Luck vs. Skill test...
 

Heads up match. 1.00 blinds. Million dollar stacks. Limit Hold ‘Em. No blind increases. Before I name the participants, assume that each player has equal endurance to play the entire match, and they take breaks to eat, use the restroom, etc. Both players also have the required number of days to play the entire match available to them, and on and on.

The players:

Phil Ivey

Brand new Limit Hold’em player (BNLHP) who's just been introduced to the game. He knows what beats what, and can read the board quite well. He’s aware of what constitutes a good hand, and what constitutes garbage.

Barring freak things like one of these players having a stroke during the match, I feel that you could 100% guarantee that Phil Ivey would win this match. Even though it’s only one HU match.

Do you agree? To the 100% guarantee part that is. And, if you agree, do you feel that this shows that skill dominates in this game (versus luck)?

Many times in the past, it seems that we’ve felt unsure about whether the best player could beat an average Joe in one HU match (i.e. we thought they'd mostly win, but felt that the Joe could win a few here and there). But, I think we were setting up the HU match wrong. The thing is, if someone contends that it’s just luck (or mostly luck), then it doesn’t matter how big the stacks are, nor how big the blinds are.

Re: Luck vs. Skill test...
 

[ QUOTE ]
100%

[/ QUOTE ]

No

Re: Luck vs. Skill test...
 

Heres a MUCH MORE INTERESTING QUESTION.

If Phil Ivey's opponent MOVES ALL IN EVERY HAND. WHAT ARE THE ODDS HE WILL WIN THE SAME MATCHUP DeScrIbed ABOve?

Re: Luck vs. Skill test...
 

[ QUOTE ]
Heres a MUCH MORE INTERESTING QUESTION.

If Phil Ivey's opponent MOVES ALL IN EVERY HAND. WHAT ARE THE ODDS HE WILL WIN THE SAME MATCHUP DeScrIbed ABOve?

[/ QUOTE ]

first of all, the guy said it was limit hold em.

second, i still don't think you could 100% an ivey win. it's quite close to a sure thing, but not 100%.

Re: Luck vs. Skill test...
 

It's limit hold 'em, and Ivey has a million blinds. (So does the other guy.)

Re: Luck vs. Skill test...
 

oh when i read phil ivey i immediately assumed limit..

phil ivey isnt even that good at limit holdem...

how in the hell could anyone say he is a 100% favorite. have you lost your mind?

Re: Luck vs. Skill test...
 

I expect it would be very close to 100% (as in >99.99)

Re: Luck vs. Skill test...
 

[ QUOTE ]
Heres a MUCH MORE INTERESTING QUESTION.

If Phil Ivey's opponent MOVES ALL IN EVERY HAND. WHAT ARE THE ODDS HE WILL WIN THE SAME MATCHUP DeScrIbed ABOve?

[/ QUOTE ]

I think Chris ferguson says its the novice will win 40% of teh time but thats probably assuming only 50/100 BB each

Re: Luck vs. Skill test...
 

The stack sizes would be 500,000 big bets, which would likely take over a million hands, which is clearly the long run. Against a great limit holdem player (I'm not sure Ivey is a great one), I think our newbie would have maybe a .1% chance of winning.
There is no way, the number is exactly 0% because it is possible (although infinitely small) that our newbie has the best hand almost every hand.
Also after 50-100K hands, our newbie may have grasped enough of the game to be at the level of someone like ourselves and would therefore be less of a dog.

If this headsup match was played many times, and the top pro won over 99% of them, then you could prove to a mathematically educated person that this game is a skill game, however there would still be people that don't understand and just think the pro is really lucky.

Re: Luck vs. Skill test...
 

[ QUOTE ]
Heres a MUCH MORE INTERESTING QUESTION.

If Phil Ivey's opponent MOVES ALL IN EVERY HAND. WHAT ARE THE ODDS HE WILL WIN THE SAME MATCHUP DeScrIbed ABOve?

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't know, but I bet they're almost exactly the same as the odds that AA holds up against whatever the new player has when Ivey finally calls. If you want an arbitrary guess, I'll go with 85.204%.

Edit: the above assumes that by "he" you meant "Phil Ivey". IE, what are the chances Ivey wins. If you want the opponent's chances, they're about the inverse.

Re: Luck vs. Skill test...
 

