Is Poker Playing a better test for would be presidents?
 

Let's look at an iteresting comparison between the games of chess and poker. Big Blue beat Kasparov. A computer has yet to beat a pro poker player. (By pro I do not mean Phil Laak or some other purely tournament player).

I believe that one difference between the two games is that chess can be learned and one can play at an expert level by following previously developed procedures. Poker can also be learned but when faced with a decision things learned in the past concerning similar situations are not as valuable as they are in chess. One must reason continuously to be an expert poker player and not follow some mechanical procedure.

pokervintage

Re: Is Poker Playing a better test for would be presidents?
 

yah i'm going to say thats wrong.

do you play chess? and do you play high level chess? I would guess you might answer yes you play chess but on what regularity?

Both games, are games of skill, but poker contains a large element of luck. You could not beat a top chess player 1 out of 10 times however you have a decent shot to beat a pro poker player 4 out of 10 times perhaps even greater.

Poker deals with uncertainties and chess deals with finite knowlegde. In poker you don't know what your opponents cards are and you don't know what cards will come on the flop. In chess you see everything so it becomes a game of skill at out witting your opponent confusing him into making poor plays and setting him up later.

The thing about chess is that computers haven't cracked that either, well not atleast to win or tie 100% of the time. The thing is that during (there are 3 basic parts of chess the early game/mid game/later or finishing game) the mid game there are so many different permutations that not even a computer could figure it out, they did some bbc story a couple of months back about finally cracking checkers - chess is so many many so many many times more complicated it will take a long time till we have the "perfect" chess program.

With poker though, well its very subjective because your evaluating and judging your play so many times through out a hand. There are obv. good and bad plays in poker, however when talking about a good play well there are so many different tactics to take that its difficult to proper judge it or to say that playing one way is better than another.

I believe that there will be or are already computer programs that can beat lower limits of nl texas holdem but it will take sometime before they are capable of continiously beating the pro's.

2cent

Re: Is Poker Playing a better test for would be presidents?
 

Not to forget that in poker you can make 100% the correct plays from start to finish and still lose a game/hand.

Re: Is Poker Playing a better test for would be presidents?
 

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Not to forget that in poker you can make 100% the correct plays from start to finish and still lose a game/hand.

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You cannot compare poker with chess on the basis of wins and losses of games vs hands or anything that remotely resembles a score card. Trying to compare results is a meaningless undertaking.

I do agree with the fellow above that high level chess demands quite a bit of thinking and manuevering. But Sklansky wasn't talking high level chess. He was talking end game 3 move checkmates. Well those situations are easily worked out by computers. There is no manuvering or inducing errors. These plays are calculated and implemented without regard for the skill of the opponent. Very few if any decisons in poker are made without the, i'm sure you've heard it, "it depends" qualifier.

Each and every poker decison requires reasoning. You cannot play poker by rote. End game chess is different. You can play quite a bit of end game chess by rote.

pokervintage

Re: Is Poker Playing a better test for would be presidents?
 

I agree and that is what I was trying to say.

If you are advocating a 'poker test' for candidates, then how can you score it? When top players can disagree about the optimal stretegy at any point?

Chess is a game of finite information, and in being so, can be a method of measuring ones decision making process within it. Not so in poker. Or at least it's not as cut and dried.

What method of implication are you advocating for your trial?

Re: Is Poker Playing a better test for would be presidents?
 

[ QUOTE ]
Let's look at an iteresting comparison between the games of chess and poker. Big Blue beat Kasparov. A computer has yet to beat a pro poker player. (By pro I do not mean Phil Laak or some other purely tournament player).

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they've spent like a kazillion hours programming the computer to play chess.

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I believe that one difference between the two games is that chess can be learned and one can play at an expert level by following previously developed procedures. Poker can also be learned but when faced with a decision things learned in the past concerning similar situations are not as valuable as they are in chess. One must reason continuously to be an expert poker player and not follow some mechanical procedure.

pokervintage

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In poker amateurs routinely beat the experts. No way in a chess match.

Re: Is Poker Playing a better test for would be presidents?
 

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In poker amateurs routinely beat the experts.

