Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Teach your kids poker, not chess

momentofdeep.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 242 posts

Re: Teach your kids poker, not chess

#171

Post by matwood »

pawelmurias wrote: post #136
tompston wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A very large part of being a good poker player means that you can control your emotions and look at things objectively in: - tricky situations - long losing streaks when the expected value (EV) of your actions is positive in the long run, but the short term outcome is negative. Sounds like a skill that could be useful in other areas too. Controlling tilt is such a big part of the game that there are books written on…

> But does Billy have gambling problems right now because he played poker with fake chips with his grandma for fun when he was 6? Teaching a kids a gambling game in depth seems like it would increase their chance of getting interested in gambling unless you do this in an abusive way to gave them hate card games. Just teaching the rules of poker doesn't teach them any of the lessons from the article.

Keep in mind that poker is not generally considered gambling and is instead a game of skill. Top players over time have a +EV over less skilled players.

Another part of poker that people tend to gloss over is bankroll management - another critical life skill. A larger bankroll lets someone take a few more asymmetric bets, but first they have to build that bankroll. Sounds more and more like life...

For example, a kid deciding to go to college or not for CS is making the same calculations as they would in a poker game. They have imperfect information, there's a monetary component and an EV component.

Re: Teach your kids poker, not chess

#172

Post by abaldwin99 »

oneoff786 wrote: post #144
LewisVerstappen wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not true in the slightest. Poker is far, far more mathematical than chess. The idea that poker pros are only going off "reads" is completely ludicrous. They have a set game-theory-optimal style of playing, and then use an opponents flaws/"tells" to deviate from the GTO style to exploit those tells. An example of a flaw could be if the opponent is playing shitty hole cards. If the opponent has played in every…

The fancy deep learning poker bots that beat pros don’t even consider past opponent behavior.

If the bot is playing a Nash equilibrium then it doesn't need to devise the opponent's strategy. It's guaranteed to tie the opponent in the worst case (the opponent is also playing Nash equilibrium) or else win.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nash_equilibrium

However, if the opponent is playing sub-optimally you can win _more_ by deviating from Nash equilibrium to take advantage of their specific strategic shortcomings. The risk in doing so is if you are wrong estimating their shortcomings.. you are no longer guaranteed a tie in the worst case scenario.

You can see this play out with a small toy game and a card calculator. Suppose a two player game of Texas Holdem where each player has 8x big blinds. The first player must choose to either go all in or fold. The second player must choose to either call the all in or fold. Players must pick a range of hands to perform either action prior to looking at their cards.

https://openpokertools.com/range_equity.html

Suppose a silly strategy by the second player of folding any hand except pocket aces. You'd be wise as the first player to go all in with any hand and pick up a free big blind with 99.5% certainty. However going all in with every hand is also an easy strategy to take advantage of...

(You can actually go back and forth maximally exploiting the other player's strategy and you will eventually reach Nash equilibrium)

Re: Teach your kids poker, not chess

#173

Post by kqr »

a_e_k wrote: post #99

Personally, my favorite card game is contract bridge. Imperfect information, randomness with room for skill, strongly asymmetric play and scoring, etc., but it also requires cooperation via rather narrow communication channels that your opponents get to observe. (For those not familiar, four play at a time and you are partners with the person across the table from you. After dealing, there's an auction phase and your…

I have long wanted to learn contract bridge, but there are two obstacles:

1. I don't have anyone to play with -- much less three people -- and I don't have much time to play myself either, with two very small children and work taking up most of my time.

2. As a consequence of the above, I don't even know how to start learning to play. I'm a person who learns by doing, but I can't take the time to find and meet up with other interested people.

If only I understood the game, I'm sure I could teach the in-laws and they might humour me and play with me every now and then, but that takes me understanding the game first...

What would you recommend?

Re: Teach your kids poker, not chess

#174

Post by Sebb767 »

wisty wrote: post #120
HPsquared wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chess is logic, poker is rhetoric.

It's a bit like how the Spartans (IIRC) taught their kids to lie, cheat, and steal as long as they didn't get caught, because that's how the world works. Unfortunately, this kind of society seems doomed to collapse.

This strategy only works if most people don't expect you to lie, cheat and steal. Once the majority does it, you end up with the massive overhead of a trustless society while not gaining anything.

Re: Teach your kids poker, not chess

#175

Post by andrepd »

gambiting wrote: post #84
dragontamer wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pokemon the video game is NOT a pay to win game or gambling game. Everyone is on fair grounds. The strategy is surprisingly deep. See one discussion thread from Smogon: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/ss-ou-metagame-discuss...

The strategy only gets deep towards the endgame - for the first 30 hours you can literally just keep pressing A at every single encounter and win majority of the time. There's zero reason to use any status effects against AI because it's so shallow and if you never switch Pokémon you will end up massively overleveled for everything the game throws at you before the elite four. Yes I am aware that the latest games in…

Again, we're talking about pokemon battles against other players (e.g. pokemon showdown), not the story mode of the games.

Re: Teach your kids poker, not chess

#180

Post by scotty79 »

spekcular wrote: post #85

My problem with this article: I did not see a concrete suggestion for where children should play poker. Clearly, they cannot play at casinos or for real money online. I suppose they could play for fake money online, but there the dynamics are much different. (Why not go all-in and risk it all if you can just create a fresh account if you lose?) Fake money tournaments, where the goal is to come out on top instead of m…

I played IRL with M&Ms as a kid.
Post reply on HN