How My Son's Insight May Have Saved Poker

[Anders]

People are conflating "skill-based game" with "game it is possible to win at in the long run." Blackjack absolutely IS a skill-based game, although impossible to win in the long run (yeah, okay, assume the deck is reshuffled every hand).

Me pitching a curveball to Derek Jeter is a skill based game too, but I absolutely will not win it in the long run.

So, the blackjack example does not defeat Sklansky's theorem here, because skill is a factor in blackjack - skill ultimately decides how quickly you will lose. If Jeter homers off of me 70 times out of 100, that doesn't mean it was out of my control.

[addictontilt]

I have a question:

Chess is widely accepted as a skill game, yet computer programmers have written a program that can beat a human...to my knowledge a computer program has not beaten a professional poker player.

Thoughts?

[StellarWind]

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I would also be interested in how you would respond to the skill v. chance argument if it were phrased in this manner: Does chance account for over 50% of the results (of individual hands) in Poker?

I ask it this way because many state laws define games of chance as those in which chance predominantly determines the outcome. Thus if the outcome is determined by things other than chance (not just skill) more than 1/2 the time, poker is not gambling as legally defined (in those states).

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There are many hands you can never win by any method. There are also many hands where it is virtually impossible to lose except by deliberate dumping. But that doesn't mean there is no skill involved in those hands.

You need to strongly make the argument that poker is about winning money, not pots. An "outcome" is the *amount* of money won or lost. Once the politician or juror accepts this principle it is easy to see that skill plays an important role in determining the outcome of most hands.

Side issue: Poker is not a game at all. It is actually a generic name for a large class of games many of which are quite different from each other. There is no obvious reason why an old precedent that (e.g.) 5-card draw is a game of chance should be applied against the operator of a NL holdem game. Presumably this issue can be relitigated for every form of poker and cash game versus tournament as well. This is especially powerful for someone accused of running a tournament as the "outcome of the game" must mean the whole tournament and not just a single hand.

Side issue 2: Win rates are a red herring. Two chess masters of near equal strength playing a long match may experience a win rate very near breakeven. That doesn't mean chess is not a game of skill. It just means they have the same amount of skill. Forget all the 2 BB/100 stuff. Really terrible 6-max LHE players can easily lose 10-15 BB/100 in real online games (check a PT database). There can be a 20 BB/100 difference in win rate between an expert and an awful player sitting at the same table (+5 vs. -15). That's the real measure of the advantage a highly skilled player has over a terrible player. That's the amount of skill in the game.

[whangarei]

[ QUOTE ]
People are conflating "skill-based game" with "game it is possible to win at in the long run." Blackjack absolutely IS a skill-based game, although impossible to win in the long run (yeah, okay, assume the deck is reshuffled every hand).

Me pitching a curveball to Derek Jeter is a skill based game too, but I absolutely will not win it in the long run.

So, the blackjack example does not defeat Sklansky's theorem here, because skill is a factor in blackjack - skill ultimately decides how quickly you will lose. If Jeter homers off of me 70 times out of 100, that doesn't mean it was out of my control.

[/ QUOTE ]

So you are saying we should be able to get a skill-based exemption for blackjack too? I think some of the legal terms talk about a predominance of skill vs. luck in determining the result of the game. The result of blackjack is losing to the house. We need more than the Sklansky Theorem to show that skillful poker play results in winning against other players.

[AceFX]

I have a simple point: It takes enough skill in the game to know what a fold is, and how & when to do it. This action alone could save or lose more money in teh long-run. Does that not constitute a game of skill?

[Mendacious]

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No. We are talking about arguments to persuade juries. Not logic theorems. The point of the argument is to show that games where luck seems to predominate can still be games of much skill. Because that fact is masked by the close equality of skill among practitioners. But even if it takes a long time for great skill to show, the necessity of skill can also be demonstrated by pointing out how quickly lack of skill shows.

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FYI, Juries decide issues of fact, they do not make statutory interpretations. This issue will be decided by how legislators choose to craft statutes on [online] gambling, and how judges interpret the law, not by any jury. To the extent that there are any legislators who have an open mind on this issue, and are persuaded that it makes any difference whether a game is governed by or subject to chance, then this is a decent point to raise. But frankly, I don't think this distinction matters to anyone but poker players who want to consider themselves something other than gamblers.

I am a consistent winning player, but I harbor no illusions despite the fact that I have a long term skill edge against most opponents that, at the end of the day, I am still gambling.

is this really the case? if it can be proven in court that poker is game of "skill" where luck just explains the variance and the better players are on track to consistantly win then it will be neglect to the new war on online gambling?

[getajob]

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Though I would love to name this argument after me, the fact is that Mat thought of it and merely gave me premission to post it for him. Thus it must be named after him. The Sklansky Poker Skill Argument.

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[E.Z.]

now we are thinking. addictontilt, this angle is even better than my theory on how to save poker.


theres a reason why we dont all play 5-10 NL and it's not because all of us don't have the bankroll. it's because the average millionare will get eaten up 10 times worse than he would at a blackjack table. especially if short-handed poker.


1 sport i can think of that seems to be based on chance is baseball. the very best hitter gets a hit roughly only 10% of the time more than the guy that is about to get cut.

the market dictates what the players are worth and some teams have salaries 10 times of others but yet this only adds up to 95-100 wins ( and that's not a given) that's = to 9-7 in the nfl. or 46 wins in the NBA.

you could take a double A team (the royals kinda are) and they will enjoy more succuss in that league than a group of average poker players playing against just some descent 5-10 NL players.

this debate on poker can't be compared to sports but to say it's a game more of chance is insane.

[Dane S]

How about using some of the enormous PT databases that have been built up datamining to show the clear correlation between winrate and playstyle over millions and millions of hands. Would this kind of evidence hold any water in a court?