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Good Poker Players Aren't Lucky

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Re: Good Poker Players Aren't Lucky

#91

Post by jqm »

TylerE wrote: post #81
dred_blue wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you like the actual log or the script that makes the log? See the point? "Anyone claiming to be a winner at roulette in the long term is either lying or delusional." Possibly but you don't know this. Besides he doesn't claim "over the long term" and states WHY he quit playing. "The house edge in roulette is huge." Yes. IF the game is random. Read the post above.

It would still be more substantial than anything he has offered so far. To make an assertion that a game of roulette in a licensed casino is not random is in the realm of moon landing conspiracy. PS: I also think it's rather sad and transparent that you created a new shill account to reply to me.

Look, as I stated twice before, I don't claim to prove anything. If you chose to believe I am misrepresenting my experiences (motive?) that's fine. I understand. I'm just relating the results of a lot... and I do mean a lot (as in hundreds if not thousands of hours) of observation in hope it saves someone some money from the table bumping scam. I have seen drunks cleaned out with it more than a few times. But you can be "right" if it makes you feel good.

You simply don't have my experience. Sorry.

Re: Good Poker Players Aren't Lucky

#92

Post by 727374 »

panorama wrote: post #82
727374 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are working on it (of course, since it could be extremely lucrative). However, the problem is 'hard' because No Limit Hold 'Em is really a game of bluffing and not math. The best human players alive have mastered the skill of determining the cards their opponents hold based on their moves in the current hand, the current game, and previous games. Online poker lacks the physical 'tells' that occur in a live gam…

This is largely incorrect. NLHE can be more about "bluffing" because there's greater variability between ones chance of winning a hand and the potential bet size. But it still comes down to a mathematical decision, just that it's more difficult to accurately calculate the best play given the wide range of variables: your opponent's likely holdings, the bet size, the pot size, your hand. In Fixed Limit, the bet size a…

Sorry, but you can't just casually mention 'your opponents likely holdings' like it's trivial to determine. Putting an opponent on a hand is The Skill that top pros have mastered and if anything probably comes from great pattern matching and a strong memory, . But I don't know nor do you because nobody has built a computer that can do it well.

Re: Good Poker Players Aren't Lucky

#93

Post by programminggeek »

There is one reason to consider making poker illegal - it is addictive and has destroyed the lives and financial situations of many people who play it.

I've seen friends and family throw away thousands of dollars because of their addiction to poker. I'm not sure that poker is a net gain for society or not, but to say that poker is simply a game of skill that is no more harmful or beneficial than basketball or bowling or fishing or chess is disingenuous.

I admit that poker and other forms of gambling are not equally addictive or destructive to all people, just like WoW isn't equally addictive/destructive to all people who play. However, there are far more cases of gambling, specifically games of luck/skill like poker/blackjack, that result in broken lives and broken families due to a gambling addiction than in a traditional "game of skill".

Perhaps society as a whole is willing to believe the positives of poker outweighs the negatives, like it does with drinking alcohol or I guess now maybe smoking marajuana in some states.

We just shouldn't pretend that poker is all positives because it is statistically a game of skill. There is a lot more to the behavior around the game than that and only a fool would believe otherwise.

Re: Good Poker Players Aren't Lucky

#94

Post by jqm »

steven2012 wrote: post #89
TylerE wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You would be a fool if you believe casinos don't try to go above and beyond their statistical edge to make money. Case in point: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/wynns-abnormal-lucky-streak... I think we all know how a game with a statistical edge to the house has 9 straight quarters of larger-than-expected wins for the casino.

One important point about roulette is this...

On slot machines the house will pull tricks. For example, they will have payouts more likely at certain times than others. There are others as well. But in total, the machines must statistically pay out a certain percentage and this is checked by third parties.

Roulette? I don't know how they would ever insure this. It's a good place to take advantage if the house is inclined to do so.

Re: Good Poker Players Aren't Lucky

#95

Post by dllthomas »

programminggeek wrote: post #93

There is one reason to consider making poker illegal - it is addictive and has destroyed the lives and financial situations of many people who play it. I've seen friends and family throw away thousands of dollars because of their addiction to poker. I'm not sure that poker is a net gain for society or not, but to say that poker is simply a game of skill that is no more harmful or beneficial than basketball or bowling…

People ruin themselves betting on basketball, too. Though I am not sure the degree to which it's legal...

One difference, of course, is that most of the people ruining themselves betting on other sports are spectators not participants.

Your principle point - that "game of skill" doesn't mean "useful" or "productive" or "worthwhile" - certainly very much stands.

Re: Good Poker Players Aren't Lucky

#96

Post by chilldream »

jqm wrote: post #54
chilldream wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's company policy, the employees have plenty of incentive to snitch to gaming boards. I used to hang out with a lot of casino dealers in Washington state and every one of them would sell out their boss that day if they were told to do something like this.

