WSJ: Harvard Ponders Just What It Takes to Excel at Poker

[KipBond]

Any game, including poker, is a game of skill to the extent that the actions of you (and any teammates/opponents) determine the outcome of the game. It is a game of luck to the extent that the outcome is determined by other criteria (usually a non-predictable/random event within the game).

Poker is fairly unique in that some games can be mostly luck, while others are mostly skill. For example: a poker tournament with 2 people both with $1,000 in chips, where the blinds are $1,000/$2,000 is completely determined by luck. Same tournament, 2 people, with blinds of $1/$2, increasing gradually every 120 minutes, is mostly skill.

[Taso]

Anyone else think the idea of a poker university is BAD? Why do we want to educate poker players?! God no.

[questions]

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Anyone else think the idea of a poker university is BAD? Why do we want to educate poker players?! God no.

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But you know what - when people say that playing cards for a living is like drug dealing (which is what a poker pro claims his father thought of professional poker playing when he told his father he was dropping out of college, according to a bio on him which I read the other day), my response? "I didn't write the rule that money is what makes the world go around. That was Adam Smith or Ayn Rand or maybe Liza Minelli, but money IS an essential fact of life. Just like sex." I'm not sure exactly why running sanitation services or manufacturing arms are considered more respectable than playing poker for a living, but it's true. :shrug:

[AaronT]

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Such a chart would be possible for every game that involves decision making.

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True. So, per UF_Gators there is no such thing as a game of skill. His argument, as I read it, was that blackjack was not a game of skill because anyone could simply follow a pre-calculated optimal strategy. And per your assertion any game, in theory, could be solved and the optimal strategy determined.

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Blackjack is a game of chance that allows for the exercise of some skill, but skill alone can never win the game - the cards determine every outcome.

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False, the cards do NOT determine every outcome. I can choose to continue to hit until I bust and then the outcome was determined strictly on skill (or lack thereof).

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Poker is a game of skill that includes an element of chance. Skill, the decisions of the players, determines most outcomes, but chance has the ability to come in and determine some outcomes.

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This is question begging. You've defined skill in support of a position in a discussion that's purpose is to define skill. Regardless, however, your statement applies to blackjack as well as poker as long as you remove the artificial stipulator of "most" which, as KipBond points out you can't even apply to all of poker.

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In both games a mathematically correct model can be devised that allows for the knowledgable players to maximize their expected return based on probabilities, but only in poker can that advantage be further advanced by skilled play which allows you to win hands that pure chance would have otherwise led you to lose.

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I don't know what you mean by "hands that pure chance would have otherwise led you to lose." It is tautological that in a game that allows decisions that can effect the outcome that the outcome can be effected by the decisions.

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Finally, poker is a game against other humans, allowing for psychological factors to come into play and varying levels of skill to also affect outcomes.

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Varying levels of skill effect outcomes in Blackjack as well. That does not distinguish the two.

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Blackjack is played against the house which cannot be influenced psychologically nor can it vary its level of skill.

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Are you saying that poker against a computer AI is not poker? That looks like a true Scottsman fallacy to me.

My original point, which I still hold on to, is that if UF_Gators is correct in considering blackjack not a game of skill for the reason that a mathmatically optimal solution exists then poker is also not a game of skill.

Let's consider a definition of skill. Let us call skill the propensity of a given player to make a decision consistant with the optimal strategy for the game. Then, as I understand UF_Gators, for games in which there are solutions (which you correctly point out is all games) the existance of an optimal strategy means that everyone should play optimally as robots which negates the skill factor between players leaving only chance to determine outcomes.

Of course the easier thing to do is to simply reject UF_Gators reason for not considering blackjack a game of skill. This is the tact I take.

Aaron

[koolmoe]

Whether Blackjack (or any other game for which all strategies are <= 0 EV) is considered a "game of skill" is immaterial because the optimal strategy for any such game is simply not playing it.

IMO, any reasonable definition of a "game of skill" or a "game in which skill predominates" must stipulate that there exists at least one strategy for which playing the game using said strategy gives the contestant positive expectation.

That definition would be a little to technical for the average person to understand, I think.

[questions]

If blackjack were a game of chance, neither card counters nor those who somehow win on a consistent basis would be barred from casinos.

[KipBond]

[ QUOTE ]
Whether Blackjack (or any other game for which all strategies are <= 0 EV) is considered a "game of skill" is immaterial because the optimal strategy for any such game is simply not playing it.

IMO, any reasonable definition of a "game of skill" or a "game in which skill predominates" must stipulate that there exists at least one strategy for which playing the game using said strategy gives the contestant positive expectation.

That definition would be a little to technical for the average person to understand, I think.

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"Value" is subjective. Some people might just really like playing the game, even if they will lose money in the long-run. If it costs $5/person to enter a chess tournament, where there is no monetary prize -- that doesn't mean the game is not a game of skill.

It's a game of skill because your actions (and those of your opponent) determine the outcome of the game. There are usually no outside events in chess that determine the winner -- it's entirely a game of skill.

