How My Son's Insight May Have Saved Poker

[thehotspur]

[ QUOTE ]
In poker, there is clearly long-term individual variability in outcomes (winnings), thus it must be a game of skill. If it were a game of luck, (e.g. roulette) there would be zero (or very near zero) variability among individuals in outcomes (winnings).
Case closed.

[/ QUOTE ]

Sherman, the answer is not categorical. Poker is both skill and luck, the question is how much skill versus how much luck. Merely demonstrating that skill exists in the game is unhelpful, we all know that there is skill in the game. For the rest of us that doesn't mean case closed. The challenge is to prove that the game is predominantly skill over luck.

Skillful players are prone to good luck as well as bad players too. For every skillful player you can point to who has amassed good money how many equally skillful players went broke.

[SuperPokerJedi]

Mat for Senator!

[DivideByZero]

Skill vs luck...I don't understand why this should play into legalizing poker. Please enlighten me.

The difference between Poker and every other casino game is that you DON'T PLAY AGAINST THE HOUSE. This fact is the most important of all IMO. Each player has the same odds of winning or losing AS LONG AS THEY ALL HAVE EQUAL SKILL.

From an online gambling perspective, this is a really important point because it gives Poker sites a very low incentive to cheat the players.

[bsheck]

[ QUOTE ]
The difference between Poker and every other casino game is that you DON'T PLAY AGAINST THE HOUSE. This fact is the most important of all IMO. Each player has the same odds of winning or losing AS LONG AS THEY ALL HAVE EQUAL SKILL.

[/ QUOTE ]
The same is true of a slot tournament. The casino takes a fee, and every player has an equal chance of winning. However, since there is no skill involved in slots, over the long run everyone will lose because of the house cut. In poker, that is not true because skill plays a huge role, and good players will be able to walk away with a profit. So the skill vs. luck argument is very important.

[Sherman]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
In poker, there is clearly long-term individual variability in outcomes (winnings), thus it must be a game of skill. If it were a game of luck, (e.g. roulette) there would be zero (or very near zero) variability among individuals in outcomes (winnings).
Case closed.

[/ QUOTE ]

Sherman, the answer is not categorical. Poker is both skill and luck, the question is how much skill versus how much luck. Merely demonstrating that skill exists in the game is unhelpful, we all know that there is skill in the game. For the rest of us that doesn't mean case closed. The challenge is to prove that the game is predominantly skill over luck.

Skillful players are prone to good luck as well as bad players too. For every skillful player you can point to who has amassed good money how many equally skillful players went broke.

[/ QUOTE ]

By definition skillful players make money (over infinite trials). Otherwise they aren't skillful.

Beyond this, I certainly didn't say poker was totally skill. I just pointed out that it is obvious that skill plays a pertinent role in poker. I am not sure what it takes to convince someone to make poker legal/illegal. Just indicating that it is very clear that some skill exists.

Beyond this, in another post I indicated that skill level can be measured for all games based on two factors.

1) Variability in a person's outcome given infinite trials (Variability between people). This in and of itself is evidence for the existence of skill as stated above. The higher this variability the more skill involved in the game.

2) Variability in a given trial, or otherwise stated as the number of trials before a person's average outcome to be equivalent (or approximately equivalent) to his or her average outcome given infinite trials. This could also been known as variability within person's. The lower this variability the more skill involved in the game.

Let me illustrate these two concepts with some examples:
1. The lottery. The lottery is the epitomy of low variability between people (given infinite trials everyone will lose the exact same amount of money) and high variability within people (mostly you lose money, but on a rare occasion win millions). Games which are low on variability between people and high on variability within people have almost no skill and are entirely luck based.

2. An example on the other side of the spectrum is an IQ test. IQ tests by definition have high variability between people. However, they also have low variability within people (the test-retest reliability of IQ tests is extremely high). Thus, the IQ test is almost entirely skill and zero luck.

Most games/competitions fall in between these two extremes. Roulette is clearly low on between people variability and fairly high on within person variability (but not as high as the lottery). Chess is similar to IQ tests with high between people variability and low within people variability. Games like poker and batting in baseball fall somewhere in between.

What I think happens is people get the two measures of luck/skill confused. In most games/competitions the correlation between the two measures is strongly negative (as in the examples given above). However, in a game like poker, the correlation is positive. I think most would agree that poker can be categorized as high in between people variability, and also high in within people variability.

