Argument: Poker is skill because it matters who you play

[TruePoker CEO]

I think you need to reduce the argument further:

It is the nature of the game itself, not "who you play" which matters.

Your play affects the outcome in poker.

In games of chance (and sports betting), Heisenberg (and Pete Rose) aside, you are merely an observer whose actions do not affect the outcome of your wager. (Yes, someone throws the dice in craps, but that is a random event if the game is honest.)

Blackjack and baccarat involve some skill, i.e. decision making, but it is insufficient to overcome chance in the long run. Whether you play skillfully or not, the decisions you make will not determine the outcome, eventually you will lose.

Poker offers skill an opportunity to affect the outcome, either positively or negatively. "Who you play" may make it more or less likely you win or lose, but "who you play" does NOT matter, it is the nature of the game which matters.

Your "Who you play" argument recognizes that when the lamb lies down with the lion, only one of them will get up. However, you need to discuss the nature of the game itself, not focus on who is playing.

[repulse]

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Zero-sum just means that for every dollar you win, I lose a dollar. In that respect my coin flip game is zero-sum, pure chance, and gives you a positive expectation (and me an equal but opposite negative expectation).

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Whoops. I meant symmetric, not zero-sum.

[SHnewbie]

I only have a few minutes before I have to leave for a meeting (so I haven't given this any thought yet), but I just glanced at this thread and wanted to make a brief comment on some of the results I have seen from students I have taught SH LHE. I have graded numerous 100-300 hand samples and have noticed a benchmark that I have used to help students determine how far away from becoming a 2BB/100 winning player they might be. With a small sample of 4-6 students, every student seemed to be a losing player at either 1/2 or 2/4 SH LHE until they only made mistakes on 3% of their total actions (decisions). The total actions number came directly from pokertracker and quantifies the number of total decisions the player made over a given session.

Obviously, these results are subjective, do not take into account the EV change caused by the error, and are dependant upon the competion and type of game you are playing and would likely not be a consideration for a legal argument in its current form. However, it does show that a winning player needs to make the correct decision (based on mathematics involved in the EV of the hand) roughly 97% of the time.

With the number being so high, there should be a way to quantify that skill is greater than luck in poker. In this example, we are only talking about the skill involved in playing a hand correctly and not even going into the skills involved in table selection (which would change the 3% number) and other skills in poker.

Also, it doesn't go into how a more skilled player/winner (for example, 2 BB/100 winner) can experience less monetary swings than a less skilled player/winner (for example, 1 BB/100 winner). In a sense, a player's skill can actually change the variance/luck that they are faced with in the long run.

Just some random comments that might provoke some more thought on this issue.

[popesc]

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Zero-sum just means that for every dollar you win, I lose a dollar. In that respect my coin flip game is zero-sum, pure chance, and gives you a positive expectation (and me an equal but opposite negative expectation).

[/ QUOTE ]

Whoops. I meant symmetric, not zero-sum.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think you need both symmetric and zero-sum to make having a positive expectation sufficient to prove your game is skill based. Unfortunately, poker is neither (if a rake is taken).

[popesc]

[ QUOTE ]
I think you need to reduce the argument further:

It is the nature of the game itself, not "who you play" which matters.


[/ QUOTE ]

Because poker is predominantly skill, "who you play" matters. This is a factor in every game of skill. I would have little (no) chance to beat Tiger Woods in a round of golf, or get a hit off of Roger Clemens, because skill is a predominant factor. I can beat each of those guys at "flip the coin" about half the time.

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Your play affects the outcome in poker.


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I don't dispute this, in fact it is the reason I avoid more skillful players.

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In many games of chance (and sports betting), Heisenberg (and Pete Rose) aside, you are merely an observer whose actions do not affect the outcome of your wager. (Yes, someone throws the dice in craps, but that is a random event if the game is honest.)


[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]

Blackjack and baccarat involve some skill, i.e. decision making, but it is insufficient to overcome chance in the long run. Whether you play skillfully or not, the decisions you make will not determine the outcome, eventually you will lose.


[/ QUOTE ]

If you card count, you can achieve a positive expectation in BJ. Look at previous posts of mine above for other examples for why positive expectation is not sufficient for show a game is predominantly skill based

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Poker offers skill an opportunity to affect the outcome, either positively or negatively.

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so do games of chance such as BJ, three card poker, Pai Gow, Let It Ride etc.

[ QUOTE ]

"Who you play" may make it more or less likely you win or lose, but "who you play" does NOT matter, it is the nature of the game which matters.

Your "Who you play" argument recognizes that when the lamb lies down with the lion, only one of them will get up. However, you need to discuss the nature of the game itself, not focus on who is playing.

[/ QUOTE ]

My whole point is that in games that are predominantly chance, it doesn't matter who you play. You don't care about the opponent since whether you win or lose is predominantly chance.

In games of skill, who your opponent is matters greatly. If they are more skillful, you will probably lose. If they are less skillful, you will probably win.

Caring who the competition is something unique to games that are predominantly skill. It is also a test that poker passes easily without resorting to any detailed talk of probabilities. It should be used in addition to Lederer's argument that since most hands don't make it to show down, the element of chance (i.e. the cards) usually doesn't matter. And also throw in some FTOP to quantify what "skill" in poker means.

[repulse]

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I think you need both symmetric and zero-sum to make having a positive expectation sufficient to prove your game is skill based. Unfortunately, poker is neither (if a rake is taken).

[/ QUOTE ]

Right, that's true. A hypothetical symmetric game of chance where each player was guaranteed a profit from an outside source wouldn't be skill-based.

Poker could be both, though. Rake-free, of course, as a reasonable enough simplification for the theoretical grounds of this claim. And a positive expectation in a raked game (negative-sum) would certainly be as sufficient a condition as positive expectation in a zero-sum game.

I'd say poker is essentially symmetric. Tournaments are certainly symmetric. In practice, a cash game is symmetric enough, especially if everyone always chose to join and leave the table at the optimal points in the button movement.. I think there would be a few more assumptions necessary here, but it's certainly close enough.

A cash game where players were not allowed to leave or enter until the button makes a full orbit (ensuring that all players have all possible positions at all times) would be symmetric. And if the argument could show that this type of poker game were skill-based, it'd be hard to deny the extension of this to standard poker.

[popesc]

What you're talking about is symmetric poker. Multiple tables are set up so the deal is the same at each one. You are playing against the person in the same seat as you on a different table. I saw a link to a CardPlayer article on it, but can't seem to find it now.

I agree showing that symmetric poker is predominantly skill would go a long way to convincing people poker is predominantly skill. (and to relate this to my original post, I wouldn't want to hold the same seat as Chris Ferguson)

[repulse]

No, I just meant any cash game where the probability that any given player being in any given position is equal.

For example, a heads-up cash game where an even number of hands was played would be symmetric. Each player is in each position an equal amount of the time. You'd just have to control that an even number of hands was played before one of the players quit.

The symmetric/duplicate poker thing is a good angle, too. It seems to have a better reception as being "skill" even though it presents some new sources of variance (you could lose a lot of money by folding K2s UTG if the guy at the other table donks around with it and wins a big pot).

[Skallagrim]

"It should be used in addition to Lederer's argument that since most hands don't make it to show down, the element of chance (i.e. the cards) usually doesn't matter."

Just for the record, that was Skallagrim's argument first.

[popesc]

Oops, I first saw the argument stated by Howard Lederer in a WSJ article. I did not intend to deny you any credit.