There is a thread in 'Televised Poker' where people post videos of sick river calls and folds.

I commented that shoving these video's would prove that poker is a game of skill. People commented that there would still be a gray area because for ever good call video there are 10 suckout or bad beat videos.


How about shark scope graphs?

If you show someone nanonoko's or Andrew Robl's online cash game graph wouldn't that easily prove that poker is a game of skill?

These guys have never had losing months online, and if poker is pure luck then the odds of not having a losing month in 64 months is 9.2 quintillion. I'm sure there are dozens of online pro's who have never had a losing month and have the graph's and data to prove that...

Thanks mp2012, your points are quite valid. In the PPA's "skill v. chance" court arguments we have used such anecdotal examples as part of the evidence.

But unfortunately these points are not definitive proof of the overall point. The overall point has to show not only that player skill is a significant factor in poker (which these graphs prove conclusively) but also that player skill is the dominant factor. An opponent will say that these isolated examples of a few players dominating the game over a huge number of hands are not representative of the overall game ....

You and I know better. You and I, as experienced poker players understand that this should be enough; and it is ... to experienced poker players.

To those unfamiliar with poker this kind of evidence has proven to generally not be enough. The opponent will claim, somewhat rightly, that the odds quoted here are the odds of this result being solely the result of chance, not a measure of how much chance vs. skill determined the results.

The example that was used to counter the fact that there are clearly winning players in poker went as follows: imagine a dice game where 2 players roll a die and higher number wins the bet. For some magical reason you have the "skill" to make your die roll a six and additional one out ten times. In that game you have a somewhat less than 10% edge due to skill (sometimes on these special rolls your opponent will also roll a six). So in a little more than 9 out of 10 rolls the result is pure chance. But over a sufficiently large number of rolls, the chance results tend to even out (law of large numbers). At some point that skill will overcome chance, but the game is still 90+% chance....

Your point and observations are still, at least in my experience, a very important piece of evidence to get folks to begin to listen with interest to the argument that skill consistently winning is more representative of poker in general than the guy they saw on TV lose the big tournament because his opponent sucked-out on the river.

In at least one past case Tom Dwan was talked about quite a bit in the questioning of the experts. The pro poker side actually played the HSP hand where Dwan bluffed out Eastgate and Greenstein - the hand where Dwan had the worst of it and Eastgate had trip 2s, and BG had pocket aces. "You would have to admit that that hand, if no other, was decided more by Dwan outplaying the other two than by the deal of the cards, would you not?"

Thanks again,

Skallagrim

Yea but I mean its so easy to prove. Just take any winning poker player. And document as he plays cash poker in a casino, for the same stakes, 40 hours a week for 1 month. Them take a random person, and document his play in exactly the same fashion.

The random player will 95% of the time be big loser and the pro will 95% of the time be big winner. Wouldn't this prove that skill is a clearly dominant factor in the game. Something like 80% skill 20% luck i think sounds fair.


Anyway, some people are just too narrow-minded to believe poker is a game of skill no matter how much proof you throw in their face. Just like some people think they are really good/winning slot machine players.


I am a perfect example. I'm only 24 and I have been playing poker for a living for 2 years now, unlike 95% of my friends of the same age (who still live with their parents and all have minimum wage jobs), and I have my own apartment, a nice one, I always wear nice/new clothes, I always have money, and I drive a Lexus.

Seeing as I don't have a job, you would think that my friends would realize after 2 years that I am making money consistently playing poker, but no, they really all think that I am a degenerate gambler who goes to the casino and loses all his money...

What about MTT's?
OPR Full Tracking ROI on PokerStars for:

62% JohnnyBax
53% PearlJammer
59% apestyles
90% Annette_15
63% funnygut

I think that is after rake so the real ROI would be higher.

Obviously it would be hard to have the layman understand how very good players are capable of outplaying pretty good players but can't you just prove that there are certain ways to play poker and literally no chance of ever winning. (folding every hand is an example)

It sounds overly simplified but you could convince anyone that there are more profitable ways to play poker then just folding every hand. Now compare that to a game like slots or roulette and there is no bad strategy so there can be no good strategy.

Now this is a problem if we can't associate ourselves with blackjack because there is an obvious bad strategy (hitting until you bust) but if that isn't an issue, coming at the skill v chance argument this way seems like its worth considering.

This is a correct point as far as it goes: if it is possible to lose a game on purpose than that clearly means human decisions/actions can make a big difference in the game.

But that fact alone does not necessarily prove that the human decisions/actions are the "predominant element" in the game. Blackjack is a good example of a game where skill (human decisions/actions) makes a clear difference. And a game where the rules allow for a player to purposely lose. But blackjack is a game where the cards always determine the winner. As such, your ability to influence the game through skill is mathematically limited.

We need to be able to move from clearly significant to clearly most important. With poker I believe we can do that (but we are still working on doing it better). I believe the way to do that is 1) examples like the ones that started this thread that clearly show positive results far above what mere chance would allow 2) an explanation of the factors that the better player uses to play better, and 3) a statistical showing (for any player with a representative sample) that how a player plays their cards is responsible for the majority of their results.

It remains a work in progress but I am very hopeful regarding some significant new advancements on point 3.

Skallagrim

I definitely see where you are coming from but I wasn't sure if the fact that poker is a zero sum game which pits player vs player(s) would make it a more valid argument. (One person losing means someone else is winning)

I was just afraid that people who don't fully understand the law of averages would look at number 1 as being anecdotal evidence/statistical anomalies and that 2 and 3 would be a much tougher sell then the argument I posted. But I do trust you'll figure out a way to lay this out in a way that is easily digestible and irrefutable.