You would think so. But I assure you, it occurs. It may be more the dealers themselves with the "casino" turning a blind eye. Maybe they themselves would face suspension of their licenses. Maybe ratting out a casino is not a good idea *looks over shoulder. I don't know.

> It may be more the dealers themselves with the "casino" turning a blind eye.

That strikes me as even less likely. Given that dealers are tipped from winning players, they wouldn't want to cheat in the house's favor unless they're also pocketing the extra winnings. This is the equivalent of overcharging customers and then skimming from the register, except the store's surveillance is better than most.

FWIW, the one instance I have first-hand knowledge of someone being ratted out, it was the casino's owner. She asked a surveillance employee to destroy a tape and he sent it to the state Gaming Commission instead.

Re: Good Poker Players Aren't Lucky

#97

Post by chilldream »

KVFinn wrote: post #73

Is this skill-based rule is why every game in a casino is so bad? The article is about how poker is starting to be considered a game of skill and so not under the restrictions of gambling, and thus legal generally. Is there a similar law that is the inverse of this that restricts casinos to games of non-skill instead of actually good games? I mean, you'd never sit down with friends and play roulette or blackjack or a…

Gambling games are bad for the exact same reasons that grind-based are bad: people play them for the addictive reward mechanisms. If you're not affected by those mechanisms, you're usually left with garbage.

Variable rewards are also the reason why poker is one of the few games with a heavy skill component that can move large amounts of money directly between players; few people are willing to be a sucker. So losing players have to either get something else from the experience, or be convinced that they aren't losing players.

I said elsewhere in this thread that skill-based vs. luck based is a continuum. The most popular poker games tend to land on the sweet spot where "enough luck that bad players can think they're good" and "enough skill that you can actually be good" meet.

Re: Good Poker Players Aren't Lucky

#98

Post by ronaldx »

flud43 wrote: post #70

I don't even know how people can even argue it isn't a game of skill anymore. Profitable poker players are just little, mini-casinos. That's it. It's not that complex of an idea. I play heads-up hyper-turbos, as well as other games, on PokerStars. I've been studying poker, reviewing my play, and grinding for years. I'm a mediocre reg and I can grind out consistent profits. Here's my graph of 18,106 $15 heads-up hyper…

IMHO, and with respect, poker results have a very high variance which may yet overwhelm your good results.

According to back of an envelope calculation, if there was no skill in poker, and you were just coin flipping, approximately 1 player for every 28 would come out with similar results.

This is a statistically significant result, I suppose, but not very. There are presumably many thousands of players who can present similar results, whether or not they have any skill. The jury's still out over whether you can continue this streak and claim +EV in the long term.

You should have some serious concern about this, since you are subject to self-selection bias in posting these results.

All-in-all, your results don't yet convince me that poker is a skill game, or at least not (yet) that you are skilled. Get back to me after the next 18,000 games, if you feel like it.

I confess to some dubious assumptions but I tend to believe that those assumptions averaged in your favour. This perhaps illustrates why poker is so good at hooking people.

Re: Good Poker Players Aren't Lucky

#99

Post by vannevar »

"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." (emphasis added)

This is a tautology; the real question is whether there is significant discretion in making those decisions. The 85% statistic is meaningless without knowing how many of the winners within that segment simply folded weak hands and kept strong ones, in which case it would be clear that luck is the dominant factor. The 7% where the poorer hand won might merely represent the occasional exception to the rule.

Re: Good Poker Players Aren't Lucky

#100

Post by jqm »

chilldream wrote: post #96
jqm wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You would think so. But I assure you, it occurs. It may be more the dealers themselves with the "casino" turning a blind eye. Maybe they themselves would face suspension of their licenses. Maybe ratting out a casino is not a good idea *looks over shoulder. I don't know.

> It may be more the dealers themselves with the "casino" turning a blind eye. That strikes me as even less likely. Given that dealers are tipped from winning players, they wouldn't want to cheat in the house's favor unless they're also pocketing the extra winnings. This is the equivalent of overcharging customers and then skimming from the register, except the store's surveillance is better than most. FWIW, the one…

Ya, I don't know. I'm just relating what I've observed. And I spent a lot of time doing this observing. It was a sort of "second job" for a number of years. Probably more years than most people who post here have been able to drink beer. I know the game intimately and I have watched dealers who could point the ball where they wanted and watched the table bump scam. I guess I understand people being incredulous. I might be as well if I were not an "expert" on this particular topic. And I don't say expert proudly but rather with a bit of shame on a lot of wasted time and effort (although I am "up" in roulette it is hardly enough to account for these hours, and I am just as equally if not more "down" in other things. I tried to beat slots also with no luck. And of course poker which was probably about a wash and took a lot of time.) But... it did give me a new perspective on randomness. I think there is a lot less of "randomness" and a lot more of "patterns we don't perceive" in the world.
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