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Poker............Luck VS Skill?

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Wolverine42

04-01-2005, 07:19 PM Post subject: Poker............Luck VS Skill?

#1 (permalink)

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Now if I read more maybe my oppinion would sway a little.

I've heard idiots who say Poker is all luck and I totally disagree. I've also had people tell me that Poker is all skill and I disagree.

Now I think we can all agree that someone with no skill or knowledge of the game could never really win at poker, but the question I pose to you all is what percentage of the game do you think is skill and what percentage do you feel is luck of the draw?

maybe its a dumb question coming from a newbie to this board and may have even been done before but I am posting to get some feedback and help settle an arguement.....LOL

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Spook

04-01-2005, 07:23 PM

#2 (permalink)

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Taking the big picture of poker as a whole (not just any paticular night of play) I would say it is 70-30 favoring skill.

I built my own poker table... Check It Out

Grand_MasterB

04-01-2005, 07:43 PM

#3 (permalink)

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Since last year 75% of my sessions were winning ones i say its about 75% - 25% favoring luck... How else do you explain my losing sessions? haha

a500lbgorilla

04-01-2005, 09:05 PM

#4 (permalink)

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{Moved from the community}

I recall an article linked somewhere where a simulation was run at 100/200 limit between 10 people of equal skill.

At the end of 1 year, one guy was up like .6BB/100 and one guy was down an equivalent amount with everyone else falling near break even.

It was even smaller after 10 years.

I'll look for the thing since I know my numbers must be off...

-'rilla

Smithers, use the amnesia ray.
You mean the revolver, sir?
Precisely.

Cocco_Bill

04-01-2005, 09:43 PM

#5 (permalink)

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Quote:

Originally Posted by a500lbgorilla

{Moved from the community}

I recall an article linked somewhere where a simulation was run at 100/200 limit between 10 people of equal skill.

At the end of 1 year, one guy was up like .6BB and one guy was down an equivalent amount with everyone else falling near break even.

It was even smaller after 10 years.

I'll look for the thing since I know my numbers must be off...

-'rilla

Sorry Rilla, the probability for the above to be true is approximately zero

If you flip a coin 1 trillion times then the statistical distribution will have a very narrow standard deviation around 50%, however 1 SD could still be hundreds of thousands if not millions of units. That means there will be a 33% or more chance that heads or tails will have come up 1 or more SD away from 50% which should be in the millions or equivalent of perhaps 50% +-0.000001%. Same would be true for equally skilled poker players facing eachother, one would be very likely ahead by millions of BB's after trillions of hands played.

a500lbgorilla

04-01-2005, 11:03 PM

#6 (permalink)

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.6BB/100 I meant to say.

-'rilla

Smithers, use the amnesia ray.
You mean the revolver, sir?
Precisely.

lonnie

04-02-2005, 02:10 AM

#7 (permalink)

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Did this simulation take the rake into account? I'm guessing it didn't. All players being of equal skill, the only winner is the rake.

a500lbgorilla

04-02-2005, 02:24 AM

#8 (permalink)

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Quote:

Originally Posted by lonnie

Did this simulation take the rake into account? I'm guessing it didn't. All players being of equal skill, the only winner is the rake.

And it would be a big winner.

-'rilla

Smithers, use the amnesia ray.
You mean the revolver, sir?
Precisely.

SteveO

04-02-2005, 05:32 PM

#9 (permalink)

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Skill is important to the extent you put yourself in games that are favorable to you ie. playing a majority of worse players; can you manage your bankroll and play within your reasonable limits and know when to walk away when you are ahead, and most importantly the skill to get your money in with the best of it.

Luck is also huge in poker and don't let anyone ever tell you different. Over the short term luck can CRUSH you. That's when skill needs to take over to let you cool off and walk away to avoid tilt.

I would say the skill:luck ratio is more like 60:40 or 55:45.

Just look at the factor luck is in winning big pots. You can flop str8's and trips all day, but assuming that you are playing against solid players, you'll never hit a big payday or hand unless they get a powerful second best hand. That's just luck.

Send lawyers, guns and money - the sh*t has hit the fan!

