Poker as a skill(Need help)

[sobefuddled]

http://www.boston.com/ae/games/artic...5/high_stakes/

[Lottery Larry]

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http://www.boston.com/ae/games/artic...5/high_stakes/

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""People who are into poker have a lot of trouble holding on to absolutes. To me, it's a way of thinking liberally and seeing what the world looks like from another person's point of view."

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Is "holding onto absolutes" supposed to be a desired quality? I prefer the phrasing: "Poker players should reflect the ability to avoid being trapped into 'absolute' thinking"

[Lottery Larry]

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I prefer the phrasing: "Poker players should reflect the ability to avoid being trapped into 'absolute' thinking"

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Actually, that sucked.

[TheProdigy]

sobef; TY for link!

LL: I was only talking about the data when I said the skill thing, meaning more "if one thinks it isn't skill" instead of directly at "you."


You seem to want to ignore my middle paragraph and just make responses based on different parts and then ignoring the other parts. I am an investing noob, so maybe I am wrong in my wording, but explain to me how:

"1) "can be used as an effective investment vehicle "
2) "may be utilized to produce a controlled rate of return"
3) "despite the recent legislative restrictions pushed against it."

How is data providing a couple years, or 1mill hands on a constant upswing overall not kind've helping to prove that it can be used as an effective investment? What I am trying to say, in easier terms, is that you can learn the game and learn it well enough that you can produce consistent and big enough wins in between losses that it is an effective way to produce returns in a long-term upward manner. Did I just state the thesis in wrong investment terms that make it mean something other than what I want it to mean?

I'm also not sure what you can disagree with on the last part. Mainly I am saying that part so I can talk about the legislation against it later. Also, the games are tougher now because of the legislations but the games can still be beat.

I understand you don't like to spell anything out since everyone should be smart enough to decrypt your thoughts, but I would highly appreciate it if instead of listing things you disagree with maybe you list reasons as to why you disagree with these things?

[Lottery Larry]

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sobef; TY for link!

LL: I was only talking about the data when I said the skill thing, meaning more "if one thinks it isn't skill" instead of directly at "you."

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Ok, then my apologies for the rant. After supposedly having squashed it, to see that pop back up....


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I am an investing noob, so maybe I am wrong in my wording, but explain to me how:

"1) "can be used as an effective investment vehicle "
2) "may be utilized to produce a controlled rate of return"
3) "despite the recent legislative restrictions pushed against it."

How is data providing a couple years, or 1mill hands on a constant upswing overall not kind've helping to prove that it can be used as an effective investment? What I am trying to say, in easier terms, is that you can learn the game and learn it well enough that you can produce consistent and big enough wins in between losses that it is an effective way to produce returns in a long-term upward manner. Did I just state the thesis in wrong investment terms that make it mean something other than what I want it to mean?

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Not necessarily. That clarifies the positions you are taking, vis a vis your original thesis statement. Including actual data to verify those statements, in your paper, should hopefully take care of your goal.

I'm still not clear if you will be proving your thesis on a general population basis, or just yourself, or a select few?

Part of my instinctive rejection of your exact wording in the thesis was based on you applying those presumption to a large group of players.

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I'm also not sure what you can disagree with on the last part. Mainly I am saying that part so I can talk about the legislation against it later. Also, the games are tougher now because of the legislations but the games can still be beat.

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Oh- that wasn't what I thought you meant by the legislation part.

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I understand you don't like to spell anything out since everyone should be smart enough to decrypt your thoughts

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This would be really funny, if you knew me. LOL'd at the "decrypt your thoughts" part.

As far as what I was doing in this thread, don't assume that I normally take that path. However, I think that people (in general) don't think enough about what they read and write, especially in snap reactions in electronic communication... and it's getting worse.
But, that's a windmill for another day.

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but I would highly appreciate it if instead of listing things you disagree with maybe you list reasons as to why you disagree with these things?

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Lost in the earlier word wars was my statement

If there had been specific data that I thought were a counterpoint to your argument, I would have added them and not used the word "instinctively".

I don't have data to say you are wrong. I don't know enough about it to say if you ARE wrong. Reading it initially, it just seemed too narrowly focused to be workable as a provable thesis.

Thus, my initial request to see your completed conclusions, so I could then either be educated or have something more concrete to debate/research.