[Skallagrim]

OK Aaron, lets play the sparse the quote and nitpick game:


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Blackjack is a game of chance that allows for the exercise of some skill, but skill alone can never win the game - the cards determine every outcome.

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False, the cards do NOT determine every outcome. I can choose to continue to hit until I bust and then the outcome was determined strictly on skill (or lack thereof).

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Right, my bad, I assumed we could all understand that we are talking about trying to beat a game, not an attempt to purposely lose it. I conceed, you could determine MOST hands in BJ, though not all. Once in a while the cards will deal you a Blackjack that is not matched by the House. So you are wrong to say you could lose every hand. - How does it feel to be nitpicked?


[ QUOTE ]
Poker is a game of skill that includes an element of chance. Skill, the decisions of the players, determines most outcomes, but chance has the ability to come in and determine some outcomes.
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This is question begging. You've defined skill in support of a position in a discussion that's purpose is to define skill. Regardless, however, your statement applies to blackjack as well as poker as long as you remove the artificial stipulator of "most" which, as KipBond points out you can't even apply to all of poker.

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No Question begging, this is the conclusion, not the argument.


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In both games a mathematically correct model can be devised that allows for the knowledgable players to maximize their expected return based on probabilities, but only in poker can that advantage be further advanced by skilled play which allows you to win hands that pure chance would have otherwise led you to lose.
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I don't know what you mean by "hands that pure chance would have otherwise led you to lose." It is tautological that in a game that allows decisions that can effect the outcome that the outcome can be effected by the decisions.

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I mean you can bluff people off hands. Cant do that in BJ.


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Finally, poker is a game against other humans, allowing for psychological factors to come into play and varying levels of skill to also affect outcomes.

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Varying levels of skill effect outcomes in Blackjack as well. That does not distinguish the two.

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You missed the point entirely, the skill of the guy sitting next to you has no effect on the outcome (other than the guy (s) on the right who will randomly influence the cards you get by their hitting or not - sorry to deprive you of that nitpick in advance).


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Blackjack is played against the house which cannot be influenced psychologically nor can it vary its level of skill.
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Are you saying that poker against a computer AI is not poker? That looks like a true Scottsman fallacy to me.

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It would be, if that was even remotely implied by what I said. Can you name this famous fallacy: "A" and "B" are sets that overlap, Set "C" does not overlap with "B," therefore set C and A do not overlap...?


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My original point, which I still hold on to, is that if UF_Gators is correct in considering blackjack not a game of skill for the reason that a mathmatically optimal solution exists then poker is also not a game of skill.

Let's consider a definition of skill. Let us call skill the propensity of a given player to make a decision consistant with the optimal strategy for the game. Then, as I understand UF_Gators, for games in which there are solutions (which you correctly point out is all games) the existance of an optimal strategy means that everyone should play optimally as robots which negates the skill factor between players leaving only chance to determine outcomes.

Of course the easier thing to do is to simply reject UF_Gators reason for not considering blackjack a game of skill. This is the tact I take.

Aaron

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I dont agree with gator either (which I thought was obvious).

But you say "Let us call skill the propensity of a given player to make a decision consistant with the optimal strategy for the game." So a player who shows ZERO POINT FIVE (0.5) propensity for optimal strategy is still exercising skill isnt he? Its just BAD skill.

And so you have failed to refute my original premise, decisions are skill, cards are chance, and decisions determine at least some winning outcomes in poker. In Blackjack, the only decision that can DETERMINE an outcome, is the decision to hit till you bust and thus purposely lose most of the time.

Skallagrim

[koolmoe]

[ QUOTE ]
"Value" is subjective. Some people might just really like playing the game, even if they will lose money in the long-run. If it costs $5/person to enter a chess tournament, where there is no monetary prize -- that doesn't mean the game is not a game of skill.

It's a game of skill because your actions (and those of your opponent) determine the outcome of the game. There are usually no outside events in chess that determine the winner -- it's entirely a game of skill.

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In this case, no amount of skill can influence the outcome from a wagering point of view, so I would argue that it is not a game of wagering skill though winning the tournament would certainly require chess skill.

[TheEngineer]

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Whether Blackjack (or any other game for which all strategies are <= 0 EV) is considered a "game of skill" is immaterial because the optimal strategy for any such game is simply not playing it.

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I'm not sure why we're spending so much time on blackjack, but I do come from a card-counting background, so I'll take a stab at it.

Without ANY advantage techniques, MOST blackjack games are -EV. Some are +EV following perfect basic strategy, though none I can think of in the U.S (unless there's a promotion). The SD at Barona is close to break-even.

Following a strategy card cannot make a -EV game +EV, so that's not skill. Blackjack can be +EV by card counting, hole carding, ace sequencing, couponing, comp hustling, shuffle tracking, and many other ways. These are all skills (even the couponing). Skill is required to turn a -EV game into a +EV game.

The IRS recognizes blackjack as a game of skill for a professional gambler.