Fnord

04-02-2005, 05:34 PM

#10 (permalink)

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Fnord is an unknown quantity at this point

Non-poker players tend to under-estimate the amount of skill involved.
Poker players tend to under-estimate the amount of luck involved and the importance of game selection.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBvge-c2_Xg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-Xz8aLuD7Y

Izenra

04-02-2005, 06:28 PM

#11 (permalink)

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About rilla post :

40 Hand/hour X (24X365 Hour) = 350400 Hand

.6 X 200 = 120$/100 hand

350400 hand X 120$/100hand = 420480 $//year.

Let's say they played 8 hour a day : 420480/3 = 140160 $, --> 700 BB

Luck does have a big impact? Comments? Correct me if I am wrong.

a500lbgorilla

04-02-2005, 08:18 PM

#12 (permalink)

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Yah, so if your established winrate is 2BB and you ran 2.6 for a year, you'd be 700 BB richer than you "should" be OR if you ran 1.4 you'd be 700 poorer.

But thats 700 BB compared to the 233600 BB you expect to make that year.

The luck would represent .3% of your total winnings.

350400 hands.

2 x 200 = 400 per 100

350400 x 400 = 14160000

14160000 / 3 = 46,720,000 ---> 233600 BB

Check mah maths!

-'rilla

Smithers, use the amnesia ray.
You mean the revolver, sir?
Precisely.

Laeelin

04-02-2005, 08:42 PM

#13 (permalink)

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After infinite games, luck would have "0" affect.

After 1 game, skill will have nearly "0" affect.

So the answer is, the longer you play, the less luck has to do with your bankroll. (Though it still has a large affect on each game)

not that i'm the expert here =)

Q. Is poker Gambling?
A. Do you use correct bankroll management?

Cocco_Bill

04-02-2005, 08:42 PM

#14 (permalink)

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You got it wrong rilla. Its actually this simple.

(2,6BB/100)/(1,4BB/100) = 1.857

Simply put you would be making 1.857 times more running lucky that year compared to running unlucky. Thats a lot...

a500lbgorilla

04-02-2005, 09:03 PM

#15 (permalink)

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Cocco_Bill

You got it wrong rilla. Its actually this simple.

(2,6BB/100)/(1,4BB/100) = 1.857

Simply put you would be making 1.857 times more running lucky that year compared to running unlucky. Thats a lot...

How is that true if the unlucky guy is winning 1400 BB fewer than the lucky guy?

And the average man stands to make 233600 BB in that year?

-'rilla

Smithers, use the amnesia ray.
You mean the revolver, sir?
Precisely.

Cocco_Bill

04-02-2005, 09:13 PM

#16 (permalink)

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Quote:

Originally Posted by a500lbgorilla

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cocco_Bill

You got it wrong rilla. Its actually this simple.

(2,6BB/100)/(1,4BB/100) = 1.857

Simply put you would be making 1.857 times more running lucky that year compared to running unlucky. Thats a lot...

How is that true if the unlucky guy is winning 1400 BB fewer than the lucky guy?

And the average man stands to make 233600 BB in that year?

-'rilla

I havent bothere to examine how the 1400 and 233600BB numbers were derived, because I don't need to..

if you earn 0 BB/100 you are making zero profits over the whole year, right?

logically a 1BB/100 would be making half of what a 2BB/100 guy would be, right? Thats all the numbers I need, just count the ratio.

Izenra

04-02-2005, 11:24 PM

#17 (permalink)

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Rilla you are wrong in your calculation :

With skill( 2BB/100)
400 $/100 hand X 350400 = 1 401 600, divided by 3= 467 200 $

No skill(.6BB/100)
120 $/100 hand X 350400 /3 = 140 160 $

140 160/467 200 X 100 % = 30 %

(|140 160-467 200|)/467 200 X100% = 70 %

So, luck = 30 %, skill = 70 %

luck is a constant factor? Or in this situation, the guy who won .6BB was extremely lucky? ( he is the only one out of 10 guy who is possitive). Maybe 30 % is the maximum help luck can give to someone in the long run? Well, after 100 K and. Probably decrease after more time.

Example : x=luck

Limit = 0 %, 100 % skill
x-> infinity

wobbler

04-03-2005, 10:28 AM

#18 (permalink)

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creating a linup exclusively of Ace Maverick, the best simulated player in Turbo Texas Holdem, and then doing a high speed simulation over 250,000 hands I get the following results:

(blinds are $1-$2 and bets are $2/$4, rake=5% up to $3)

The difference between the luckiest(#10) and unluckiest(#2) player is about $8000 (= 2000 BB) which corresponds to a win rate (due to chance) of 0.8 BB/100 hands

to beat the rake you need a win rate of about 2.5 BB/100

nick87

04-03-2005, 04:22 PM

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i wish I new how to learn all of this math you guys are doing.

