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Good Poker Players Aren't Lucky

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Re: Good Poker Players Aren't Lucky

#111

Post by flud43 »

ronaldx wrote: post #98
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 prese…

You are absolutely correct that poker results have high variance but you only need a sample of around 5000 matches or so before your results begin to closely depict your true winrate. I only showed an image of my $15 heads-up hyper-turbos on PokerStars. Below is a link to my graph for all heads-up hyper-turbos I've played over my life, 50k+. This graph shows my play from the $1.50 games all the way up to the $200 games. If you didn't trust in a 18k sample, maybe this 50k sample will help sway your opinion.

http://i.imgur.com/1uC5y0U.png

Note that I'm also only a mediocre regular in these games. There are MANY people who have far better results than I do. They average a 3-5% ROI which is much higher than mine.

Also note that the reason my graph dipped after the first 10k games or so was because I went from playing the $15s-$30s to playing the $100s/$200s for awhile. Due to the increased skill level I dropped back down. Here's another image showing my stats for each buy-in level.

http://i.imgur.com/D0lHx3H.png

If you still doubt how confident you can be in this sample, you might want to read the following article on confidence intervals on husng.com:

http://www.husng.com/content/given-my-results-what-should-my...

My 50k+ game sample means that there is a far lower than 0.1% chance that my results are due to the good end of variance.

And here's a graph of ALL my poker tournaments. This includes 9-handed multi-table tournaments, 6-handed SNGs, heads-up shootouts, everything.

http://i.imgur.com/6jyCXn0.png

Poker is 100% a game of skill but it really depends on how you approach it. Professional players or serious amateurs such as myself make money at the game simply because people approach it as if it's bingo.

If every recreational player was putting in time studying poker theory and reviewing their play, it would become much, much harder to make money playing. As such, I really don't mind if people want to continue thinking it's a luck based thing. It just means more profit for me since that perspective, oddly enough, doesn't stop people from dropping $$$ in the game, it merely stops them from thinking they can gain an edge by putting in time and effort. Recreational players wouldn't play if there wasn't a certain amount of luck...

EDIT: Also, it's important to note that every poker player has to pay for their education. Look at my last graph. I was an unprofitable player for the first 10-20 thousand games or so. That was when I was just playing micro/low stakes on PokerStars recreationally. Once I gained some knowledge, and decided to take it much more seriously, my profits skyrocketed.

It's far better to learn how to play poker at micro/low stakes online, where you will pay less for your poker education, than it is to start with mid/high stakes online or in your local casino. Either way, you'll be a losing player to start. Choose the more inexpensive option.

Re: Good Poker Players Aren't Lucky

#112

Post by splonk »

ronaldx wrote: post #98
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 prese…

Without double checking your math, I'm pretty sure the significant error in your conclusion here is modeling the games he's playing as coin flipping with even payouts. The specific game he's playing is actually dropping a percentage each time and is more accurately modeled as "heads I win .98, tails I lose 1". (Technically he's betting $15 for a chance to win $14.69). With that in mind, many fewer than 1 in 28 players would end up with his results.

Re: Good Poker Players Aren't Lucky

#113

Post by splonk »

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…

2 player fixed limit is not solved, but the best in class are generally considered to be better than the best human players and likely have been for several years.

I'm not up to date on the general consensus on the state of 2 player no limit, but personally I'd bet on the best bots over the best humans even at 100 blind stacks.

http://www.computerpokercompetition.org/ has some results from previous competitions. You can probably find some of the relevant papers on the subject from there as well.

Re: Good Poker Players Aren't Lucky

#114

Post by flud43 »

splonk wrote: post #112
ronaldx wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 prese…

Without double checking your math, I'm pretty sure the significant error in your conclusion here is modeling the games he's playing as coin flipping with even payouts. The specific game he's playing is actually dropping a percentage each time and is more accurately modeled as "heads I win .98, tails I lose 1". (Technically he's betting $15 for a chance to win $14.69). With that in mind, many fewer than 1 in 28 player…

Yes, sorry, I should have specified that each buy-in has a small percentage raked from it which goes to PokerStars for hosting the game.

Rake is a part of every form of real money poker. It's how casinos and online poker sites make their $$$'s.

Re: Good Poker Players Aren't Lucky

#115

Post by dalore »

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...

Well when you own $100,000 of stock, that's the most you can lose. But vary rarely will ever go down to $0.

With futures contracts and derivatives you can potentially lose infinity dollars.