[ QUOTE ]
The stack sizes would be 500,000 big bets, which would likely take over a million hands, which is clearly the long run. Against a great limit holdem player (I'm not sure Ivey is a great one), I think our newbie would have maybe a .1% chance of winning.
There is no way, the number is exactly 0% because it is possible (although infinitely small) that our newbie has the best hand almost every hand.
Also after 50-100K hands, our newbie may have grasped enough of the game to be at the level of someone like ourselves and would therefore be less of a dog.

If this headsup match was played many times, and the top pro won over 99% of them, then you could prove to a mathematically educated person that this game is a skill game, however there would still be people that don't understand and just think the pro is really lucky.

[/ QUOTE ]

.1% is way way way way overestimating the novices chances of going on a **500,000** BB heater against a superior opponent. That would be about right if the person got supernaturally lucky and won the first $999,000. Assume Ivey has a 1BB/hr winrate and a standard deviation of 10BB/hr. His risk of ruin would be ((1-($2/$20))/(1+(2/20)))^(1000000/20), or about 3.09*10^-4358 (a decimal point followed by 4000+ zeroes and then a 3). Or for comparison, it's about the same likelihood of picking a random hydrogen atom out of the universe. And then randomly picking it again. And again. And again. Fifty times. So yeah, I'd pretty much say it is zero.

Re: Luck vs. Skill test...
 

Can I be the rake?

Re: Luck vs. Skill test...
 

Would be close to 50/50 against anyone of a similar character to Ivey. Ivey's poker knowledge goes out the window.

Re: Luck vs. Skill test...
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
The stack sizes would be 500,000 big bets, which would likely take over a million hands, which is clearly the long run. Against a great limit holdem player (I'm not sure Ivey is a great one), I think our newbie would have maybe a .1% chance of winning.
There is no way, the number is exactly 0% because it is possible (although infinitely small) that our newbie has the best hand almost every hand.
Also after 50-100K hands, our newbie may have grasped enough of the game to be at the level of someone like ourselves and would therefore be less of a dog.

If this headsup match was played many times, and the top pro won over 99% of them, then you could prove to a mathematically educated person that this game is a skill game, however there would still be people that don't understand and just think the pro is really lucky.

[/ QUOTE ]

.1% is way way way way overestimating the novices chances of going on a **500,000** BB heater against a superior opponent. That would be about right if the person got supernaturally lucky and won the first $999,000. Assume Ivey has a 1BB/hr winrate and a standard deviation of 10BB/hr. His risk of ruin would be ((1-($2/$20))/(1+(2/20)))^(1000000/20), or about 3.09*10^-4358 (a decimal point followed by 4000+ zeroes and then a 3). Or for comparison, it's about the same likelihood of picking a random hydrogen atom out of the universe. And then randomly picking it again. And again. And again. Fifty times. So yeah, I'd pretty much say it is zero.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks for this analysis sir. Somehow, a few of the posts have gotten off track, talking about NLHE for example, and not thinking just how many blinds each player has in my example.

I realize no one wants to say Ivey is 100% guaranteed, but it is my opinion that he is in this situation, much the same way that Dwayne Wade would dominate me in heads up basketball (actually Ivey would probably dominate his opponent even more because I'd ever so often make some of my half court shots [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img] )

Re: Luck vs. Skill test...
 

You're all barking mad. The game as specified is pure psychology and memory, not all round poker skills. Ivey may be in the top 1% of natural game players, meaning thousands are as good as him and many will be better. Specially trained memory-men, mentalists and such would be strong favourites.

Re: Luck vs. Skill test...
 

[ QUOTE ]
You're all barking mad. The game as specified is pure psychology and memory, not all round poker skills. Ivey may be in the top 1% of natural game players, meaning thousands are as good as him and many will be better. Specially trained memory-men, mentalists and such would be strong favourites.

[/ QUOTE ]

What part of this explanation of Ivey's opponent is not getting through?

"Brand new Limit Hold’em player (BNLHP) who's just been introduced to the game . He knows what beats what, and can read the board quite well. He’s aware of what constitutes a good hand, and what constitutes garbage."

