More Skill, Less Luck

[AaronBrown]

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Define "luck".

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That's a long subject. I used "luck" as the complement to skill, as in "your final outcome depends on luck and skill." But the points I made are also true of uncertainty. I don't think of luck and randomness as the same thing, but things that increase one often increase the other.

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Your point about chess is invalid. In chess, the player who plays better theoretically wins every time. In poker, this isn't true. It's only true of poker in the long run.

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I'm confused. If by "plays better" you mean "wins," then the statement is true by definition in any game (if we ignore draws, anyway). If you mean the more skilled player wins every time in chess, that's clearly not true, which was my point. It's often true that after-the-fact analysis shows that the winning player made more and bigger blunders than the loser. You don't need randomness for a less skilled person to beat a more skilled one.

I think you have in mind something like in poker you can make a play that is smart given your information at the time, such as getting the other player to go all-in when there is only one river card that beats your hand, and still lose all your money. Since in chess you have perfect information about the board, a move that is smart given your information has to be a good move.

The trouble with that logic is you don't know everything about what the other person might do. A perfect chess player doesn't have to worry about that, but there are no perfect chess players. I think that's what you mean by "in theory." In practice, a move can be smart against one player and dumb against another; or smart in one game and dumb in another. A smart move in the sense of one that will win 99% of the time can look dumb when the other player happens to make the 1% countermove. Anyway, if you only are concerned about "perfect" players, why can't we say a perfect poker player will induce the other player to fold when she does hit her one out? Or will track the shuffle so well, she knows where the out card is? Or only goes all-in with 100% chance of winning? I don't think perfect play is very useful for discussing either skill or randomness.

You might be able to define some sense in which poker has luck and chess doesn't. You're certainly free to call the factor that causes player A to beat player B in the first chess game and lose to her in the second something other than "luck." But it's a common use of the word, and the sense I think the original poster meant. I don't think it's an invalid sense.

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The way to reduce "luck" (variance) in poker is to maximize EV situations. For instance, if there were a NL game with no blinds and a bunch of fish who never bet, but almost always call (any piece), then I could win with no luck factor. I would just wait until the river every hand, and bet big with the absolute nuts. The reason NL has the least variance of all forms of poker (ala Mason Malmuth, Sklansky) is b/c it's the closest we can get to the above ideal situation. And tiny blinds don't reduce luck; they just make it easier to nut-peddle. But if everyone played as they should in small blind games (really, really tight), then the "luck" factor would be the same as in big blind games.

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This is a good example of a difference between luck (in the sense of not-skill) and variance. In your easy game, your easy strategy wins with very high probability, that is, it takes little skill to win. But the amount it wins has high variance. You could wait a long time and get no nut hands, or not hit big when you do. Or you could bust everyone at the table in the first hand.

Whether or not tiny blinds reduce variance depends on whether you measure it per hand or per session. If it means most hands are folded out, it will obviously reduce variance per hand. But people might make up for that if they play the hands they do play for higher stakes.

But tiny blinds definitely increase the element of skill. At the extreme, with huge blinds, everyone has to play every hand, and it all comes down to the luck of the draw. That's actually lower variance over a session than skilled play, because with skilled play money will tend to flow from bad players to good, while most of the random play results will cancel each other out. So it's more luck but less variance.

[GardenaMiracle]

Reducing the luck factor from Holdem? Why would you want to do that? Add facets to the game, not remove them. If you have an edge, you will win the money anyway. The last thing you sould be thinnking about is scaring off live ones. Most of the people in poker today have never had to grind it out every day with a bunch of good players. Y'all might get your chance. Raise the blinds. welcome fluctuation. Play to your bankroll, and be happy got to see poker at its best.

[demon102]

Y even discuss this further Ive given u the answer, nuf said.

[tshak]

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Y even discuss this further Ive given u the answer, nuf said.

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Unfortunately it was horrible. Short handed means higher variance. HU is even worse because your potential edge is much smaller.

[tshak]

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what aspects of poker, in general, would need to be changed to decrease the luck factor and increase the skill factor?

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Play face up.

[Maize]

First of all, I'd make the game NO ante.
Then I'd deal everyone 5 cards face down.
Then & only then,comes 1 round of betting.
That's it. No one gets a chance to outdraw
anyone.
The one who can read the other players best
will know when to fold,call,
raise, or bluff.
If another player is catching good cards,it's no
skin off YOUR back,it simply doesn't affect YOU.
(remember,I said no ante)
The only luck I can think of here, is being lucky
enough to FIND such a game.

[tshak]

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what aspects of poker, in general, would need to be changed to decrease the luck factor and increase the skill factor?

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Play face up.

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I thought about this more and I wanted to clear the point I'm making. There is virtually no luck in Chess because it is a game with complete information. Playing poker face up reduces the incomplete information, however since the cards are face up you can have a lot more variance since your skill edge goes down against decent players. However, at low stakes, I'm convinced that we would have a measurable edge even if the game was played face up. Against the worst players our edge would probably go up. This may be more true for low stakes structured limit as you could play perfectly and your opponents would continue to play almost as bad as they do now.