(in case you don't catch it, I'm hoping for somebody to give some tip on learning this stuff....a book, a website,....whatever)

Laeelin

04-03-2005, 05:02 PM

#20 (permalink)

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Quote:

Originally Posted by nick87

i wish I new how to learn all of this math you guys are doing.

(in case you don't catch it, I'm hoping for somebody to give some tip on learning this stuff....a book, a website,....whatever)

http://www.ufl.edu/

.
.
.
.
.

(/snicker, sorry couldnt resist

)

A lot of hte math is over my head as well, but you dont need the math, just get an odds chart and use it to see if you can call/raise that bet or need to fold.

Q. Is poker Gambling?
A. Do you use correct bankroll management?

Izenra

04-03-2005, 07:35 PM

#21 (permalink)

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hum these math are pretty basic. I don't know what is your problem( what you does not understand), but I will explain one of the math I did ( maybe it will help you)

Your expected value is 2 BB/100 --> 2BigbLind per 100 hands. 1 BB = 200 $ so 2 = 400 $

So, you make 400 $ per 100 hand, 400 $/100 hand

you expect to play 40 hand per hours, 40/h

you will play 8 hour a day, for 365 day

40 hand/hour MULTIPLIEd by (8X365) hour. Since you began with hand divided by hour and you multiplied by hour, you end up with hand.

40 X 8X365 = 116 800 HANDS

now, you just multiplied HANDs with $/HAND, which will result in $

116 800 HAND X 400 $/100HAND = 467 200 $

This is the money you expect to win at a 2BB/100 hand ratio, after 116 800 hand.

NOw, If everyone is equal skills, everyone has a expected value of 0 BB since they are all equal, but, luck give one of them .6 BB/hour.

.6 BB divided by 2BB = 30 %. So, luck represent 30 % of what a player win in this situation.

I think it is better to take the 2.5 BB to beat the rake, as woobler says, so

.6/2.5 = 24 % . SO, after 100 K hand, luck represent 24 % of a player winrate.

BUT, luck will reduce in the long term. it follow the form of this kind of equation :
(luck )= 1/x , x reprenting the number of hand.

the biggest the number of hand, the smaller luck will be :
example, 2 hand = 50 % luck ( 1/2=.5)
10 hand= 10 % luck (1/10=.1)

In the example i use, the formula would be :

y=24 000/X

(luck)= 24 000 divided by the number of hand

24 000 /100 000 hand = .24, 24 %.

On a chart, well ? cartesian plan? ( sorry I'm french speaker), it would be someting like that, approching the zero slowly.

|
|
\
\
\
- - - - - - - --------------_______________

let's say oyu play 100 billion hand, luck is :

24 000 / 100 000 000 000 = 0.0000000024, tending to the zero.

Izenra

04-03-2005, 07:38 PM

#22 (permalink)

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But these calculation are somehow not entirely true in the reality, because it's like saying that skill has no effect on one hand ( 0 ), thus 0 after X number of hand, because 0 multiplied by X = 0, so no skill ever involved, but it's is not like this,

a500lbgorilla

04-03-2005, 08:11 PM

#23 (permalink)

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Skill has little effect on hand zero.

You get dealt a full house and win.

You get dealt a pocket pair, miss your set and fold.

-'rilla

Smithers, use the amnesia ray.
You mean the revolver, sir?
Precisely.

Wolverine42

04-04-2005, 02:01 PM

#24 (permalink)

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I think the great thing about Poker is everybody has a style that is all there own. So saying one player is more skilled than another is pretty hard to do. Now all of the pro's can calculate odd's from hand to hand but they don't truly know what there opponent is holding. Maybe I am wrong but to me the only true skill is being able to calculate odds and just getting a feel for what your opponent is trying to do. Even then those are just odds and there is still that chance/luck that you'll get the cards you need to win. I'll come out and say I don't think I am that skilled because I cannot calculate odds yet but I've done ok for myself since starting to play and I have learned quite a bit. I think Steve-o and Fnord are actually the closest to hitting it spot on, and Fnord I think said it better than anyone.

