Interesting take on poker pros

[Xanthro]

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As a side note, if we're betting $1 on heads and tails on tosses of a fair coin, there's a 10% chance one of us is up over $52k after a billion tosses. If the charts of that match were published, people would say that person is clearly the better coin tosser, as luck evens out in the end, and there's no way a person could be up 52k after a BILLION tosses, betting only $1 a toss.

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Are you really arguing that somehow $52,000 out of $1,000,000,000 is some statistically significant amount?

Anyone who says that the $52,000 out of $1,000,000,000 makes someone a better coin tosser is at the same level as those arguing that somehow all the better poker players have to be on the "lucky" side of poker.

[Xanthro]

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The argument is simply that the most highly successful "name" pros are more likely to have been lucky than unlucky.

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Really, show some proof for this. Your argument is that, a certain percentage of people fall outside the norm, and there for the better players are luckier than normal. It's really a sad argument.

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Really, what is more likely, that Phil Ivey has been 3 standard deviations to the lucky side of the curve, or 3 standard deviations to the unlucky side?

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It's EQUALLY likely he's at either, because the amount of luck over that period of time is so small that it doesn't matter. The small factor of luck is nothing compared to the level of skill.

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And being up 52k is inconsequential? Do I give a [censored] if the percentage is close to 50% if I'm down 52k betting $1 a hand?

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Out of a BILLION. Any given poker hand has a 50% chance of winning or losing heads up against another hand (excluding chops). Do you think that Ivey's gain over one BILLION hands is going to be $52,000?

Let's say that Ivey played his billion hands heads up with only a small 2% skill edge over his foe, and got exceedingly unlucky and hit your 10% chance to be off by $52,000. Ivey would win $20 million, minus the $52,000 for $19,948,000. Do you really think that people are going to care or notice if Ivey wins $19,948,000 or $20,052,000?

Where Ivey falls on the luck curve doesn't matter, because over time the amount of luck involved is just way too small to matter.

[Joey Joe Joe]

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Really, what is more likely, that Phil Ivey has been 3 standard deviations to the lucky side of the curve, or 3 standard deviations to the unlucky side?

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It's EQUALLY likely he's at either, because the amount of luck over that period of time is so small that it doesn't matter. The small factor of luck is nothing compared to the level of skill.

Where Ivey falls on the luck curve doesn't matter, because over time the amount of luck involved is just way too small to matter.

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You say my argument is sad, and then you say the above? To argue that Phil Ivey is just as likely to have been very unlucky as very lucky is ridiculous. Saying that the amount of luck involved is way too small to matter is just beyond belief.

[Joey Joe Joe]

"Are you really arguing that somehow $52,000 out of $1,000,000,000 is some statistically significant amount?"

Nope

"Anyone who says that the $52,000 out of $1,000,000,000 makes someone a better coin tosser is at the same level as those arguing that somehow all the better poker players have to be on the "lucky" side of poker."

Agreed. But I didn't say anything remotely similar to what you're saying there.

[KipBond]

Just estimating...

There is a 0.00000000000000000000000000001% chance that Phil Ivey is considered a great poker player because he has been very lucky in the poker hands.

There is a 99.9999999999999999999999999999% chance that Phil Ivey is considered a great poker player because he has been very lucky that the Universe converged in such a way to give him all of the qualities (& skills) that make a great poker player.