Is a high IQ necessary to be a poker pro

[suzzer99]

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I find it more than a little ironic that this thread is in the WPT forum.

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I laughed.
Well played.

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TY. Interesting that out of all the 160-200+ IQ super-genius posters in this thread, you were the only one who at least acknowledged the joke. You must be the smartest of all...

[Dromar]

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10 points is a standard deviation. so an IQ of 130 is already in the top 1%.

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I think the SD in a typical IQ test is 15 or 16. My IQ is in the low 160s, and I'm pretty sure I'm around sigma 4.

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that may have changed with the time. initially, meaning when they were first created, they were setup to have a mean of 100 and SD of 10, for the obvious reason of making it very easy to do calculations. i noticed most 'test yourself' or online iq test have much much wider SD which i think is only natural because they are being marketed to the masses and you much rather sell them a test that will give them a big number than a low one.

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True. A friend of mine took an online IQ test once and scored 169. Then I took it myself and scored... 169. Needless to say, I was suspicious. So I took it again, answering every question wrong, and I got... 169. I'd be surprised to find an honorable IQ test anywhere on the internet.

[Dromar]

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things poker players have in common:
a) when posting, everyone has a ROI of about 30%.
b) when posting, everyone has an IQ of 177 or more
c) when playing, it's everyones's "first time"

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d) they need to bathe more

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Another blessed upside to online poker!

[RiverTheNuts]

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10 points is a standard deviation. so an IQ of 130 is already in the top 1%.

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I think the SD in a typical IQ test is 15 or 16. My IQ is in the low 160s, and I'm pretty sure I'm around sigma 4.

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that may have changed with the time. initially, meaning when they were first created, they were setup to have a mean of 100 and SD of 10, for the obvious reason of making it very easy to do calculations. i noticed most 'test yourself' or online iq test have much much wider SD which i think is only natural because they are being marketed to the masses and you much rather sell them a test that will give them a big number than a low one.

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True. A friend of mine took an online IQ test once and scored 169. Then I took it myself and scored... 169. Needless to say, I was suspicious. So I took it again, answering every question wrong, and I got... 169. I'd be surprised to find an honorable IQ test anywhere on the internet.

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Yea online ones like this are either straight up scams or set the ceiling way too high for the insanely idiotic questions they ask... suprisingly enough, lots of people can alphabetize 4 words by their first letters, yet these are questions online. To the person who asked how I had mine scored; Stanford-Binet, as well as a couple others when I was young that I dont remember.

I obviously tested into mensa, but only bothered with it for a year... it was a bunch of old people who went out for lunch once a month

below is a pretty good link to some online IQ tests that are normed by people with real intelligence and ability, not companies who want to sell you something... I think I scored a 170 on one of cooijmans' tests, but they are normed with the ceiling a little too high I think.

http://www.eskimo.com/~miyaguch/

[prohornblower]

I'm 9 feet tall, with an IQ of 200, and I only travel by private jet.

[TxRedMan]

For what it's worth:

I've never taken the gold standard IQ tests, like the maguiers..? The name is something like that. I've taken the online versions, like the ones on tickle.com.

There's two tests on that site, and I've scored a 129 on one and 143 on another. While I'd like to think i'm a decent player who has a ton to learn about the game, I can tell you that there are people that play better than I do who dont have the same level of intelligence that an IQ score measures. I think that poker uses a different part of the brain, and it isn't necessarily academic by any menas, which is what an IQ tests to a large extent, academic knowledge. The math in poker is generally simple arithmetic, and while it is possible to use higher levels of mathematics to assist your game, i've found that it is secondary to having an innate consciousness regarding situations and people. I've always studied people and situations, my whole life, and that is what I consider to be my advantage at a poker table. This is demonstrated by my ability to play much better in live games than online, and the fact that the bankroll(s) i've had have been aided in large parts by NLHE tournaments. So, in summary, a high IQ is not a requirement for excellent poker, but it is an advantage when applied correctly.

[Patrick del Poker Grande]

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Two plus two posters are the dumbest people ever.

People with 160 IQs build space shuttles, skyscrapers, stealth bombers and submarines, I think thats a tad more complicated than poker.

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These things really aren't all that difficult.

[UATrewqaz]

You can think of IQ like the processing power of a microchip.

Obviously the more powerful the processor, the faster and more complex programs you can run.

But there are plenty of people with crappy computers running good software and plenty of people with mega-awesome computers that are playing Minesweeper.

[suzzer99]

I don't follow.

[Shandrax]

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You can think of IQ like the processing power of a microchip.

Obviously the more powerful the processor, the faster and more complex programs you can run.

But there are plenty of people with crappy computers running good software and plenty of people with mega-awesome computers that are playing Minesweeper.

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I could not agree more. That's exactly what I have observed in chess for many years. Having a high IQ alone doesn't guarantee success at chess and why should poker be different? It doesn't hurt to be smart though...