Izenra

04-04-2005, 04:56 PM

#25 (permalink)

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Well If you conbine getting the feel( no-limit must)+ math mind(limit must), maybe you get a good answer? $ $
O

Laeelin

04-04-2005, 05:03 PM

#26 (permalink)

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Izenra

Well If you conbine getting the feel( no-limit must)+ math mind(limit must), maybe you get a good answer? $ $

There is a ton of math in no limit, and a ton of feel in limit. =)

Q. Is poker Gambling?
A. Do you use correct bankroll management?

Wolverine42

04-04-2005, 06:37 PM

#27 (permalink)

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This is true "feel" does have a lot to do with a game. I just think that there is no way to rank someone as far as there feel for the game. I might have a feeling that my flush is the nuts by the way my opponent is playing but he might be trapping me with a full house.

So to sum this up, A person who understands the game will win more than someone who doesn't but not without a little luck. If anything this post has swayed me back into the direction that Poker is 50% luck and 50% skill. Either way I don't think theres one person who can tell me they don't need a little of both to be good in the long run.

Laeelin

04-04-2005, 07:51 PM

#28 (permalink)

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Quote:

Either way I don't think theres one person who can tell me they don't need a little of both to be good in the long run.

in the long run, luck will always average out.

*IN THE LONG RUN*

it's not 50/50

it's not 90/10

it's 100/0

the key words are "in the long run"

even several years are not even close to enough to average out luck, but they are a good start.

Q. Is poker Gambling?
A. Do you use correct bankroll management?

Brodie

04-05-2005, 05:10 AM

#29 (permalink)

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This is a good point, but I think the long run might be even longer. I could be wrong about this, but given the uncertainty of the length of the trial (i.e., your life, as morbid as that sounds), it stands to reason that there is a significant chance that you may never play enough hands to have luck cancel itself out. I agree that it will in theory, I just wonder how often it's true in practice for a given individual.

It might be more interesting to think about how much luck influences a tiny subset of data, like a given night playing poker. And the answer there has got to be that it has a huge impact on any given set of a few hundred hands. Uncomfortably huge is my guess. I would guess how much, but I have nothing to back it up.

Pretty depressing to think your whole life could be -EV, huh?

Brodie

"The present success is the hundred failures of the past."

Laeelin

04-05-2005, 01:18 PM

#30 (permalink)

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Quote:

Pretty depressing to think your whole life could be -EV, huh?

I do think that a lifetime is enough to mostly remove luck, (might be wishful thinking) but I think your right.

heh, now I wish I had never read this topic.

Q. Is poker Gambling?
A. Do you use correct bankroll management?

Wolverine42

04-05-2005, 03:35 PM

#31 (permalink)

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OK I retract previous statement and I will say this......

On any given night you need a lot of luck/chance to win/make money.

However in the long run if you are a skilled poker player your chances increase of making money/winning poker tournaments.

Does anyone notice the bold word in that last sentence. I agree that a skilled poker player will beat a novice poker player 9 times out of 10. However in a game of how the cards are dealt you can never truly take out the chance/luck factor.

a500lbgorilla

04-05-2005, 04:33 PM

#32 (permalink)

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Wolverine42

Assuming no one is luckier than anyone else, the random deal should even out over time. Everyone will get the same number of OESFDs and pocket kings...

-'rilla

Smithers, use the amnesia ray.
You mean the revolver, sir?
Precisely.

Molinero

04-05-2005, 04:56 PM

#33 (permalink)

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Luck is two things:

-- the random application of probability over an infinite amount of time/chances/hands/etc.

-- a pain in the arse.

But let's face it: there's no more luck in the draw in poker than there is in spades, hearts, bridge, or cribbage. The only difference is that money is involved.

When was the last time you heard people moaning about how unlucky they are in spades?

"We thought you was a toad!"
-- O Brother Where Art Thou?

hagakure

04-05-2005, 05:22 PM

#34 (permalink)

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Molinero

Not spades, but spider solitare hits me pretty hard sometimes.

Wolverine42

04-05-2005, 07:09 PM

#35 (permalink)

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Quote:

Thats a great point by the way. Just so you don't think I was complaining about luck the reason I started this post to possibly help settle a disagreement between and it only helped provide info for both sides and were still at a stale mate..............LOL

RiverMonkey

04-05-2005, 07:35 PM

#36 (permalink)

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There's theory, and then there's reality.

