.

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Dan Harrington was a chess champ, along with backgammon I think too. I forget what he said, if anything, about which is more demanding skillwise, but I would guess he prefers poker as the more interesting challenge

Re: chess or poker
 

lol, little jim you expressed my thoughts exactly. This is definitely a thinly veiled brag post!

BTW I think what this thread really needs is another means of measuring our accomplishments, so here is my question:

Whats more impressive, being a chess master or having a large penis? Before you get your tape measures out, Id wager its penis size. My penis very long and very huge, however I do not think its worth my time to validate this claim to you guys through a screenshot or a bank statement (showing the records for how much ive won with it).

I really dont think any of you will be able to compare with me in this department. Well, maybe empiremaker2, but I havent heard his thoughts on this yet.

Re: chess or poker
 

Durrr,

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b/c in chess there is much more of a 'right' move than in poker

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Its not exactly because of that. For example in go (baduk) there is always a "right move" exactly like in chess still computers cant (and wont for a long long time) play that game even at decent amateur level.
There are two reasons for that :
1)chess is "smaller" game
b)its easier to find useful heuristic in chess

As to poker... its of course possible that the best computer programs will beat the best poker players. For example writing a program who will beat limit heads up five card draw shouldnt be too far away (and its easy for any game without draws). The problem with NLHE is that the game is really huge and its very difficult to find heuristics for that. In that sense though its similair to previously mentioned go. Both games are just too big (have too many possibilities/positions) for nowadays computers.

Re: chess or poker
 

Samo,
I am decent at chess (2300ELO, last tournament performance almost 2500) and I suck at poker. So I would say poker is more difficult from my perspective.

Re: chess or poker
 

Chess master or large penis < Being a chess master who pushes his pieces with his large penis.

Re: chess or poker
 

good posts, punter.

i'd like to add that because the problem space is so vast in almost all situations one encounters in NLHE it is very likely that a large % of the skill differential b/n 'well educated' players who've mastered the ABCs can be attributed to a random element in strategy selection. fun topic.

Re: chess or poker
 

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im nowhere near the best in the world @ nlhe

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Who do you think is way better than you and what is it that makes them better?

Re: chess or poker
 

I hate how they used to call Lederer a chessmaster in older poker broadcasts, he's not even FIDE-rated.

Also chess has less luck involved, however i am not sure that makes it a game of more skill though.

Re: chess or poker
 

I haven't read any of the replies, and have no material information to add to this thread, but just thought I'd pop in to say that I really enjoy your posts Samo. Keep up the good work.