Because people rarely consider between people variability when determining if a game is based on luck or skill and rely on within people variability as the sole determinant, they incorrectly identify poker as a game of luck. Clearly, the evidence for between people variability defines it as a game of skill.

Now, how to measure these? I actually don't think it is hard as it appears. Determine what you will consider a trial. Record tens of thousands of trials for a variety of players. Estimate the variance between the players. Then estimate the variance within the players (trials). Compare the two variances. The ratio of between player variance to within player variance can give someone a feel for how much luck/skill is involved in the game.

The higher the ratio, the higher the skill. The lower the ratio, the lower the skill. The lottery has a ratio very near zero. An IQ test has a ratio near infinity.

If I really wanted to show how skillful poker was, this is exactly what I would do. I would compare the poker ratio to the ratio's of other games as well (e.g. batting in baseball, billiards, etc.). This would give us a great feel for how skillful the game of poker is. Alas, if we only had the data.

Might I add, case closed.

R. Sherman
Ph. D. Student Personality/Social Psychology

[Shandrax]

If players of absolutely identical strength face each other, the outcome depends on nothing but the cards and that's the definition of pure luck. In chess the fair outcome of this situation would be a draw, but in poker there will always be a winner.

The reason for that is the shuffle. If there would be a shuffle that could produce identical hand match-ups (like they stack the deck in Bridge during a tournament for example), it wouldn't be random anymore.

[seemorenuts]

Clever advocates against online poker would create better arguments supporting their position when necessary.

The new arena would not simply revolve around the skill vs. luck issue.

Neocons are interested in a docile workforce that complies with their wants. To them, people being free and enjoying their avocations is superfluous if not dangerous.

Here's an example of a flawed argument against poker:

We don't care if skill is involved, if 2% of poker players lose their homes, and 20% are constantly broke or less productive, perhaps requiring subsidies from the rest of society, we want to prohibit it completely for YOUR good, we know what's good for you.

[Sherman]

[ QUOTE ]
If players of absolutely identical strength face each other, the outcome depends on nothing but the cards and that's the definition of pure luck. In chess the fair outcome of this situation would be a draw, but in poker there will always be a winner.

The reason for that is the shuffle. If there would be a shuffle that could produce identical hand match-ups (like they stack the deck in Bridge during a tournament for example), it wouldn't be random anymore.

[/ QUOTE ]

Not over infinite trials. Over infinite trials two players who are equally talented will either break even or lose to the rake.

Beyond that, try to find me two players with exactly the same skill. You can't do it. You know why? Because poker is a game of people.

Sure, any two players can have the exact same skill set in terms of knowledge of position, pot odds, implied odds, whatever. But what they can never ever share is the same life history skill set. No two players are EVER the same, just as no two people are ever the same.

Poker is a game of people. If two players have the exact same poker "skill set" that I discussed above, I can almost guarantee that they differ on one skill set that will determine whether they win or not. People skills. The ability to predict an opponents behavior and read an opponents cards involve people skills (i.e. accurate personality judgment) which is a variable that I am certain no two people can EVER be equally skilled at.

R. Sherman
Ph. D. Student Personality/Social Psychology

[DivideByZero]

Blackjack requires "skill". An ignorant blackjack player will lose more than one that has a good grasp for the odds/correct plays.

I think the argument of playing against the house is more important. If you play against the house, the house has an incentive to screw the players...conflict of interest.

[ALawPoker]

The "non-people" side of poker isn't exactly rudimentary stuff. Anyone worth his salt can do some simple division to decide if he should fold his flush draw or not, sure. But analyzing patterns (I don't know, maybe you consider that "people"), calculating optimal bet amounts, and even doing regular pot odds against hand ranges isn't exactly simple stuff (even if there was no personal component). People wouldn't all basically do it optimally. To the extent that no two players are identically skilled at the people aspect, they're also not identically skilled at the math aspect.

But what you're saying is really just semantics. At least it seems so to me. Maybe two players aren't ever "exactly" the same, but that just depends on how you define it. If you had all of the world's poker results ever, surely you could find two players that for the most part proved themselves to be equally skilled. One might still be nano-tenths of a fraction better statistically, but so what? You can say that about anything that requires any reasonable skill.

The "people" aspect doesn't really make a difference. What's important is that poker is a complicated game that not everybody can play well. I agree with you about that.