We are not talking about pitting Ivey against anyone with any particularly specialized ability or knowledge. There is a VERY GOOD REASON FOR THIS. It's because we would WANT to put him against your regular average Joe off the street to help prove that skill exists. The reason we would want to put him against a regular average Joe is because it shouldn't take someone with any particular abnormal (in the sense that most citizens don't have it) skill to beat Ivey if this game is dominated by luck, and it would show over the course of this EXTREMELY long game.

If this were roulette, and we put him against an average Joe off the street, we would have no way of knowing who would win. However, in the scenario I wrote, it would be highly apparent.

The agenda is to prove the game is skill. This is about as close (I think) as we can get to proving it.

Re: Luck vs. Skill test...
 

Read what I wrote again. Poker knowledge is irrelevant.

If the 'pro' were Derren Brown, who as far as I know has never played poker, the Joe from the street would have even less chance. Proving what? Nothing except that some guys are more gamey than others.

If you want to prove something about poker, you'll have to use poker, not some imaginary game.

Re: Luck vs. Skill test...
 

[ QUOTE ]
Read what I wrote again. Poker knowledge is irrelevant.

[/ QUOTE ]

No, because you're not addressing what the thread is about. You're talking about Ivey versus someone with some special ability or Ivey against someone with the ability to play well like him.

That is not needed in my example.

Why?

Because if poker is dominated by luck, then any average Joe off the street that hardly knows anything should have a shot at beating him IN THE EXACT GAME I OUTLINED IN THE FIRST POST.

WTF?? Read the entire first post, and stop changing the damn scenario around. You're like a 6 year old who doesn't have the attention span to go past the first few sentences (and you're not the only one since someone already thought I was talking about no limit hold 'em when it clearly states limit hold 'em in the first sentence.)

Re: Luck vs. Skill test...
 

You're quite angry now, aren't you?

Re: Luck vs. Skill test...
 

Your average f’ing Joe doesn’t have a Wiki article on him you twit.

First off, your man with the Wiki article would not be the pro. Ivey is.

And, the Joe off the street is unknown (and described in the [censored] article of the original post). What are you not understanding here. I almost feel like you’re playing at this point.

This is not some stupid imaginary game. The only difference, in fact, is the structure. You play the same limit hold ‘em you always would with gigantic stacks, and small blinds.

If the game is mostly luck, then I feel this particular game would prove it.

Anyhow, I’m done talking with you. You lost any type of debate when you said the following:

“Would be close to 50/50 against anyone of a similar character to Ivey. Ivey's poker knowledge goes out the window.”

Even though I had clear stated this:

“The players:

Phil Ivey

Brand new Limit Hold’em player (BNLHP) who's just been introduced to the game. He knows what beats what, and can read the board quite well. He’s aware of what constitutes a good hand, and what constitutes garbage.”

Re: Luck vs. Skill test...
 

Okay, I'm sorry, you're right and I'm confused and silly.

Why is BNLHP not like Phil Ivey?

Re: Luck vs. Skill test...
 

[ QUOTE ]
Okay, I'm sorry, you're right and I'm confused and silly.

Why is BNLHP not like Phil Ivey?

[/ QUOTE ]

Why would he need to be?

If the game is dominated by luck, then you or I would have just as much chance to win vs. Ivey. For example, if it were you against Ivey in Slot Machines or Roulette, then there's no predictor of who will win. It should be the same way IF (KEY WORD) poker is dominated by luck.

A second reason would be that if someone with skill like Ivey beat Ivey, it would prove nothing (on either side). But, if an average unknown with no extra special abilities (someone that 'could' beat Ivey in Roulette for example) would win against him in this game, I would think it would show the game is mostly dominated by luck.

Re: Luck vs. Skill test...
 

And if BNLHP is better than Ivey, what do you conclude about the game?

Yours isn't a test of the game (which isn't even poker), it's a test of the players. It proves nothing useful.

Re: Luck vs. Skill test...
 

[ QUOTE ]
And if BNLHP is better than Ivey, what do you conclude about the game?

Yours isn't a test of the game (which isn't even poker), it's a test of the players. It proves nothing useful.

[/ QUOTE ]

Wow. Are you 12?

No, this is a serious question. Because you seriously do not comprehend.

Re: Luck vs. Skill test...
 

Outside of Fraac's total miscomprehension of what is going on, I would like to say to everyone else that I absolutely don't think that the test I propose is the 100% guaranteed way to prove the luck vs. skill debate in poker. I just wanted to make that clear...

