This is really pretty ridiculous. For myself and probably many other players, there is poker chips, and there is money, and they aren't the same thing. I manage my poker money outside of the game, inside the game, chips are just a way to keep track of what's going on, I don't make my bet smaller because it's more money that I'd prefer to lose at a time, although I will make them bigger if my opponents think this way.

In fact, I would be pretty upset if I dropped a few hundred dollars into the sewer in my daily life but losing a few hundred dollars playing poker doesn't produce the same effect.

Anyway, you seem to believe that if there's no money behind the game, it can't or won't be played well, which is also ridiculous. Pretty much every game in existence except poker is player (primarily) with no money involved, and people play quite hard trying to be the best. I've been an avid game player from a young age, and I've always tried to win, whether money is at stake or not.

My guess is that the average chess GM would be much, much better than average at poker after a years worth of hard work.

but that does not equate to the level of Durrr

I don't think he meant teach them the real money of chips is just play money. I think he meant don't bring money up at all. When teaching a child Hungry Hungry Hippos you teach them object of the game is to collect the most marbles and you teach them how to do so within the game. To teach the child poker teach them the object of the game is to collect chips and how to do so within the game. Money doesn't exist in Hungry Hungry Hippos and money doesn't exist in poker. You win Hungry Hungry Hippos by getting the most marbles and you win poker by getting the most chips. Then you put the game away until you want to play again.

I don't think you can say that because of Hungry Hungry Hippos kids will learn to spend money like it is play money. Same can be said for games such as Monopoly or Payday or other games involving actual play money. Why then would teaching a kid poker, which doesn't even have anything to do with money like monopoly and uses chips to keep score as Hungry Hungry Hippos uses marbles to keep score, interfere with teaching him financial responsibility.


You don't have to introduce the concept of playing for money to young kids (one should be older for that). It's just a game where chips are game pieces and used to keep score just as marbles in Hungry Hungry Hippos.

I see what you're saying but hungry hungry hippos turned me into a fiend who only eats marbles, so YMMV. I am an amazing pro HHH player though.

That predicting is going to be diff than poker predicting. People in chess have a tendency to act rationally, and hes definitely going to be able to level on regs. No one doubts a chess master can predict that a reg will rationally fold to xx. Chessmasters are not going to instantly rise to the ranks of the best because they are going to initially have an incredibly hard time figuring out how people can act so irrationally, and with what they are doing it with.

Chessmasters certainly have the intelligence to do it, but again theres a lot more than intelligence that goes into poker.

A: "If a chess grandmaster could get better than durrrr after a year of practice, some chess grandmaster would have done it by now."

B: "No chess grandmaster is better than durrrr."

You do the math...

This is irrelevant since it's a hypothetical question to start with.

+1

I see your point. But pretty much everyone does track and field athletics in school, including a few lesson of high jumping.

What if we compare it to a sport that hardly anyone has ever tried, like ski jumping? Surely you realise that Durrr, Ivey, Antonius are not the best players in the world – they are only the best of the few who give poker a real try.

If you put a world class athlete on the Austrian ski jumping team for a year, I wouldn't want to bet on who is better after that year.

Also, for a chess grand master, remembering ever little aspect about the last, say, 50 hands, is probably easy.

Something tells me that neither of today's top poker pros can do that, but that it would pretty useful.

I don't know Durr personally, but I know several good pros, and many of them can remember precised details about hands that happened months ago. Not *every* hand they've played, but notable ones. They have no problem recalling hands they participated in or observed over the last 50 hands. I suspect that my inability to recall details this well is a limitation in my win rate.

There is no practical difference between saying:

A. They are the best players in the world out of those who try; and

B. They are the best players in the world


Whichever statement you choose to use leads to the conclusion that they are currently the best players in the world. And regardless of which statement you choose to use there is the possibility that at some point in the future they will no longer be the best players in the world.




And it's just a silly thing to try to speculate on.

Kobe Bryant is only one of the best basketball players among the people who play basketball. Someone who doesn't might be better if he did play.

Albert Pujols is only one of the best baseball players among the people who play baseball. Someone who doesn't might be better if he did play.

Peyton Manning is only one of the best quarterbacks among the people who play quarterback. Someone who doesn't might be better if he did.


See, it's silly. Of course the statements are true, but the fact is that the other people aren't playing so the named people are one of the best.


It is possible in the future the people who aren't playing right now will be better but when determining who is the best in the world we don't consider such speculative thoughts .... we are talking about who is the best right now. It may change in the future but that's not really relevant for the purposes of this thread.

The Grandmaster and Durrrr could play heads up for 2 million hands and we could see who makes the most correct decisions based on the Fundamental Theorem of Poker. EZ solution.

This is really only potential definition of who is the best. A more functional definition might be to have them play duplicate poker against the same opponents for a period of hands and see who comes out ahead. Of course, this would be quite tough to do in practice.

