Ben Roberts Full Tilt Article
 

Good old Ben Roberts:

Roberts article

Some beautiful tidbits:

"If you ask me, however, I'll tell you something you won't hear from almost anybody else. Poker is 100% skilful."

"What this shows me is that, over the long haul, luck is not only insignificant when it comes to your results - it's non-existent."

"It takes a true professional to look at poker in this way"


No Ben, it takes a true moron to look at poker in this way.

Re: Ben Roberts Full Tilt Article
 

your a moran

Re: Ben Roberts Full Tilt Article
 

nutsflopper is a "moron" now go kill yourself.

Re: Ben Roberts Full Tilt Article
 

[img]/images/graemlins/crazy.gif[/img]

Re: Ben Roberts Full Tilt Article
 

This topic stayed on track long. "moran" lol [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

Re: Ben Roberts Full Tilt Article
 

? Ben is right fwiw...

Re: Ben Roberts Full Tilt Article
 

ben is way wrong. just sim it. esp live.

Re: Ben Roberts Full Tilt Article
 

Ben is widely considered one of the best NL cash game players in Europe. The first time I met him was about 3 years back, I went out to dinner with he, Antonio Esfandiari, and a few other pros. When we were waiting for our table, Antonio says to me something along the lines that Ben is the best player he knows and I should listen to what he has to say about poker.

Anyway, the best no limit players I know, have had insane consistency in winning when playing live. I'm sure Ben has experienced the same. Def. in poker the edge a good player has is much much bigger in NL limit holdem than any other form of poker, to the point where the fish have practically no shot. Maybe this is where he's deriving his statement from.

I will say one thing tho. When learning to play, I'd much rather go into it with the mindset of poker being 100% skillful, than believing there is any luck in there. This will push you much harder to re-examine your game after losses.

Re: Ben Roberts Full Tilt Article
 

He's not denying that there's luck in the short run, just suggesting that a professional look at the issue in a different way. Kind of like the "Sklansky Dollars" thing.

Re: Ben Roberts Full Tilt Article
 

You're a complete idiot. I've logged soooooo many hours with Ben Roberts online and LIVE from 10/20 to 50/100...he is definitely one of the top 5 FTP Pros...very very good, and also quite possibly the nicest guy of all the poker world. Ben is very under the radar and not many people know how good he is.

Re: Ben Roberts Full Tilt Article
 

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I will say one thing tho. When learning to play, I'd much rather go into it with the mindset of poker being 100% skillful, than believing there is any luck in there. This will push you much harder to re-examine your game after losses.

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I really like this reasoning. Thanks.

Re: Ben Roberts Full Tilt Article
 

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ben is way wrong. just sim it. esp live.

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1.) How do you run a sim in which one player has significantly more skill than the rest?
2.) How do you run a sim live?
3.) Note his qualifier 'in the long run'.

Re: Ben Roberts Full Tilt Article
 

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Anyway, the best no limit players I know, have had insane good luck when playing live. I'm sure Ben has experienced the same.

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Re: Ben Roberts Full Tilt Article
 

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ben is way wrong. just sim it. esp live.

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1.) How do you run a sim in which one player has significantly more skill than the rest?
2.) How do you run a sim live?
3.) Note his qualifier 'in the long run'.

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1. Give him a high expected WR
2. Assume few hands per hour
3. See the distribution of money earned over a career running sims. You will knock your socks off how different two players who play every hand identically can earn very different amounts of money.

Add into this analysis that you move up every time you hit a certain money threshhold and that increases your earn and you will really see what happens. I'm sure Ben is a very good player, because I've heard that from many reliable sources included Boosted right here in this thread. That doesn't stop him from being dead wrong about this issue, which is a purely objective issue, which if he took the time to do some math I'm sure he would realise that he is dead wrong about.

That being said, I understand where he's coming from and what he means and I agree with him. But he has expressed himself very poorly. And what he actually said is dead wrong.

Re: Ben Roberts Full Tilt Article
 

http://www.agribiz.com/merchdiz/cointoss/cointoss.html

a coinflip graph
check it for a million flips and tell me if it goes back to even every time

some people are luckier, even longrun, than others.

Re: Ben Roberts Full Tilt Article
 

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http://www.agribiz.com/merchdiz/cointoss/cointoss.html

a coinflip graph
check it for a million flips and tell me if it goes back to even every time

some people are luckier, even longrun, than others.

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coinflip sim = obviously gonna be huge variance.

reprogram the sim with 70/30 flips (typical nlhe "getting it in good") and the graphs will look alot more similar.

I'd do this myself (I do have an unused degree in computer science) but I'm drunk and don't care that much.