Re: Luck vs. Skill test...
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
The stack sizes would be 500,000 big bets, which would likely take over a million hands, which is clearly the long run. Against a great limit holdem player (I'm not sure Ivey is a great one), I think our newbie would have maybe a .1% chance of winning.
There is no way, the number is exactly 0% because it is possible (although infinitely small) that our newbie has the best hand almost every hand.
Also after 50-100K hands, our newbie may have grasped enough of the game to be at the level of someone like ourselves and would therefore be less of a dog.

If this headsup match was played many times, and the top pro won over 99% of them, then you could prove to a mathematically educated person that this game is a skill game, however there would still be people that don't understand and just think the pro is really lucky.

[/ QUOTE ]

.1% is way way way way overestimating the novices chances of going on a **500,000** BB heater against a superior opponent. That would be about right if the person got supernaturally lucky and won the first $999,000. Assume Ivey has a 1BB/hr winrate and a standard deviation of 10BB/hr. His risk of ruin would be ((1-($2/$20))/(1+(2/20)))^(1000000/20), or about 3.09*10^-4358 (a decimal point followed by 4000+ zeroes and then a 3). Or for comparison, it's about the same likelihood of picking a random hydrogen atom out of the universe. And then randomly picking it again. And again. And again. Fifty times. So yeah, I'd pretty much say it is zero.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks for this analysis sir. Somehow, a few of the posts have gotten off track, talking about NLHE for example, and not thinking just how many blinds each player has in my example.

I realize no one wants to say Ivey is 100% guaranteed, but it is my opinion that he is in this situation, much the same way that Dwayne Wade would dominate me in heads up basketball (actually Ivey would probably dominate his opponent even more because I'd ever so often make some of my half court shots [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img] )

[/ QUOTE ]

Jesus f-in christ. this is the most retarded [censored] ive ever read. you think you would do better in basketball against dwayne wade than in poker against phil ivey. thats f-in hilarious. how about this: there is no luck in basketball and a large percentage of holdem is luck. you can try to factor out luck by saying people have 1,000,000 BB or whatever you said, but you can never eliminate it. sh*t. i can beat phil ivey half the time in limit holdem. hes not considered great at limit. you must just be horrible at poker if you will lose 100% of the time (you almost have to try to lose 100% of the time). if you say youre the average joe like you described in your example, then this is why you dont know what your talking about. you dont know poker and therefore its hard for you to answer (much less pose) a decent poker question...im pro, joe.

this is about as nice as i could say it. i think its much more interesting when you talk about NLHE and the opponents chances when moving all in. then you get a decent idea of how much luck is in poker.

peace wasnt trying to be rude.

Re: Luck vs. Skill test...
 

Just want to address as quickly as possible how wrong you are on so many levels. Then, I'm completely done with this thread. The fact is, the question has already been answered about as good as it could be answered by the only person that understood the [censored] question (it boggles my mind that only one person fully understood).

[ QUOTE ]

you think you would do better in basketball against dwayne wade than in poker against phil ivey. thats f-in hilarious.


[/ QUOTE ]
That's very misleading. I would do extremly poor against both of them, they would both own the heck out of me. I was semi-joking that I would make some half court shots against Wade, but that's more of a joke. Whatever...you're being too literal on that one.

[ QUOTE ]

you can try to factor out luck by saying people have 1,000,000 BB or whatever you said, but you can never eliminate it.


[/ QUOTE ]
Okay. I have to remind myself not to name call.

Okay sir. Listen...let's say you're on Ivey's level, and I'm on a no name's level. I just learned the game.

You and I are playing limit. We both start with 1 mil in our stacks, heads up, and the blinds are 1.00, and never go up. READ!!

99.99999999999999999999999% of the time you are going to win this HEADS UP MATCH (remember you're Ivey's level in this situation), and this proves that skill dominates........and not luck (that's the contention of the first post, and NOTHING MORE).

I DON'T EVEN NEED IT TO BE THAT HIGH OF A PERCENTAGE FOR SKILL TO DOMINATE!!!! How do you not understand this??


[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]

i can beat phil ivey half the time in limit holdem.


[/ QUOTE ]

This is where you lose credibility. There is no way that you would beat him in limit holdem half the time. Seriously.