[TheProdigy]

Thanks for the reply.

Hopefully I can bang out something that is good enough for a general population but with a short time frame and limited knowledge, I doubt I can live up to your standards. (Not meant to be a put down, but you obviously can write/analyze better than me so I am saying it won't be up to those standards).

I of course may change the thesis if I cannot help prove it but really conclusively proving this thesis is hard to do(because some say no amount of data is long enough, I suppose), my main point of the paper is more to help prove that poker is a skill game and can be consistently beat, and the wording may need to be changed to fit this topic.

[Kaka]

Great article/proof (IFF the statistics bear out the claims). I have previously had difficulties articulating an argument that would differentiate poker from blackjack - as the decision to stand, hit, double, etc. seems inherently skillful to me.

Not that I have anything against blackjack, but Lederer's definitions would appear to make such distinction, as the vast majority of blackjack hands do go to showdown and involve comparing cards. Intuitively, then blackjack would be a game predominated by chance (the deal of the cards) and poker a game predominated by skill (the decision to exit a hand prior to showdown).

For the record, "predominate," in my mind means something more than 50.00000001% (which is a preponderance, in legal jargon). Not sure what the legal standard would be, but if the statistics show 60-40 or even better, 67-33, then I would feel stronger about meeting the predominate standard. (Maybe it's just the word "dominate" contained in it, but it just seems like a higher standard).

Not sure if this is timely, but there is a TN Attorney General opinion from 2005 dealing with some of the cases and other sources discussing skill versus chance - and going with chance (not a big surprise in TN - bible belt). No real help for your argument, but it may be helpful to know what cases/sources have argued/found against the skill factor.

Not that any of these sources appear to have delved into a deep analysis, but here they are anyway:

http://www.attorneygeneral.state.tn....5/OP/OP159.pdf

[Skallagrim]

Just a quick note on Tennessee gambling law. There, gambling is defined as "risking anything of value for profit whose return is to any degree contingent on chance..." ANY DEGREE being the key words. I will not deny that there is some degree of chance present in poker, and thus poker is illegal under TN law. TN is the only state that uses the "any degree of chance" standard though. Even fishing tournaments are illegal in TN.

However, in Howard's (and my) proof, we deal explicitly with the mistake courts make when analyzing poker, and you see it in this TN AG opinion too: they assume every poker hand must be decided by the cards, and no amount of skill changes the cards. Of course we regular players know that most hands are not decided by the cards, in most hands the final (and other player's) cards ARE NEVER SEEN. The skill acts of folding and betting/bluffing decide those hands. This is the key distinction missed by all courts in finding poker not to be a game of skill, they fail to realize that a poker hand CAN be decided by skill acts, not just cards. No one remembers the hand where everyone folds to a single player, everyone remembers the hand where pocket aces got cracked on the river to cost someone a tournament. "Remember the folded hands" is thus the key to beating this argument.

And its the same thing that distinguishes poker from blackjack. Other than the limited surrender option in some casinos, every blackjack hand must be played to the final card. Hence the cards always decide the winner; though skillful betting and hitting/standing improve your odds (for some folks even to +EV), skill acts never CONTROL whether you win or lose a hand in blackjack.

Skallagrim

[Kaka]

good call on the "any degree" language. ouch. kind of seems like any sort of equity investment in a business starts to look like gambling. how are adjustible rate mortgages legal in tennessee? how is building a commercial development off the beaten path in the hopes that a big suburban development goes up next door, but such plans are not yet finalized? chance, i'd say has at least a fleeting chance in making such a development work. i generally don't like absurdity arguments but "any degree" is a SILLY standard.

i also note that the "casino game" language in the tennessee constitution can be a difficult concept to overcome, as folks don't understand that card rooms can and do exist without casinos.

[JPFisher55]

Fishing tournaments illegal in Tennessee. I am a bass fisherman, but I do not fish in tournaments. I know that many bass fishing tournaments are held in Tennessee every year. Kentucky Lake and Barkley Lake on the Tennesee-Kentucky border are very popular.
I attended the weigh in of the 1974 BassMasters Classic held on Percy Priest Lake near Nashville, TN. I was a sophmore at Vanderbilt that year. This may be the most ignored gambling law ever.