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No they don't. And I take it that you are referring to professional poker players when you say experts. The fact is that professional poker players live off of amatuers.

pokervintage

Re: Is Poker Playing a better test for would be presidents?
 

*head asplode*

Re: Is Poker Playing a better test for would be presidents?
 

[ QUOTE ]
What method of implication are you advocating for your trial?

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Have a panel of experts evaluate their knowledge and poker skills. Let the poker community vote on the experts. We could start with Sklansky. Please no tournament pro's unless they also have a many year record of winning (honestly) in live action.

Pokervintage

Re: Is Poker Playing a better test for would be presidents?
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
In poker amateurs routinely beat the experts.

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No they don't. And I take it that you are referring to professional poker players when you say experts. The fact is that professional poker players live off of amatuers.

pokervintage

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The last six WSOP main events were won by unknown amateurs. When was the last time you heard of a international grand master losing a single game to a player with a rating under 2400?

Re: Is Poker Playing a better test for would be presidents?
 

Since no one else answered your question. I will.

Yes.

Re: Is Poker Playing a better test for would be presidents?
 

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The last six WSOP main events were won by unknown amateurs.

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Well there in lies the problem. You consider tournaments, poker. The fact is that tournaments are more akin to craps than they are poker. Because they use a poker format to determine who is the luckiest man on that particular day does not mean they are playing poker. Professional poker players do not like to involuntarily gamble all of their chips away. Granted there are tournament skills that can be employed for a player to gain an advantage. But that said a tournament does not a poker game make.

pokervintage

Re: Is Poker Playing a better test for would be presidents?
 

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Since no one else answered your question. I will.

Yes.

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You're only saying that to make me cry.

pokervintage.

Re: Is Poker Playing a better test for would be presidents?
 

I'm with DS and pokervintage here, although I don't like removing tournaments from poker. The point I think that pokervintage was trying to bring up here is that poker is a game of incomplete information, where chess is a game of complete information. With this in mind, there are, hypothetically, equilibrium strategies for poker, and strategies that exploit those who are not following said strategies. MoP is a great book for understanding this idea, as it presents an actual *solution* (equilibrium) to high-blind heads up play with explanations on how to exploit a player who calls too tight or raises too loose.

The point is, we use Bayesian inference to take known information and extrapolate probable playing styles, ranges, etc. within a probabilistic distribution. It is that aspect that humans have not been able to solidify well into a program (though the UofA HU Limit bot did incorporate learning technology), and even if we could solidify it into a program, we would have major computabiliity problems just as chess does.

Greater point: Chess may not be solved yet, but from a philosophical stance, there is always always always a correct play. In poker, if we had exact information of everyone's ranges and playing styles, there would also be a correct play, but we are unable to know precisely what those ranges are at any given time for a variety of reasons. As such, we make our best guesses.

A president needs to be able to work with incomplete information and come up with political solutions based on perceived "ranges" and "styles of play" of those involved. Poker is a better test.

Sidenotes: I do not believe that the skillset used for poker is different from the skillset used for chess. I believe that both can be perfectly rationalized and treated mathematically. That said, it's a big jump for someone to think about a pro-gambler as a successful mathematician, so I won't try to make that argument. Also, for the sake of answering hitch1978's question about feasibility... 30k hand duplicate matches ftw, playing both sides by randomizing the order each time (go ahead, tell me that you'll know which A79r board you're looking at after 30k hands when you have the "unknown" cards). There are, of course, still problems with this, and you'd have to get some intense statisticians to come up with the actual sample size necessary to produce significant results.

For anyone in the tl;dr crowd:
Poker is a better test, much more relevant application of logic than chess.

Re: Is Poker Playing a better test for would be presidents?
 

pokervintage, you are bad at thinking.

pokervintage.

Re: Is Poker Playing a better test for would be presidents?
 

Both poker and chess are bad as analogies for real life, and I think having skill in either have little connection with aptitude at leadership. Maybe poker is a bit better since it shows you that you can often do the right thing and still have a bad outcome more so than chess will do, and to some degree shows the value of statistics based decision making - though people tend to overdo that when they learn it.

