chess or poker

[Fly]

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it's strange that Bld would say this given that it is widely believed spatio-temporal reasoning is involved in almost all pattern recognition and proportional reasoning of the type typically used for tackling the intractable mathematical problems one encounters in poker, i.e. assigning an opponent a hand range and predicting the likelihood of future actions. that sort of thinking is distinct from dividing $463 by $222 or manipulating other clearly defined symbols (what we normally mean by 'mathematical reasoning').

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The type of pattern recognition used in poker has nothing whatsoever to do with spatial reasoning. It is pretty much all logic.

Here's an example of where you would use spatial reasoning / pattern recognition:

You have a series of objects and each object is different by the previous one by some rotation. Choose the next object from a bunch of possibilities. (classic IQ test question).

[quickfetus]

Do you play tournament chess, BaronZeus?

[Megenoita]

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the differences in skills at the highest levels are VASTLY different in poker than in chess. granted, i know next to nothing about chess, but when 2 'very good' chess players play each other, their edge on each other cant be that great. when 2 'very good' poker players play HU, one of them will almost always have a clear edge.

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I would almost argue conversely. When 2 GMs play who are a couple/few hundred points apart, you would do well to bet on the higher ranked. But in poker, for instance tourney poker, by head's up, it's pretty much straight forward play.

[Megenoita]

Punter, why do you think you "suck" at poker? Don't you think (if it's true) that it's a lack of effort compared to your time with chess?

[VanVeen]

fly, the brain regions involved in 'spatio-temporal' reasoning are activated during any task involving pattern recognition. listening to music, educing syntactical relationships in novel languages, and figuring out which matrix of shapes comes next in a series all involve similar neuronal processes. i will state it again: pattern recognition of almost all types (depends on definitions) involves spatio-temporal reasoning. individuals who score lower than expected given their composite IQ score on spatial subtests tend to perform worse on pattern recognition subtests than individuals of similar IQ w/normal spatial scores.

proportional reasoning involves estimating the relative sizes of things. it also involves the brain regions associated with spatio-temporal reasoning. when reading hands you're estimating the relative likelihood of an opponent holding each possible holding, and there's a damn good chance this is almost purely proportional reasoning with pattern recognition being used to glean useful information.

don't really want to get into the specifics here, but you're wrong! read up!

[Subfallen]

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fly, the brain regions involved in 'spatio-temporal' reasoning are activated during any task involving pattern recognition. listening to music, educing syntactical relationships in novel languages, and figuring out which matrix of shapes comes next in a series all involve similar neuronal processes. i will state it again: pattern recognition of almost all types (depends on definitions) involves spatio-temporal reasoning. individuals who score lower than expected given their composite IQ score on spatial subtests tend to perform worse on pattern recognition subtests than individuals of similar IQ w/normal spatial scores.

proportional reasoning involves estimating the relative sizes of things. it also involves the brain regions associated with spatio-temporal reasoning. when reading hands you're estimating the relative likelihood of an opponent holding each possible holding, and there's a damn good chance this is almost purely proportional reasoning with pattern recognition being used to glean useful information.

don't really want to get into the specifics here, but you're wrong! read up!

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Very interesting posts VanVeen, thx for taking the time.

[cero_z]

Hi samo,

By "requires more skill," what do you mean? Many of the answers people have given deal with differing interpretations of that question (not that that's bad, in a discussion like this).

The fact that computers are better relative to humans at chess than at poker doesn't necessarily mean anything about the importance of skill in poker. It could be (and I strongly suspect that it is) that more effort has gone into creating a powerful chess program, and that true masters of the game were involved in the development of it. Put the Deep Blue team in charge of creating a poker program, guided by the instruction of Sklansky and Chris Ferguson, and with the hand history databases of Party, Stars, and UB, and I'll bet you'd have a product that could SIIPoki'sP.

The fact that it's easier to become a WCP at poker than chess has to do with the comparative skill of your opponents, so that really doesn't say anything about which game requires more skill. Also, in chess, more people WANT to get better, since they're not rewarded for bad play by beating those more skilled, as they are in poker.

My interpretation of "requires more skill," is: If you envision two identical twins, masters in the respective games, and each one knows as much about the winning concepts of his game as is possible to know, then which one must use more of his brain's capacity to achieve that mastery? My guess is that poker would require more space, due to the more diverse set of emotional and mental skills involved in poker mastery, and the seemingly endless combinations of possible situations created by multiplying mathematical and contextual variables that occur in a poker decision.

[Shandrax]

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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.

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What requires more skill, backgammon or chess? They both require a different set of skills.

A funny coincidence between chess and poker is, that especially in limit poker you can only chose between three moves, while in chess you usually have about 3 candidate moves to think about also. The better you get, the less variations you have to chose from actually. Those you chose, you will explore more deeply though.

One thing is clear, an amateur like Moneymaker could have never won a big chess tournament, probably not even a small one. In chess the better player has a much bigger edge, both in the short and in the long run.



Btw, if you want a NL feeling while playing chess, then you should play the Dragon and try to sacrifice like Tal. If you want a limit feeling, then you have to play the Caro Kann and squeeze it like Petrosian. Last but not least, if you love game theory and forced draws, then the Marshall Attack and the Grünfeld are your best friends [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[fish2plus2]

I havent read any responses. I used to prety interested in Chess when I was younger. It was really fun to go to competitions and hear the clicking of the timers and the moving of pieces. I never really had any competition in school Chess Programs. When the internet became avaiable, I realized that there were so many chess players out there that were so much stronger than me. I was about a 2000 rating on Yahoo. There are some people, who it seems like have an encylopedic knowledge of chess. I dont know if this is from studying or if they can really see that far ahead, but it is insane how good some people play. Now, I only play blitz, which I think is infinitly more fun because you have to think quickly it allows you to make moves that are mistakes hoping your opponent will not catch the mistakes quick enough. You can also do sacrifices and gambits without being quickly dismantled.

I think Chess is a much harder game than poker. The math in it, or whatever you want to call it, is much more complicated than poker which is a rather simple game.

[MrSmurf]

An important factor in the discussion is the impact donkeys have on poker/chess. Poker is almost impossible to compare the way it is right now because soo much money (and poker success is measured almost fully in $$) is essentially being donated. In chess, this is much less significant. If all fish were removed from the playing field as they essentially are in chess, view's of skill requirements in poker would be much greater than they are now.