Prove Poker is a Skill Game?

[Sciolist]

I haven't read up on any of this, so stop me if it's been suggested before...

Look at every (say) PokerStars $215 tournament run. Only include players who have played ten times or more. If the game was random and you have a 15% chance at cashing, then we should know how many players will cash how many times, i.e, x% have cashed 10%, y% 20%, etc.

If poker is a skill game, then we should see that there's a higher percentage of people who cash more often than if it were random. Correspondingly, we should see a higher percentage of people who cash less frequently than if it were random.

Does this work? My knowledge of stats is not great. What sample size of players with > 10 tournaments entered do you need? Do you have to control for the size of the tournaments?

[75s]

Move to Probability forum. And yes, it's skill based on that reasoning.

[Sciolist]

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Move to Probability forum. And yes, it's skill based on that reasoning.

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I thought it was more of a poker theory question than a probability question, but either is fine with me obviously. Maybe I should do this kind of analysis then, and sell my results to Gutshot or whoever :]

[Phone Booth]

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Move to Probability forum. And yes, it's skill based on that reasoning.

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I thought it was more of a poker theory question than a probability question, but either is fine with me obviously. Maybe I should do this kind of analysis then, and sell my results to Gutshot or whoever :]

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I don't think there are very many people who doubt that poker is a skill game, just those who doubt that skill is the more dominant factor than chance.

[Sciolist]

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I don't think there are very many people who doubt that poker is a skill game, just those who doubt that skill is the more dominant factor than chance.

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Perhaps you could quantify it? An average player has a 15% chance to cash. If you give 25% of the field a 30% chance to cash and 50% of the field a 7.5% chance, you don't get the same results anymore. You could presumably fiddle with those numbers until you have a rough approximation of the skill involved.

[AaronBrown]

It is easy to show statistically that moderately skilled players are better than average players. What's harder to show is that there is much scope for skill beyond the moderately good point. In other words, there are clear consistent winners in low-stakes on-line poker, but the number of repeat winners at the World Series of Poker is only slightly more than would be expected if the game were completely random.

That doesn't mean there is no difference between a pretty good player and a world champion, only that it's hard to demonstrate convincingly from the available data. Most tournaments don't keep consistent records of all entrants, and cash games keep no records at all.

[UtzChips]

This is an argument that has been going on for as long as I've played poker, and I'm 53.

Some define a poker a game of chance (many lawmakers) because you can play your hand perfectly and still lose because of the luck of the draw.

Others say skill wins in the long run, as the "luck of the draw" evens out and the one who plays their cards better than their opponent wins over time.

The lawmakers agree, but state that is not how they define a game of chance. A game of chance is where the outcome cannot be controlled totally by the players actions.

It's become a pretty boring subject. I use to play a lot of chess and never met a serious student of the game of chess, who also a student of poker, that would even begin to consider poker a game of skill, despite the fact that the most skillful player wins in the long run.

When you match the two top Grandmasters of chess for the World Championship, they have to play 21 games to determine the winner. Each game lasts on avg about 3 hrs. That's 63 hrs.

A top poker player would laugh at the thought of playing 63 hrs against 9 other top rated players to determine who is the best in the world.

Lou Krieger says it takes 4000 hrs of live play before you can rightly say you're a winning player. A person who works 8 hrs a day, 5 days a week, 52 weeks a year, only works 2080 hours.

You can bet it's a game of chance, that is won in long run by those who minimize the luck and outplay their opponents.

[jogsxyz]

What difference does it make? Skill or chance? It's called gambling. The state should allow gambling and regulate it.

It's not possible to prove poker is skill to a legislator who doesn't understand math. And not necessary to one who does.

[UtzChips]

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What difference does it make? Skill or chance? It's called gambling. The state should allow gambling and regulate it.

It's not possible to prove poker is skill to a legislator who doesn't understand math. And not necessary to one who does.

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Agreed. Like I said....a burned out, boring subject

[Shandrax]

If Poker was a game of luck, you are supposed to break even in the 4k-8k Big Game. Good luck to you [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]