I think we can all agree that the simulation that assumed 10 players of equal skill is really far from reality. We all know that we make $$ in poker from other people's 'mistakes'. Even those mistakes come in so many different flavours. A better, more realistic simuation would have to make some assumptions about each individual player's skills or skill profile, and even that is still insufficient. One's "skills" could vary day to day and even hand to hand, depending on so many factors. It would be very interesting to be able to list of the dimensions of 'poker skill' and then be able to use that to come up with a model to quantify skill in a way similar to, but certainly far more complex than, the way they define handicapping in golf.

Luck will even out in the long run, no question about that. And, I would say that one's "skills" should theoretically increase (probably to some actual maximum, bounded by some theoretical maximum) with time.

Some natural, very interesting questions are:

o How to you measure/quantify one's poker 'skills'? That is, by no means, a trivial question! There are many dimensions to poker skill! Getting your money in when you have "the best of it" is not a good description of poker 'skill'. Being able to determine WHEN you have the best of it is a better, albeit still limited, one. Let's not forget that you can still take down pots when you have the worst of it too!

o What are the skills unique to each 'game', table, etc? For example, you'd have to come up with separate models for limit, no-limit, tourny play etc. Each of these 'games' require a different set of skills, and you would therefore have to come up with a different model for how one would go about measuring and quantifying 'skill' for each.

o What's "the long run"? Interestingly, with the advent of online poker and multi-tabling etc., the answer to that question is very different than it was 10 years ago. I don't even know what the answer would have been 10 years ago, let alone today.

o Can someone be sufficiently unlucky in poker over the course of their entire life (assuming a minimum number of hands per week say) to have their above average skill wiped out by bad luck. My educated guess is no fargin' way!

o Even Sklansky admits that the Fundamental Theorem of Poker does not always apply (in a straight forward way) in multi-way pots. So, how do you even define other players 'mistakes' in the most general sense?

o I could go on and on with more thought provoking questions (at least they are to me), but I don't want to be accused of just trying to increase my WPP.

There must be some recognized poker literature out there that lays out proper models (defining all assumptions and their associated 'reasonableness') and uses solid statistical analysis to given useful proper insights into this skill versus luck thang!

I'd venture to say that it is far too simplistic to state that poker is x% skill and y% luck. And, even if you were going to state it that simplistically, there's NO WAY that it's 50-50.

Laeelin

04-06-2005, 12:07 AM

#37 (permalink)

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Quote:

When was the last time you heard people moaning about how unlucky they are in spades?

GREAT GREAT GREAT point!!!

Quote:

How to you measure/quantify one's poker 'skills'? That is, by no means, a trivial question! There are many dimensions to poker skill! Getting your money in when you have "the best of it" is not a good description of poker 'skill'. Being able to determine WHEN you have the best of it is a better, albeit still limited, one. Let's not forget that you can still take down pots when you have the worst of it too!

There is only one good way to tell how good you are at poker....

$$$$

If Fnord and I were both given a new account on UB with $100 in it...

and after one month I come here to complain about Fnord getting "lucky", and say that’s why he has $1000 more than me in his account ... why do I have the feeling that I would be laughed off the site???

We all know that as much as people will say it's 50-50, 40-60, 30-70 .... We all know better.

==

something else I’d like to point out is that while luck will play a part in every hand, luck becomes more important the closer the players are in skill.

Two players with nearly equal skill would need years of playing to know who the best is for sure.

Two players with very different skill levels would only need a few hours or even less to know who the best was.

Q. Is poker Gambling?
A. Do you use correct bankroll management?

jmontis

04-06-2005, 01:57 AM

#38 (permalink)

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I think it boils down to, do you play cards, or are you a card player.

The fact that poker is poker, puts it between the realm of pure science, and pure gambling.

hagakure

04-06-2005, 01:09 PM

#39 (permalink)

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It isn't pure gambling unless you either have no idea which cards make up which hands, or you don't even bother looking at your cards and just bet or check randomly based on no specific influence of any kind. Slot machines are pure gambling because there is zero skill involved. Unless you can reduce poker to the point where the player literally has zero skill, not just a horrible player, but absoutely no knowledge of the game, it will never be pure gambling.

lonnie

04-06-2005, 01:16 PM

#40 (permalink)

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Quote:

Unless you can reduce poker to the point where the player literally has zero skill, not just a horrible player, but absoutely no knowledge of the game, it will never be pure gambling.

One way you could do this is to have all of the players at the table be of equal skill.