But really I'd just prefer if the president was a good manager, leader, politician and diplomat.

Re: Is Poker Playing a better test for would be presidents?
 

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pokervintage, you are bad at thinking.


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Well that might be true. But since you posted this under my poker tournament comments I can only assume that you know nothing about poker. or as you might state it "Sephus you are bad at thinking about poker".

pokervintage

Re: Is Poker Playing a better test for would be presidents?
 

A question for the poker-is-a-better-test crowd:

DS wanted wannabe presidents to solve check mate in 3 problems. Now, these sort of problems are as elementary to an aspiring chess-player as is having a good grip on your PF-chart for the rising poker star. Now, no one would say memorizing hand charts could be a good criteria for presidents.

So .. what sort of understanding of poker would you demand from the presidents to become ?

Re: Is Poker Playing a better test for would be presidents?
 

[ QUOTE ]
A question for the poker-is-a-better-test crowd:

DS wanted wannabe presidents to solve check mate in 3 problems. Now, these sort of problems are as elementary to an aspiring chess-player as is having a good grip on your PF-chart for the rising poker star. Now, no one would say memorizing hand charts could be a good criteria for presidents.

So .. what sort of understanding of poker would you demand from the presidents to become ?

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This is precisely my point. Who Judges? What are you asking them to judge EXACTLY? What about when the judges disagree about the best play, or wether the play chosen was good or bad?

Re: Is Poker Playing a better test for would be presidents?
 

[ QUOTE ]
So .. what sort of understanding of poker would you demand from the presidents to become ?

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First, we are assuming that the candidates have done some studying and played some poker. At least to the same level as they would have to attempt 3 move endings in chess. Given this, we assume that they understand that poker is a game of skill and that employment of strategy and tactics is better than no strategy.

Jim Brier, in his mid limit Holdem book, disccusses numerous limit Holdem situations. Situations of this type could be used to test a candidates understanding of poker. I'm sure David and Tom Wiedman, Fossilman and a lot of other 2 + 2 contributors could come up with various situations that would tst one's understanding. I choose limit poker as the test bed. In limit there are more things to consider than no limit. Pot limit might be best though but I leave that to the experts.

I will tell you this for sure. Poker (hand) discussions will yield much more discussion and require much greater thought and understanding than solvable 3 move chess endings.

pokervintage

Re: Is Poker Playing a better test for would be presidents?
 

No, both are irrelevant.

Re: Is Poker Playing a better test for would be presidents?
 

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I will tell you this for sure. Poker (hand) discussions will yield much more discussion and require much greater thought and understanding than solvable 3 move chess endings.


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You're absolutely right about this. But .. solving a mate in three relates to the complexity of chess like say identifying the nuts for a given board to the complexity of poker.

So when you say a president should solve mates in 3 you say something like he should have a 1-2% understanding of chess.

So which part of poker do you want to relate that to ? If you want him to be a winning .10/.20-player it's defintitely more challenging than solving mates in 3.

Re: Is Poker Playing a better test for would be presidents?
 

[ QUOTE ]
So which part of poker do you want to relate that to ? If you want him to be a winning .10/.20-player it's defintitely more challenging than solving mates in 3.

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The question was "Is poker playing a better test...". A better test than 3 move chess endings. I am comparing 3 move chess endings to poker hand (situation) analysis and play making decisions.

pokervintage

Re: Is Poker Playing a better test for would be presidents?
 

[ QUOTE ]
*head asplode*

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Hmmm... is that how you sound with someone else's dick in your mouth?

pokervintage

Re: Is Poker Playing a better test for would be presidents?
 

[ QUOTE ]
The question was "Is poker playing a better test...". A better test than 3 move chess endings. I am comparing 3 move chess endings to poker hand (situation) analysis and play making decisions.


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Well ok, but if you compare mates in 3 to poker in general, it's so obvious it's not even fun to discuss.

Regards

Re: Is Poker Playing a better test for would be presidents?
 

[ QUOTE ]
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*head asplode*

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Hmmm... is that how you sound with someone else's dick in your mouth?

pokervintage

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You can get YOUR OWN dick in your mouth?