[ QUOTE ]

you must just be horrible at poker if you will lose 100% of the time (you almost have to try to lose 100% of the time). if you say youre the average joe like you described in your example, then this is why you dont know what your talking about. you dont know poker and therefore its hard for you to answer (much less pose) a decent poker question...im pro, joe.


[/ QUOTE ]

In the ONE heads up match I described in my first post, if I were playing Ivey, I would lose it every time. Yes. You would too.

Now, if you are saying you are a pro, that's fine.

YOU WOULDN'T BE PLAYING IVEY IN MY EXAMPLE!!! Please read entire posts. Please. You would not be playing him if you're a freaking pro because that proves nothing.

Okay. Mods, please delete. Nothing further can be accomplished as long as drunkencowboy continues to read half sentences...take a drink of his vodka and OJ, and then begin to type. Man alkies are hard to deal with.

Thanks to the guy with the math, it was informative, and answered the question.

Re: Luck vs. Skill test...
 

I think you would be less angry if you knew what you were saying.

Re: Luck vs. Skill test...
 

Ok. let me make sure im getting this right, as i dont want to miss the point of your OP.

Youre saying that someone playing holdem for their very first time (or 20th time), although mentally capable, will do very very poorly against the best poker player in the world? Well Jesus, I think youre on to something [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Ive been playing tennis for years and I only got a couple points off Pete Sampras when we played last summer. Maybe I should have used your logic there...

Ok so for the dozens of people who read this and couldnt comprehend what jackaaron was saying: Most of the time a top professional goes against a beginner the professional will win. This even goes for poker, proving that there is no luck involved.

Re: Luck vs. Skill test...
 

Whereas if those same two people you were talking about played roulette against each other, there would be no way of telling who would win.

Wow, you're finally getting it. Maybe I'll buy you a pack of depends even.

Re: Luck vs. Skill test...
 

as useless as your point is, i still disagree that it is 100%. there is luck and it will affect the outcome. shoot, after $1,000,000 hands at $1 blinds, the guy who sat down with Ivey might actually learn and become better than Phil before the match is over...

ps. if you read the above post, i edited it. i like you fine jackaaron im not trying to be a dick and i know i have been. i cant help it.

Re: Luck vs. Skill test...
 

Do you know what 'begging the question' means, Jack? It's commonly misused. It's the logical fallacy of which you're guilty in this thread. Ask Sklanners.

Re: Luck vs. Skill test...
 

Actually, I think I found a major flaw in this test.

Now, although Ivey would obviously win the match described in the first post, one could argue that he actually got lucky, and this breaks the test down completely, doesn't it? So, even though I'm 100% sure that Ivey would win I couldn't prove that he didn't win with luck.

gg poker as skill dominated? I really want to find a test that proves it's dominated by skill though.

Re: Luck vs. Skill test...
 

You could be big enough to admit who found the flaw, you bloody arsehole.

Re: Luck vs. Skill test...
 

I think that you might have found it first...although I didn't know you did until after I posted. It's a matter of seconds....

[img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

Re: Luck vs. Skill test...
 

People like you make me hate people I haven't even met.

Re: Luck vs. Skill test...
 

fraac, just shut the frick up.

Re: Luck vs. Skill test...
 

If your goal is to show that it is possible for at least some form of poker to be played with skill, then I think this is easy to do. You don't even need to make up hypothetical situations. I did the following 15 minutes ago:

Using Wilson's Turbo Texas Hold Em, I simulated a heads up limit hold em battle of 100,000 hands using two different player profiles and noted who won. I repeated this 10 more times and observed that the same player won all 10 subsequent heads up matches.

If these heads up matches were all luck, they would be coin flips and the chance that the same player would win all ten subsequent matches would be .5^10 = .00098. This should be enough evidence that at least this game of poker is not all luck.

Re: Luck vs. Skill test...
 

Luck versus skill is a red herring anyway. Anyone who said it's an important legal point is misdirecting you. Poker is hated by some US politicians and judges because they're lunatic moralists or because it allows money to leave America. I don't know of a third reason.

Re: Luck vs. Skill test...
 

[ QUOTE ]
Luck versus skill is a red herring anyway. Anyone who said it's an important legal point is misdirecting you. Poker is hated by some US politicians and judges because they're lunatic moralists or because it allows money to leave America. I don't know of a third reason.

[/ QUOTE ]

This has absolutely nothing to do with my post.