Re: Good Poker Players Aren't Lucky

#116

Post by panorama »

727374 wrote: post #92
panorama wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You speak of these 'top pros' and their hand-reading abilities as if they're an enigma. Hand-reading is mostly a mathematical exercise. It's also infrequently about placing a person on a specific hand but rather a range of hands, with different weights assigned to different potential holdings based on sure, 'pattern matching', understanding player psychology, etc. But it still goes back to basic combinatorial math. Surely a computer can do this better than a human.

Source: Was a 'top pro' for many years online

Re: Good Poker Players Aren't Lucky

#117

Post by ronaldx »

flud43 wrote: post #111
ronaldx wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 prese…

You are absolutely correct that poker results have high variance but you only need a sample of around 5000 matches or so before your results begin to closely depict your true winrate. I only showed an image of my $15 heads-up hyper-turbos on PokerStars. Below is a link to my graph for all heads-up hyper-turbos I've played over my life, 50k+. This graph shows my play from the $1.50 games all the way up to the $200 gam…

I genuinely have some concerns about what you're saying - I believe you need to try to look at the stats critically or conservatively, without the influence of poker marketing itself to players.

You're saying that 5,000 games is enough to determine your overall winrate, and yet every 5,000 games of yours has been different: from game 31,000 to 50,000 (a recent 19,000 game streak), you are down.

Either this should mean you are a losing player, or it means 20,000 games is not even nearly enough to draw a conclusion. Be careful about having it both ways to suit you: that is confirmation bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias.

Let's say, I wish you the best of luck, and leave it at that.

Good luck :)

Re: Good Poker Players Aren't Lucky

#118

Post by ronaldx »

splonk wrote: post #112
ronaldx wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 prese…

Without double checking your math, I'm pretty sure the significant error in your conclusion here is modeling the games he's playing as coin flipping with even payouts. The specific game he's playing is actually dropping a percentage each time and is more accurately modeled as "heads I win .98, tails I lose 1". (Technically he's betting $15 for a chance to win $14.69). With that in mind, many fewer than 1 in 28 player…

Typically in poker, you win quickly and lose slowly. This is especially true of tournaments - finishing in the money suddenly does wonders for your balance.

So, I would guess that more than 1 in 28 players would show these results, having experienced a random "win quickly" phase that has yet to dissipate.

(This might not apply if parent is talking only about 2 player tournaments, but applies to poker generally)

Re: Good Poker Players Aren't Lucky

#119

Post by meric »

pitnips wrote: post #76
msellout wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brokers take a transaction fee.

Actually in this regard you could argue poker is fairer due to its transparency. Poker has a fixed rake that everyone knows about and can see. Brokers can charge variable commissions and time their trades to their advantage, all while the investor has no visibility to his broker's actions.

You can use internet brokers and look at the limit order book yourself.

Re: Good Poker Players Aren't Lucky

#120

Post by flud43 »

ronaldx wrote: post #117
flud43 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are absolutely correct that poker results have high variance but you only need a sample of around 5000 matches or so before your results begin to closely depict your true winrate. I only showed an image of my $15 heads-up hyper-turbos on PokerStars. Below is a link to my graph for all heads-up hyper-turbos I've played over my life, 50k+. This graph shows my play from the $1.50 games all the way up to the $200 gam…

I genuinely have some concerns about what you're saying - I believe you need to try to look at the stats critically or conservatively, without the influence of poker marketing itself to players. You're saying that 5,000 games is enough to determine your overall winrate, and yet every 5,000 games of yours has been different: from game 31,000 to 50,000 (a recent 19,000 game streak), you are down. Either this should mea…

I said after 5,000 games your results will begin to closely depict your winrate, not that it would 100% be correct. Variance can easily cause a winning player to have a breakeven stretch.

On top of that, you seem to be suggesting that the variance in my ROI is somehow attributed to an inherent "luck" factor of poker while ignoring the fact that the sample size ranges from micro stakes up to high stakes poker. My winrate is obviously going to vary between stakes because poker is a game of skill and the higher the limit, the more skilled the player pool.

FYI, it's also quite annoying to throw wikipedia pages explaining common psychological biases at me when you've already stated that you are basing most of your conclusions on "assumptions" since you aren't well acquainted with the subject matter. I'm well aware of everything you're warning me about but you also seem biased against poker. I've shown you a sample of over 50,000 tournaments. That's over 1.5 MILLION hands of poker. It blows my mind that you seem to be keen on ignoring empirical evidence and mathematical analysis here, but if you want to ignore that, so be it.

But, yes, indeed, good luck to you as well.

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