Is Poker Playing a better test for would be presidents?

[David Sklansky]

Since no one else answered your question. I will.

Yes.

[pokervintage]

[ QUOTE ]
The last six WSOP main events were won by unknown amateurs.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well there in lies the problem. You consider tournaments, poker. The fact is that tournaments are more akin to craps than they are poker. Because they use a poker format to determine who is the luckiest man on that particular day does not mean they are playing poker. Professional poker players do not like to involuntarily gamble all of their chips away. Granted there are tournament skills that can be employed for a player to gain an advantage. But that said a tournament does not a poker game make.

pokervintage

[pokervintage]

[ QUOTE ]
Since no one else answered your question. I will.

Yes.

[/ QUOTE ]

You're only saying that to make me cry.

pokervintage.

[skates]

I'm with DS and pokervintage here, although I don't like removing tournaments from poker. The point I think that pokervintage was trying to bring up here is that poker is a game of incomplete information, where chess is a game of complete information. With this in mind, there are, hypothetically, equilibrium strategies for poker, and strategies that exploit those who are not following said strategies. MoP is a great book for understanding this idea, as it presents an actual *solution* (equilibrium) to high-blind heads up play with explanations on how to exploit a player who calls too tight or raises too loose.

The point is, we use Bayesian inference to take known information and extrapolate probable playing styles, ranges, etc. within a probabilistic distribution. It is that aspect that humans have not been able to solidify well into a program (though the UofA HU Limit bot did incorporate learning technology), and even if we could solidify it into a program, we would have major computabiliity problems just as chess does.

Greater point: Chess may not be solved yet, but from a philosophical stance, there is always always always a correct play. In poker, if we had exact information of everyone's ranges and playing styles, there would also be a correct play, but we are unable to know precisely what those ranges are at any given time for a variety of reasons. As such, we make our best guesses.

A president needs to be able to work with incomplete information and come up with political solutions based on perceived "ranges" and "styles of play" of those involved. Poker is a better test.

Sidenotes: I do not believe that the skillset used for poker is different from the skillset used for chess. I believe that both can be perfectly rationalized and treated mathematically. That said, it's a big jump for someone to think about a pro-gambler as a successful mathematician, so I won't try to make that argument. Also, for the sake of answering hitch1978's question about feasibility... 30k hand duplicate matches ftw, playing both sides by randomizing the order each time (go ahead, tell me that you'll know which A79r board you're looking at after 30k hands when you have the "unknown" cards). There are, of course, still problems with this, and you'd have to get some intense statisticians to come up with the actual sample size necessary to produce significant results.

For anyone in the tl;dr crowd:
Poker is a better test, much more relevant application of logic than chess.

[Sephus]

pokervintage, you are bad at thinking.

pokervintage.

[tame_deuces]

Both poker and chess are bad as analogies for real life, and I think having skill in either have little connection with aptitude at leadership. Maybe poker is a bit better since it shows you that you can often do the right thing and still have a bad outcome more so than chess will do, and to some degree shows the value of statistics based decision making - though people tend to overdo that when they learn it.

But really I'd just prefer if the president was a good manager, leader, politician and diplomat.

[pokervintage]

[ QUOTE ]
pokervintage, you are bad at thinking.


[/ QUOTE ]

Well that might be true. But since you posted this under my poker tournament comments I can only assume that you know nothing about poker. or as you might state it "Sephus you are bad at thinking about poker".

pokervintage

[nightwood]

A question for the poker-is-a-better-test crowd:

DS wanted wannabe presidents to solve check mate in 3 problems. Now, these sort of problems are as elementary to an aspiring chess-player as is having a good grip on your PF-chart for the rising poker star. Now, no one would say memorizing hand charts could be a good criteria for presidents.

So .. what sort of understanding of poker would you demand from the presidents to become ?

[hitch1978]

[ QUOTE ]
A question for the poker-is-a-better-test crowd:

DS wanted wannabe presidents to solve check mate in 3 problems. Now, these sort of problems are as elementary to an aspiring chess-player as is having a good grip on your PF-chart for the rising poker star. Now, no one would say memorizing hand charts could be a good criteria for presidents.

So .. what sort of understanding of poker would you demand from the presidents to become ?

[/ QUOTE ]

This is precisely my point. Who Judges? What are you asking them to judge EXACTLY? What about when the judges disagree about the best play, or wether the play chosen was good or bad?

[pokervintage]

[ QUOTE ]
So .. what sort of understanding of poker would you demand from the presidents to become ?

[/ QUOTE ]

First, we are assuming that the candidates have done some studying and played some poker. At least to the same level as they would have to attempt 3 move endings in chess. Given this, we assume that they understand that poker is a game of skill and that employment of strategy and tactics is better than no strategy.

Jim Brier, in his mid limit Holdem book, disccusses numerous limit Holdem situations. Situations of this type could be used to test a candidates understanding of poker. I'm sure David and Tom Wiedman, Fossilman and a lot of other 2 + 2 contributors could come up with various situations that would tst one's understanding. I choose limit poker as the test bed. In limit there are more things to consider than no limit. Pot limit might be best though but I leave that to the experts.

I will tell you this for sure. Poker (hand) discussions will yield much more discussion and require much greater thought and understanding than solvable 3 move chess endings.

pokervintage