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Good Poker Players Aren't Lucky

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Re: Good Poker Players Aren't Lucky

#41

Post by jqm »

TylerE wrote: post #34
jqm wrote: post #30

Roulette is often held up as an example of "random chance" but this is not entirely true. There are on occasions patterns in Roulette, especially with certain dealers. In addition, there is a little trick casinos sometimes employ. They loosen the legs on the table to the point it wobbles slightly. The dealer will then lean against the table and watch as the ball is about to drop. They can then pop the ball out of an…

That's a load of rubbish submitted completely without any sort of proof. That might have gone on in a back-alley speakeasy in the Prohibition era, but in any sort of reputable casino - not a chance. The casino has no need to cheat at roulette. They have a built in edge.

It absolutely is not a load of rubbish. I have personally observed it many times. And I have spent a LOT of time observing. I don't claim to have "proof" however I know what I have seen. I also didn't say "reputable" (a strange word in this context). Also, every/most Casino does not engage in this but some do.

Your claim "they wouldn't do this because they already have an edge" is just silly. Why wouldn't they take a chance to make more money? Especially since, as you say, "proof" is a bit hard. An accidental bump. That's all. No intentional cheating here.

I would like to re-iterate my main point. This is something to watch for if you are a roulette player. If the table wobbles when you push against it... walk away.

Re: Good Poker Players Aren't Lucky

#42

Post by erikb »

Is the poker boom of ten years ago already forgotten? This fact shouldn't be surprising after tv, radio and internet telling everybody exactly this for years. What about the movie Rounders? Is it not watched in the US any more? I still got the DVD and watch it 4-5 times a year.

Re: Good Poker Players Aren't Lucky

#43

Post by mcphage »

snorkel wrote: post #31
prestonbriggs wrote: post #10

I wonder when they'll go after people for gambling in the the stock market? How would you defend them?

Good point. Instead of calling the game poker it should be dressed in Wall St jargon, and it'd be legitimate investing. The players can be called brokers, the cards are securities, a hand would be called a compound derivative, the ante is an investment, and the pot is just a leveraged mutual fund. The only problem is good poker players get a higher return than good brokers do.

Actually... building a stock market game around a poker re-theme sounds really freakin' cool.

Re: Good Poker Players Aren't Lucky

#44

Post by Sambdala »

ronaldx wrote: post #32

>His study of more than a billion hands of online Texas Hold’em found that 85.2 percent of the hands were decided without a show of cards. In other words, players’ betting decisions were of overwhelming importance in determining the outcome. It is worth noting that the other 14.8% of hands, where a showdown is reached, are typically the ones where (much) larger amounts of money are exchanged. So, betting decisions mi…

This is a very complicated question, and while I understand why they would use that percentage figure, I think it confuses the issue if you look into it more deeply for exactly the reason you stated.

It is true that most of the money changes in hands where you get farther in the hand because pots grow geometrically as you continue on in the hand.

However, the importance of decisions becomes more important as well, and most of the edge a skilled player will have over a weaker player comes about from those larger pots based on decisions made later in the hand.

Re: Good Poker Players Aren't Lucky

#45

Post by ssharp »

pitnips wrote: post #29
sharkweek wrote: post #11

This is a really interesting read - I played a lot in college, but never really got "good" per se. We had a group of about 20 or so of us who played semi-regularly. There were two players who were both far superior to everyone else, but they didn't always win. Just like everyone else, they naturally suffered the turmoil of a bad beat here and there. But aggregate their winnings over the course of the two years we all…

And those both seem awfully similar to the stock market. If you're good at poker over the long-term, then you may be better off "gambling" than "investing." And hey, at least when you lose at poker, you may have still enjoyed it -- no one enjoys a stock market crash. Oh, and don't get me started on naked futures/forward positions...

Poker's problems are entirely cosmetic. It uses the same chips and cards and is played in the same building as blackjack, so it's always going to be associated with other forms of house-edged gambling, even though it isn't.

There are other places, like you noted, where people can gather, put money into a zero-sum game, and it's completely legal.