Bucko

04-06-2005, 03:18 PM

#41 (permalink)

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There is a way to take most of the luck out of the equation for a tournament. I've never seen it done with poker, but in bridge this is done occasionally. My wife is the competitive bridge player in the family. I've also heard of a variation being done in a backgammon tourney once.

A number of tables with equal number of players are set up. The cards for 1 table are shuffled and the cards for all other tables are arranged to be exactly like the shuffled deck. Then the hand is played.

The players at the tables are reassigned after every couple of hands.

What's interesting about this is you're not really playing against the players at your table. Luck will have a role in that hand. You are really playing against the players in the same position on the other tables, since that player will be seeing the same cards and the same obstacles that you are. The playing is scored vs all the players in his position for the day and the scoring tallied.

It's an interesting fomat, but can only be done easily by computer. I don't know of any poker software that could allow this to be done at this time.

RiverMonkey

04-06-2005, 06:37 PM

#42 (permalink)

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Laeelin

Quote:

When was the last time you heard people moaning about how unlucky they are in spades?

GREAT GREAT GREAT point!!!

Quote:

There is only one good way to tell how good you are at poker....

$$$$

I don't think anyone is suggesting that $$$ is not how we measure results in poker. And yes, over a long enough period ("the long run"), theoretically & practically, $$-results would have to be a measure of how good you are too (i.e. long-term $$-results are a measure of the cumulative application of your poker skills). However, the original point in this post was that in reality, $$ flows to and away from players as a result of both skill and luck.

I have to somwhat disagree though when you say "There is only one way to tell how good you are at poker" .. $$$. Clearly, there's truth to that statement when you are looking at the "long run". BUT I could sit and watch a B&M game of poker for as little as one hour and quite easily tell you which players are 'good' and which ones are 'bad'. But that wouldn't be by watching their stacks shrink and/or grow. I'd be looking at how the players seem to display "skill & understanding of the game" such as: starting hand selection based on position & action etc, hand & board reading capabilities, player reading, seeing if they know when to bail in small pots, when to protect their hands in large pots, their propensity to call when they clearly have a raise or fold situation, tendency to cold-call, use of positional advantage, knowing when to go for over-calls, when to CR, knowing when and how to pump a pot because they have a large pot equity edge, etc, etc, etc.

We've been trying to discuss how one would go about independently measuring skill versus luck. In other words, is there a way to decouple these factors some how so that you can say poker is this much skill and this much luck? To me, this is completely an academic question (with a likely answer of 'no you can't decouple them, don't even try you stupid monkey'), but still interesting to think about. In order to even begin to accomplish this, you'd have to have some other means to measure skill in dimensions that are completely independent of the luck factors, and using $$-results doesn't accomplish that. However, looking at a player's understanding and mastery (or lack thereof) of some of the tactics and skills I listed above, does; at least to some extent.

Laeelin

04-06-2005, 10:06 PM

#43 (permalink)

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Join Date: Jan 2005

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Quote:

Clearly, there's truth to that statement when you are looking at the "long run". BUT I could sit and watch a B&M game of poker for as little as one hour and quite easily tell you which players are 'good' and which ones are 'bad'. But that wouldn't be by watching their stacks shrink and/or grow.

Very true, I was thinking of players with nearly equal skill, but your right.

Quote:

However, looking at a player's understanding and mastery (or lack thereof) of some of the tactics and skills I listed above, does; at least to some extent.

I see.

But even if we figured out a way to compair someones play to a "perfect" player, I dont think we could even agree on what a perfect player is.

Hmm, Very good food for thought.

Along the same lines, I wonder how much of the diffrence between a good player and a great player is just the ability to play grear poker 99.9% of the time instead of 80% of the time.

Q. Is poker Gambling?
A. Do you use correct bankroll management?

RiverMonkey

04-06-2005, 11:36 PM

#44 (permalink)

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Join Date: Nov 2004

Posts: 446

Quote:

Originally Posted by Laeelin

Hmm, Very good food for thought.

Along the same lines, I wonder how much of the diffrence between a good player and a great player is just the ability to play grear poker 99.9% of the time instead of 80% of the time.

Excellent point ..... Having the discipline and patience to play correctly when bored, or annoyed at the piss-poor lucky players taking down pot after pot etc. are definitely under-rated poker "skills".

I also agree with your comment about it being problematic to define the prototypical "perfect" player. Even the AI guys focusing on poker as their problem domain say that they are a long way off from being able to write something that could compete with, let alone, beat the best players in the world.