Anyway, thanks for the response, for the efforts to keep people on this forum informed and for your work with the PPA.

Why is it difficult to prove that it is a game of skill? Why is it not enough to get a game theorist, also experienced in popular science, to explain that there is a mixed equilibrium strategy for most variants of poker. Seeing as the strategy is very difficult to compute in practice, skill differences between players certainly occur. Does rake enter into the discussion? Without rake, it seems that poker would appear to be a game with skill elements to anyone able to think, poker playing experience or not.

By the way, is backgammon considered a game of skill or not?

I have to explain often the skill/chance debate and why poker isn't gambling (if you know what you are doing) to concerned friends and family that believe I have an addiction to gambling and I will end up in the Priory. Unfortunately I've come to the conclusion that 90% of the human race are just incredibly stupid and unable to grasp simple concepts no matter how simply they are explained. This will be one of the biggest hurdles on the pathway to poker legislation and regulation, it already is in general life....

I, along with most other poker players and advantage players, probably aren't the best to argue this case. Honestly we don't understand the distinction.

Our skill shines through in the long run and any effort to define a game as predominantly luck or predominantly skill is doing so using arbitrary measures.

The idea that the "amount" of luck and amount of skill are effected by each other is a fallacy.

Consider the game of blackjack. In BJ every hand (other than the occasional surrender) is determined by the cards dealt. The skilled player knows the math of the cards, the very skilled knows how to manipulate the size of the bets to take advantage of the math inherent in the cards - even to the point of having an "advantage" statistically. Yet whether that "advantage" will manifest in actuality is still dependent on the actual deal of the cards (which is random, hence "chance", hence "luck").

It is quite possible that your particular experience is not statistically average - you may be very unlucky in terms of the deal of the cards and so despite using correct strategy you do still not live up to your EV (whether + or -) over the course of your number of hands. And even though the law of large numbers says if you play enough you will get closer and closer to that EV, you still may never get there.

That is a game where skill matters quite a bit but the most important factor as to whether you win or lose over any period of time is PRIMARILY dependent on the chance element, i.e., the actual deal of the cards.

In poker, because of bluffing and folding, most hands are NOT decided by the actual deal of the cards. In most poker hands the cards are not consulted to determine the winner. This is the key distinction between poker and blackjack.

In poker hands where the cards do determine the winner (the hands with a showdown) the situation is very similar to blackjack (the major difference being a greater ability to manipulate the size of the pot in poker).

But in all the other hands, something other than the mere deal of the cards is determining the result. If you can master that "something other" then you reliably can win despite what would, on its face, be otherwise deemed an unlucky streak of cards.

So the trick to passing the legal test is to first demonstrate the above (that's the easy part) and then further demonstrate that the combination of playing the math of the cards correctly PLUS the mastery of playing that "something else" is the primary factor in determining the winner. And if you can do this, it will be the primary factor in the long term (of course), but also in the majority of short terms.

What most people who never play poker seriously do not understand is what that "something else" is and how you play it. I tend to call it the "psychological" aspect of the game. Most players seem to like to call it "playing the player not the cards." But once that can be explained to judges and juries and its importance reliably demonstrated, poker will have passed the predominance test.

Skallagrim

I sometimes wonder about the simplistic approach of showing that consistent winners play both their losing and winning hands better.

I think some judges just think people win because someone is bound to get lucky. They don't understand the math behind standard deviations.

Perhaps just showing that winning players lose less when dealt bad cards would help to make them understand that every hand is skill based, not just the winning ones.

Oh well, i'm moving to Costa Rica so screw it. I'll get my 90k exemption and the US can FO. It's obvious our Government is crooked. Any change in stance will be 100% about the benjamins, not freedom or anything logical.

this

and this

examine how different people play QTo from the cutoff, and see if it correlates with their levels of studied knowledge/experience.

Looks like screaminasian beat me to it but why not break down the game as a whole and reduce it to individual situations.

Have a case study (or something to that effect) done that examines each aspect of the game. Break down everything into a % (like A2o is played 25% of the time it is dealt by skilled players and 55% of the time by unskilled players, UTG is played 5% of the time by skilled players opposed to 99% of the time by unkilled players)

1. What hole cards are played in general by both skilled and unskilled players.

2. What positions are played by both (go position by position)

3. What cards are played in which position.

4. What size of the stack is committed to a hand with "X" value (1 pair, 2 pair, 3 of a kind...)

Obviously there are a ton of individual aspects to this game that can be anylized and there will be so many similarities that skilled players do that unskilled don't and vic versa.

Can that not in turn prove that this person wins because he does this and also have it disprove that the actual cards on the community play more of a minimal role which then decreases the amount of "luck" associated with this game?

All I know is that ever since "Black Friday" I have been selling VWs and one of the main sales approaches I have learned is reduce to the ridiculous:

"I can't afford a $280 monthly payment $250 is the most I can pay"

"So we are talking about $30 correct? There are 30 days in a month correct? You aren't able to scrounge together 4 quarters a day to get to that payment? I know that you want this car, I know you love this car and if you could afford it then we wouldn't be having this conversation right now. I noticed that you had Starbucks when you came in here that costs about $5 right? So your telling me that you can't do without Starbucks for 6 days out of the month so that you can get this car that you have to have?

Pretty much sums up our training...just trying to put it to practical use into the real job that I want to make my living at (also don't go into a car dealership to buy a car and have a Starbucks cup...its to easy to make an argument about getting your payment up)