WSJ: Harvard Ponders Just What It Takes to Excel at Poker

[Skallagrim]

Such a chart would be possible for every game that involves decision making.

Blackjack is a game of chance that allows for the exercise of some skill, but skill alone can never win the game - the cards determine every outcome.

Poker is a game of skill that includes an element of chance. Skill, the decisions of the players, determines most outcomes, but chance has the ability to come in and determine some outcomes.

In both games a mathematically correct model can be devised that allows for the knowledgable players to maximize their expected return based on probabilities, but only in poker can that advantage be further advanced by skilled play which allows you to win hands that pure chance would have otherwise led you to lose.

Finally, poker is a game against other humans, allowing for psychological factors to come into play and varying levels of skill to also affect outcomes. Blackjack is played against the house which cannot be influenced psychologically nor can it vary its level of skill.

Nuff said.

Skallagrim