There are also lots of nuances in many of these state laws, where poker actually is legal under the right circumstances (like no house rake). I guess the fees associated trading options aren't considered a rake, so that's cool with the government.

Re: Good Poker Players Aren't Lucky

#46

Post by stygiansonic »

throwaway283719 wrote: post #36
pitnips wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And those both seem awfully similar to the stock market. If you're good at poker over the long-term, then you may be better off "gambling" than "investing." And hey, at least when you lose at poker, you may have still enjoyed it -- no one enjoys a stock market crash. Oh, and don't get me started on naked futures/forward positions...

Okay, I'll bite. Why is having a naked futures contract in the S&P500 (which costs around $100,000 for the e-mini) any more risky than owning $100,000 of stocks? [0] http://www.cmegroup.com/trading/equity-index/us-index/e-mini...

I'm not an expert (this is not my industry, so please correct me if I'm wrong) but I imagine it has to do something with the initial cost of entering the position.

With a futures position you may end up losing more than you put in (your initial margin) but assuming you went long a stock without using margin, the most you could lose would be your initial investment.

But perhaps it's not a fair comparison. I would say that buying 100K of stocks on margin is similar in risk to having a futures contract with a similar value, all other things equal.

Also, with forwards (not exchange traded) there would be counterparty risk if no clearing house was involved.

Re: Good Poker Players Aren't Lucky

#47

Post by Sambdala »

sejje wrote: post #17
darasen wrote: post #4

There is a reason that the top players happen to very good at math.

This is not a rule. A lot of the players don't use much math--basic pot odds. They develop a feel for when they're making the right play, and openly admit to being "feel" players. I do believe they would be very good at doing on-the-spot calculations in their head, they're often just not very trained in math. Anyhow, surprisingly little in poker is math-dependent, particularly in normal ten-handed games. The cognitiv…

This isn't the case at the top end of the field.

There used to be prominent winning players who were unaware of the math behind the game, but the theory nowadays is they mostly just lucked into naturally playing in a style that happened to be better than the field during the period of time they played (i.e., years ago back when the game was less sophisticated).

Nowadays, those players are often the weak players who the players more skilled at theory can comfortably beat.

There's an eerie parallel to the early stock traders here.

Re: Good Poker Players Aren't Lucky

#48

Post by skizm »

I love poker. I'm not great at it but it is fun. Also it is a great metaphor for life. If you poke your head in on any given hand you might conclude that the game is all about luck. However if you play long enough good players emerge on top and bad players lose their money. Sometimes terrible players win big and sometimes good players lose everything.

Just like life: the harder you work, the luckier you get.

Re: Good Poker Players Aren't Lucky

#49

Post by chilldream »

candybar wrote: post #18

As a casual poker player, I find this line of reasoning specious. Sports betting, blackjack and even roulette with a biased wheel are all games of skill by this definition. Poker games are designed specifically to appeal to our gambling instinct so that better players can play the house while worse players gamble away their chips. It's true that from the perspective of the best players, it's not truly gambling, but t…

"Game of skill" vs. "game of luck" is not a binary distinction, but the law pretends it is. I think it's definitely closer to the "skill" end of the continuum than the "luck" end though.

Re: Good Poker Players Aren't Lucky

#50

Post by dnautics »

Sambdala wrote: post #39
candybar wrote: post #18

As a casual poker player, I find this line of reasoning specious. Sports betting, blackjack and even roulette with a biased wheel are all games of skill by this definition. Poker games are designed specifically to appeal to our gambling instinct so that better players can play the house while worse players gamble away their chips. It's true that from the perspective of the best players, it's not truly gambling, but t…

There's a pretty fundamental difference between house-banked games where no player has a long term positive expecation and peer to peer skill games where better players will be able to gain an advantage by outplaying their opponents. Roulette is a particularly bad example as there is no decision (well, there's one decision on American Roulette tables that is worse than every other) that changes your expectation on th…

That's exactly the top commenter's point. The law doesn't hinge on the distinction between a house-banked game (like blackjack) and a house-hosted, peer-to-peer game (like poker). The distinction between skill/no-skill is less meaningful than the fact that you point out.

Nontheless, the law (and thus the article) is about the former distinction.

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