I do agree that knowing whether one person can beat another is one way to judge their relative skill, but I think it's possible for player A to make more money actually playing poker against other people than player B, but still for B to be able to beat A heads up. Personally I'd be more interested in which one could make the most money playing poker, in general, rather than which would win a HU competition.

That's like something I heard David Sklansky say in an interview. He was referring to a game theory player and an intuitive player and while one player may be unexploitable the other player may understand why certain players are bad players and be better at exploiting them in certain spots thus earning them more money.

Taking this into account, I don't think we could determine who's better by who makes more money all around because of things like bum hunting and tournaments. A HU match to 2 million or 3 million hands may be the best way.

Do you even hear (in your head) the words that you're typing as you're typing them? JFC.

There is some overlap in the skill-set required but they are different games.In poker you have to be good at sensing weakness in your opponents whereas in chess you are generally looking to play the best objective move regardless of your opponent.I think good chess players usually make good poker players because they tend to bring the work ethic required to be good at chess and apply it to their poker playing.

GM's in chess are very intelligent and studious, but they may not be very creative, self-controlled, and gutsy. A player like durrrr (who could be a GM himself if he dedicated himself to it) would crush a GM IMO.

You've obviously not played a lot of chess my friend.

Go and read ANY article you like about chess at the highest level, and you'll find that the ONLY way to suceed as a GM is to play creatively. Because chess is researched exhaustively, the only way the top players end up beating each other is by finding novel moves in known situations. If they don't play creatively, then they are playing completely predictably and all games would end in draws.

Interestingly, the vast majority of games between GMs already end in draws, it's the odd bit of creativity that wins matches - the scoreline is usually something like 2 wins for Mr X, 8 draws, and 1 win for Mr Y. So they difference between these two is that Mr X produced a creative move to win an extra game and therefore the whole match.

As to your second point about Durrrr being able to get to GM status if he wanted to - well, it's just laughable. I'd like to know what you are basing this statement on. Have you met Durrrr? Do you know what it takes to be a GM? Have you played much chess yourself? I think the only documented occasion of Durrr playing is when he had a some games with an IM (two levels down from a GM) in which he had an extra rook handicap (the poker equivalent would be being able to see one of your opponents hole cards each hand) and IIRC, he lost every game without even managing a draw.

I'm not saying he definitely couldn't be a GM, but there's obviously no positive evidence to support your theory - other than, of course, the simple fact that NOT A SINGLE ONE of the world's current top twenty chess players started the game later than the age of 10. It is an almost universely accepted fact within the chess world that children have a better capacity to learn the game than adults, and that if you don't start young, you haven't got a chance of reaching GM status.

The long and short of it is that after a year, a GM might be able to put a move or two on Durrrr in a HU match. He might not be able to show a profit after 50,000 hands or whatever, but he would be able to at least give him a good game - IE he might pick off the odd bluff, or get durrr off the better hand every now and again. If Durrrr had a year to learn chess, and then played 100 games with a GM, he wouldn't score a single win or draw. He would lose every single game. I would bet everything I have in the world on it.

Your post is good and it seems credible to me. I wish you had not edited it to add unnecessary and childish insults.

Childish insults retracted. And you're right, the post carries more weight without them.

i agree with the post about the amygdala in the brain. it takes a certain breed of person to handle the sick variance in high stakes poker, while a GM could certainly grasp very advanced concepts of poker faster than any normal person there is an X-factor which separates a solid player from a sicko like Ivey, durrr, hawrilenko, isildur1, urindanger, ungar etc.

I didn't know that the great Lego stoops to levelling.

I don't know why they give out gold medals for speed skating. Those are only the greatest speed skaters out of those people who try. [Insert favorite competitive sport here]

How is this funny?

Can the best football player in a small country be better than the best player in a large country? Of course. Is it likely? Of course not. The best out of 10 million is probably not as good as the best out of 80 million. "no practical difference", my arse.

So as long as most people frown upon poker, we are dealing with the best of a pretty small group. And to think that they would still be the best if you confronted them with those who excel in chess is just wishful thinking.

I don't know **** about football. But think about where a TON of baseball players have come from over the years. Cuba. The Dominican Republic. Tiny island nations.

Far more people have played poker seriously than have even TRIED luge (however you spell that). So are luge olympic events just a farce? How would professional luge competitors fare when facing the best athletes from more mainstream sports? If all the pro soccer players in the world, of which there are a lot took up luge, would they just dominate the sport?

Find some people who excel at chess, get them to play poker, record the results, and then we can talk. Until then, it's pretty much all just speculation. However, I don't find your premise at all obvious. Surely some people who excel at chess play poker - but as far as I know, no top player has a chess pro background. I don't know of any grandmaster taking up chess so the question is probably still up in the air, but it should be easy to convince a grandmaster to try it, given that if he could be better than Durr, then within a year or so he'd be rakin the dough, making fish out of all of us. There are several grandmasters in the world, surely you could convince one of them to try it?