Re: Ben Roberts Full Tilt Article
 

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reprogram the sim with 70/30 flips (typical nlhe "getting it in good") and the graphs will look alot more similar.

I'd do this myself (I do have an unused degree in computer science) but I'm drunk and don't care that much.

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I'm sure you realize that even being a great NL player it's more realistic to imagine yourself being in a series of 55/45 flips. Also, as TWP points out, if you move up regularly (as you should) that greatly decreases how close we are to "the long run", and increases the large effect that can come from some short term luck.

Re: Ben Roberts Full Tilt Article
 

No one's saying someone will be DOWN in the long run if they are a big winner. But if both are truly 5bb/100 winners (in expectation, from how much equity they have when the money goes in), one player could be a 7bb/100 winner and the other a 3bb/100 winner in 'a long time' even if not in 'the long run' which neither player will ever see (especially if they play live).

Re: Ben Roberts Full Tilt Article
 

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http://www.agribiz.com/merchdiz/cointoss/cointoss.html

a coinflip graph
check it for a million flips and tell me if it goes back to even every time

some people are luckier, even longrun, than others.

[/ QUOTE ]

coinflip sim = obviously gonna be huge variance.

reprogram the sim with 70/30 flips (typical nlhe "getting it in good") and the graphs will look alot more similar.

I'd do this myself (I do have an unused degree in computer science) but I'm drunk and don't care that much.

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I'd love to find a game where I have a consistent 70/30 edge.

Or are you consistently stacking off with nuts v. second nuts and never getting coolered?

Re: Ben Roberts Full Tilt Article
 

twp is right.

Re: Ben Roberts Full Tilt Article
 

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You're a complete idiot. I've logged soooooo many hours with Ben Roberts online and LIVE from 10/20 to 50/100...he is definitely one of the top 5 FTP Pros...very very good, and also quite possibly the nicest guy of all the poker world. Ben is very under the radar and not many people know how good he is.

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I've played a ton of hands with BR and have met him irl and this sums up how I feel too.

Re: Ben Roberts Full Tilt Article
 

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No one's saying someone will be DOWN in the long run if they are a big winner. But if both are truly 5bb/100 winners (in expectation, from how much equity they have when the money goes in), one player could be a 7bb/100 winner and the other a 3bb/100 winner in 'a long time' even if not in 'the long run' which neither player will ever see (especially if they play live).

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OK, so you aren't saying that luck will make a skilled player a loser -- rather that luck can play a significant role in determine the actual amount that one eventually ends up winning.

Makes sense now.

Re: Ben Roberts Full Tilt Article
 

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You're a complete idiot. I've logged soooooo many hours with Ben Roberts online and LIVE from 10/20 to 50/100...he is definitely one of the top 5 FTP Pros...very very good, and also quite possibly the nicest guy of all the poker world. Ben is very under the radar and not many people know how good he is.

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I've played a ton of hands with BR and have met him irl and this sums up how I feel too.

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I've heard both of you and several other people say the same thing, so why doesn't Ben play much higher online? I assume he plays bigger live?

Re: Ben Roberts Full Tilt Article
 

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You're a complete idiot. I've logged soooooo many hours with Ben Roberts online and LIVE from 10/20 to 50/100...he is definitely one of the top 5 FTP Pros...very very good, and also quite possibly the nicest guy of all the poker world. Ben is very under the radar and not many people know how good he is.

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I've played a ton of hands with BR and have met him irl and this sums up how I feel too.

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I've heard both of you and several other people say the same thing, so why doesn't Ben play much higher online? I assume he plays bigger live?

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He apparently plays in very big private games in the UK and Europe.

Re: Ben Roberts Full Tilt Article
 

If any of you actually would read the article, he talks about running bad and stuff...seems like pretty general knowledge for all good poker players.

Re: Ben Roberts Full Tilt Article
 

It's funny because reading the article what I thought was weird was that he was presenting these thoughts as though they were revolutionary, when I thought it was all just common sense... now here is a thread full of people disagreeing.

Re: Ben Roberts Full Tilt Article
 

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You're a complete idiot. I've logged soooooo many hours with Ben Roberts online and LIVE from 10/20 to 50/100...he is definitely one of the top 5 FTP Pros...very very good, and also quite possibly the nicest guy of all the poker world. Ben is very under the radar and not many people know how good he is.

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Who are some of the other Full Tilt pros you'd put in the top 5 for NL?

Some of the people I'm curious of the opinions in the 2+2 high stakes community:

John D'Agostino
Brad Booth
Ram Vaswani
Andy Black
John Juanda

Re: Ben Roberts Full Tilt Article
 

The edge in poker is a lot smaller than most think after considering the rake. I would guess that it's somewhere right around .5% after rake for most high stakes pros.

