How My Son's Insight May Have Saved Poker

[David Sklansky]

Skill controls more than 50% of the outcomes if you define "outcome" to mean "how much you win or lose on a hand" as opposed to "whether or not you win or los a hand". Getting them to accept that definition is, by your standards, the whole ball game.

[jlkrusty]

The Sklansky Theory has merits, but also weaknesses (as others have pointed out). I posit that we shouldn't try to define a game as chance on one criteria alone--but should test it among several criteria. You could state to a jury that there are several games that everyone knows are not subject to more than 50% chance--games like baseball, chess, bridge, etc. Then, you could state that you have found that all of these games have three main criteria in common. These three criteria are as follows:

1. Skill games cause a player playing completely randomly (with no skill whatsoever) to lose very quickly.
2. In skill games, you can identify the players (or teams) who are the cream of the crop; i.e., the best in their field.
3. In skill games, the more skillful person can win in the long run. A single event in a skill game might be prone to a significant degree of chance, but overall net results of winning become more reliable to the skillful player over time.

When you start subjecting different games (or sports) to this three-prong test, you start to get a more clear outlook. Let's subject three games to this three-prong test: baseball, online blackjack (assume no card counting--the deck is shuffled every time), and poker.

Baseball:

#1 A very poor team with no skill whatsoever is going to get slaughtered.
#2 You can easily identify the best players and the best teams.
#3 I don't think anyone would argue that the more skillful baseball teams will win more in the long run.

Online Blackjack (without card counting):

#1 A very poor player making absolutely random plays (like hitting a 19) is going to lose very quickly.
#2 It's difficult to identify the best online blackjack players. You might identify the best blackjack tournament players, but that is different (and you might argue that blackjack tournament is skill based--but, I digress. That's for a different topic).
#3 No matter the skill level, an online blackjack player cannot win in the long run.

So, since Blackjack only passes one of these criteria, it fits into a game of chance.

Poker:

#1 A player making completely random plays (with no skill whatsoever) will get slaughtered at poker.
#2 The best poker players in the world are identifiable.
#3 A skillful player will win in the long run.

Now, I am sure all of you can find some loopholes to this test. Perhaps the test needs to be four or five pronged instead. I just think a multi-pronged test is a more reasonable approach than a one-pronged test.

I guess the remaining question is whether a jury can even handle a multi-pronged test.

Thoughts?

[Our House]

[ QUOTE ]
Skill controls more than 50% of the outcomes if you define "outcome" to mean "how much you win or lose on a hand" as opposed to "whether or not you win or los a hand". Getting them to accept that definition is, by your standards, the whole ball game.

[/ QUOTE ]
Would they understand what Sklanksy Bucks are?

[Skallagrim]

[ QUOTE ]
Skill controls more than 50% of the outcomes if you define "outcome" to mean "how much you win or lose on a hand" as opposed to "whether or not you win or los a hand". Getting them to accept that definition is, by your standards, the whole ball game.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks for the reply Mr. Sklansky - it is pretty obvious that accepting results as being in terms of "how much won" means that poker is less than 50% chance. Since how much you win (or lose) on a hand is an absolutely essential aspect of winning a poker tournament, I think you would then agree that we have an uncontestable argument that poker tournaments are contests of Skill. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

But you are the recognized math expert in this field, Mr. Sklansky, do you really think that the cards, as opposed to the players decisions with respect to those cards (whether good or bad), actually determines most hands in a cash game? I really hope someone with access to real numbers can help here. A large part of the argument (as it relates to a cash game) rests on my anecdotal experience that most poker hands never go to showdown. Can anyone confirm or refute that assumption?

Skallagrim

[MayorHerb]

Backgammon is called a game of skill by Federal Courts...
http://www.edcollins.com/backgammon/backgamb.htm

[David Sklansky]

"But you are the recognized math expert in this field, Mr. Sklansky, do you really think that the cards, as opposed to the players decisions with respect to those cards (whether good or bad), actually determines most hands in a cash game?"

Take the simple case of an expert playing in a home game where most of the players don't fold on the first round of betting. Since the expert would fold the majority of these same hands, his "result" will be different from their's.

[AnyMouse]

[ QUOTE ]
Backgammon is called a game of skill by Federal Courts...
http://www.edcollins.com/backgammon/backgamb.htm

[/ QUOTE ]

This is highly encouraging.

Also, one concept to focus on is that in all common forms of poker except draw, <font color="red"> players don't control their cards--all they control are their chips. </font> Because of this, poker is not really a "card" game so much as it is a "betting" game. So you can make an argument that based on this, the only way to measure results that makes sense is to measure them monetarily and not "winning-hand"-wise. And as 206 previous posters have mentioned, we're very comfortable that is in the realm of "skill".

[mictilt]

amazing how we try the hard way to explain it when it's far simplier to prove the opposite. I'm going to use this with "no believers" if it's ok with Matt.

Mic

[Tuff_Fish]

Just to throw another tidbit out there.

Is the game a game of skill if one can be taught techniques that will improve your outcomes.

If one is an unsuccessful losing player, then takes instruction and becomes a successful consistant winner, then it must be a game where skill predominates. Yes?

Tuff

I hereby volunteer to be a test subject to verify this hypothesis.

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

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