There are so many factors, variables, considerations in poker; that is why we always tend to settle on the answer "it depends" to so many poker questions.

Fleitenmaus

05-25-2005, 11:36 PM

#45 (permalink)

Join Date: May 2005

Location: Alberta - Canada

Posts: 1

Well... for what my 2 cents are worth... I don't believe in luck. IMHO "luck" is what some people call it when a statistical improbability occurs. If the event is beneficial to that person, they refer to it as "good luck". If it isn't beneficial it is referred to as "bad luck". I simply cannot buy that there's some benevolent/malevolent force out there that gives a crap what cards I get dealt.

biondino

05-26-2005, 02:01 PM

#46 (permalink)

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Location: Putney, UK; Full Tilt,Mansion; $50 NL and PL; $13 and $16 SNGs at Stars

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"Two players with nearly equal skill would need years of playing to know who the best is for sure. "

Not sure I agree with this.

It's like roulette - the house odds may only be 5% but they're 5 % every single spin of the wheel. Your 95% return per spin means you actually win 0.95 to the power x, where x is the number of spins you play for. After 20 spins, you're down to 35% of your original stack.

I am suggesting that you can take the same conecpt to poker (though *measuring* the difference in skill will only be possible after the fact, and because human error is involved in a way the roulette wheel will never suffer from, getting workable empirical data might be near impossible). Even a tiny recognised advantage one player has in skill will end up snowballing in the same way. Luck will play a huge part in terms of variance; but in a relatively short time, the better player will end up considerably up over the worse player.

Thoughts?

Laeelin

05-26-2005, 03:31 PM

#47 (permalink)

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Join Date: Jan 2005

Posts: 1,137

Quote:

It's like roulette - the house odds may only be 5% but they're 5 % every single spin of the wheel. Your 95% return per spin means you actually win 0.95 to the power x, where x is the number of spins you play for. After 20 spins, you're down to 35% of your original stack.

or you could be up 1000% because you got lucky after betting it all a couple times.

that 5% doesnt mean that you are down to 35% after 20 rolls, it means that over hundreds of thousands of hands, you will be down an average of 5% a hand.

Q. Is poker Gambling?
A. Do you use correct bankroll management?

koolmoe

05-26-2005, 04:56 PM

#48 (permalink)

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Join Date: Jun 2004

Location: Drowning in prosperity

Posts: 1,279

If you look at poker as a situation of luck versus skill, you are looking at it all wrong.

Poker is a game of decision-making in the face of incomplete information and uncertainty about the future.

The skills in poker are:

- deduction based on betting actions, the physical demeanor of your opponents (in a live game), and past tendencies of your opponent
- calculation of probabilities based on the cards currently revealed and those yet to come
- deception (i.e., hiding information from your opponent by varying behavior, betting patterns, etc. Bluffing, slow playing, etc. all fall into this category)

I'm sure I missed something, but those are the essential skills on a hand-to-hand basis, IMO. There are other factors, such as never risking so much on a single outcome that you are unable to ride out poor results, but those are outside the scope of the current discussion.

There is no skill in having your draw come in or dodging the draws of your opponents. That is purely luck (or chance, if you prefer), and it is there on every hand that is dealt. In that sense, poker is 100% luck.

There is no luck in deciding to bet, raise, or fold based on the information currently available to you. Those decisions must be made on every street of every hand. In that sense, poker is 100% skill.

When you can focus on the part you can control and stop focusing on the chance fluctuations that define the results on each individual hand, then you will have arrived as poker player.

Poker is freedom

TylerK

05-26-2005, 05:54 PM

#49 (permalink)

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Join Date: Oct 2004

Location: PEANUT BUTTER JELLY TIME

Posts: 1,791

Quote:

Originally Posted by koolmoe

If you look at poker as a situation of luck versus skill, you are looking at it all wrong.

TylerK: its just gambling if i want to worry about money i'll go to work lol

LeFou

11-30-2005, 05:10 PM

#50 (permalink)

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Join Date: Jul 2004

Location: Dallas, TX

Posts: 2,361

Quote:

Originally Posted by Molinero

there's no more luck in the draw in poker than there is in spades, hearts, bridge, or cribbage. The only difference is that money is involved.

You obviously haven't play cribbage w/me and Ryan and Lonnie et. al...

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