Sherman's "Toward a Skill Ratio" -- better if it got there

[creedofhubris]

I am disappointed with Ryne Sherman's piece. It spends much of its time with an introduction and a conclusion rather than on analysis, and it really seems like half an article rather than a full piece.

The intro begins with an analysis of a dictionary definition, which is a technique usually used to expand a piece that is too short.

The piece spends about half of its time getting to the formulas, and it tells us nothing we don't already know. Poker is a game of skill. Baseball is a game of skill. Throwing dice is not a game of skill (generally.) Neither is a lottery. Great.

When it finally gets to the formulas, it doesn't go through the formula and give us a sample calculation.

It includes a cop-out phrase,

"For those unfamiliar with the correlation, a simple web search will yield many results explaining its function."

which would be improved either with a link or an explanation; it should not be our job to track these things down, but rather the article writer's to define his terms.

Finally, it says that the real point of the article, the application of this formula to poker, will come next month.

This would've been a much better article if the meat of the argument, the application of this formula to poker, was included, instead of being separated out to create a second article. As it is, all the background info that's included is not particularly important, and it's expanded in unuseful ways.

Compare this to Tysen Streib's excellent, and much longer, article on continuation bets, which both lays out the background math and the actual results of his research, and which is a much stronger article as a result.