This is a graph of 32,000 coin flips. Each line represents a gambler who has a 50.5% chance to win each flip. As you can see, there can be wide differences in results between two gamblers with exactly the same skill level.:
http://donkeytest.com/50.5_percent_win.jpg


Here is what a 51% edge looks like. Same thing here. Wide differences, same skill level:
http://donkeytest.com/51_percent_win.jpg


And 52% to win each flip. With a 2% edge you pretty much never lose over 30k flips:
http://donkeytest.com/52_percent_win.jpg

53%.:
http://donkeytest.com/53_percent_win.jpg

And finally, let's take a look at 50.25% to win each flip:
http://donkeytest.com/50.25_percent_win.jpg

Re: Ben Roberts Full Tilt Article
 

interesting post. just so that people aren't confused and think that the 2% edge shows a high degree of clumping, i want to point out that the scale is different in that one. so even with a 2% edge, which is a big edge (only over 30K hands but still) there is wide divergence in actual results. anyways, i was hoping for something more interesting, and better expressed from ben, since so many people hold his game in high regard.

Re: Ben Roberts Full Tilt Article
 

"Ben is widely considered one of the best NL cash game players in Europe."

Good for Ben.

"Anyway, the best no limit players I know, have had insane consistency in winning when playing live."


And your judgement of who are the best players is largely based on this, so it has a bit of a circular feel.

"Def. in poker the edge a good player has is much much bigger in NL limit holdem than any other form of poker, to the point where the fish have practically no shot. Maybe this is where he's deriving his statement from."

Maybe, but it's a non sequitur.

"I will say one thing tho. When learning to play, I'd much rather go into it with the mindset of poker being 100% skillful, than believing there is any luck in there. This will push you much harder to re-examine your game after losses. "

Okay, but this could also possibly lead to some very faulty conclusions, such as mucking AA to 3 all ins in front.

Re: Ben Roberts Full Tilt Article
 

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You're a complete idiot. I've logged soooooo many hours with Ben Roberts online and LIVE from 10/20 to 50/100...he is definitely one of the top 5 FTP Pros...very very good, and also quite possibly the nicest guy of all the poker world. Ben is very under the radar and not many people know how good he is.

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He may be the greatest NL player in the history of the universe for all I know. It doesn't change the fact that the statements are just silly. He's either using that type of thinking as a psychological ploy, saying it to generate some controversy and get his name out there, or his logical thinking is a little off. Maybe Ben's not a moron, but some of his statements were moronic.

Re: Ben Roberts Full Tilt Article
 

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It's funny because reading the article what I thought was weird was that he was presenting these thoughts as though they were revolutionary, when I thought it was all just common sense... now here is a thread full of people disagreeing.

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We're disagreeing with things that are ridiculously incorrect. Poker is 0% luck over the course of somebody's life? Puh [censored] lease.

Re: Ben Roberts Full Tilt Article
 

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This is a graph of 32,000 coin flips.

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Even better would be a graph where each player moves up (down) in stakes once he has "sufficient bankroll" for higher flips. There would be a night and day difference between the best and worst runs.

Re: Ben Roberts Full Tilt Article
 

Nice plots. In the 52% graph, the biggest winner is up more than 600 on the smallest winner. This is on only 8 runs of 32k. If we take runs of 320,0000, 32 million, 32 billion, the difference (in # of tosses won) between the biggest winner and biggest loser will INCREASE. Which "person" is the biggest winner and the biggest loser would likely change, but the difference between the two will increase. This is common sense to many people, but some others disagree vehemently, using the old "it all evens out in the end" argument.

Re: Ben Roberts Full Tilt Article
 

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Even better would be a graph where each player moves up (down) in stakes once he has "sufficient bankroll" for higher flips. There would be a night and day difference between the best and worst runs.

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Agreed. I've done some very basic sims along these lines years ago, and they really are illuminating. I think in the modern era with billions of hand histories out there, some very interesting sims could be done without resorting to the old coin toss.

Re: Ben Roberts Full Tilt Article
 

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You're a complete idiot. I've logged soooooo many hours with Ben Roberts online and LIVE from 10/20 to 50/100...he is definitely one of the top 5 FTP Pros...very very good, and also quite possibly the nicest guy of all the poker world. Ben is very under the radar and not many people know how good he is.

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I've played a ton of hands with BR and have met him irl and this sums up how I feel too.

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I played with him in person at the Commerce in the 50/100 and 100/200 games and he was absolutely a gentleman at the table and a very agreeable person. Many people came up to say hello and wish him well. He is also training his son to play poker professionally and his son plays on ftp at the lower stakes. He is a long-term cash game winner and has a great personality.