chess or poker

[PaulDLane]

Poker "Hands down" You can be a winning player at chess,and still not be able to make a living at it.I do not know how many "chess" players have taken up Poker byt it is alot. The point is Poker is so easy if you are a half way decent chessmaster you cna easily make a nice living at Poker. I think a clear example of this is chess grandmaster Walter
Browne, he won six us chess championships and for many
years was atop usa player. How does he make his living? Poker! he also made a strong showing at the 50k horse event in the world series.

[zaphod]

[ QUOTE ]
Poker "Hands down" You can be a winning player at chess,and still not be able to make a living at it.I do not know how many "chess" players have taken up Poker byt it is alot. The point is Poker is so easy if you are a half way decent chessmaster you cna easily make a nice living at Poker. I think a clear example of this is chess grandmaster Walter
Browne, he won six us chess championships and for many
years was atop usa player. How does he make his living? Poker! he also made a strong showing at the 50k horse event in the world series.

[/ QUOTE ]

This does not show that chess is more difficult than poker. It only shows that there are more money in poker than chess and that there are currently lots of bad poker players.
On a theoretical level against very good opositions it is possible that poker could be more difficult than chess.

I am not saying that poker is more difficult than chess, but you have not shown the opposite to be true.

[fanmail]

The 2 skill sets required for the games are different. Obviously, the skill vs luck factor has been brought up many times already. I am not sure which game requires more skill or is more difficult to master. However, I think to beat the best in chess is much harder than it is to beat the best in poker. If a winning chess player took on the best player in the world, the world champ would win virtually every time. However, if a mid stakes winning poker player took on the best player in the world, the middle of the road guy probably will take some games off the best player. That being said, I still don't know which game takes more skill. Nice topic.

[gergery]

You need to define skill before this can really be answered:
do you mean,
how much skill to be competitive?
how much skill to be world class?
how much breadth of skill (proficiency in many areas)?
how much depth of skill (extreme proficiency in a few areas)?
how much innate skill vs. learned skill is needed?
how much skill needed to beat someone better than you?

That said, I will say that on balance, if a book like "Kill Phil" allows for the possibility of my grandma to become a World Series Champ, then that endeavor probably doesn't have as much skill as other ones.

-g

[FlyingStart]

[ QUOTE ]
I can't find it now, but I once saw someone do a statistical analysis on this very question. The logic went something like this:

1) identify a skill interval such that the player at the top of the skill interval beats the player at the bottom 75% of the time

2) count how many of those intervals seperate the worst player from the best player.

The guy's conclusion was that poker had more skill tiers than chess, but Go had like twice as many as poker.

[/ QUOTE ]

B I N G O, atleast as a way of thinking when identifying skill depth in a game.

A thing that may speak in chess' favor if you measure it like this, is that it probably takes more work to go from one skill 'level' to another in chess.

[Ryendal]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I can't find it now, but I once saw someone do a statistical analysis on this very question. The logic went something like this:

1) identify a skill interval such that the player at the top of the skill interval beats the player at the bottom 75% of the time

2) count how many of those intervals seperate the worst player from the best player.

The guy's conclusion was that poker had more skill tiers than chess, but Go had like twice as many as poker.

[/ QUOTE ]

B I N G O, atleast as a way of thinking when identifying skill depth in a game.

A thing that may speak in chess' favor if you measure it like this, is that it probably takes more work to go from one skill 'level' to another in chess.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ridiculous

[siegfriedandroy]

ARE YOU SERIOUS!!!?? poker harder than chess, and you are 2100?? dam, i am thrown off here. do you disagree w/ the good playing 2plus2 folk who think a monkey can make a million a year at online poker??!? i know no monkey can make that much at chess!! how do you define skill? chess is far more difficult imo to be 'very good' at. i am confused...enlighten me

[ QUOTE ]
I was 2180USCF when I stopped playing about 8 years ago. For me, poker is waaaaay harder. For one, in chess you have more time to think and can better prepare for specific situations in advance. Also, it's a lot easier to improve at chess since you can get objective feeback...did I solve that problem correctly, did it take me less time than last time, etc...whereas in poker I gotta worry about whether the feedback I'm getting is worth a damn. Also, chess requires much less courage and psychological insight. And short lapses of concentration are less costly...you can take a break from paying attention since there isn't always new info to absorb. Finally chess is much easier on the nerves. So, yeah...I'm sure it's different for others, but for me, chess to poker is like, well, checkers to chess.

P.S. They really should add chess to the King of The Zoo event roster.

[/ QUOTE ]

[Mickey Brausch]

[ QUOTE ]
which game you think requires more skill

[/ QUOTE ] Poker requires almost all the skills of chess and you gotta add the mathematics (non-existent in chess) and the people skills. Here's an important insight: when you're good at poker, you're generally bound to have ablities at other things too in your life. When you're good at chess, you're good at chess.

The important question is this: Which player has bigger warts on his ass ?

Mickey Brausch

[wtfsvi]

Perfect poker, as in perfect according to game theory, is probably quite a bit less difficult than perfect chess. At least for LHE, but probably also for NLHE given some reasonable assumptions. I´m sure it will be possible for computers to play perfect game theory poker at some point, and thus be unbeatable. (if put enough effort into anyway.)

But that the computer is unbetable does not mean that it plays perfectly. I can´t imagine a computer will ever be better than a top human player at what poker is really about; exploiting oponent´s flaws.

This is where poker gets complex. There are infinite amounts of information to be gathered, and several ways to tweak your game to get maximum EV out of every piece of information you get. Perfect poker against a variety of differently flawed humans is virtually impossible, and thus more difficult than chess.

[gol4pro]

Deep blue beat both Karpov and Kasparov if I'm not mistaken.

Meaning computers > human chess players, but human poker players > computers.