They are timed in the sense that you have a certain amount of time to finish them, but they are not always timed in the sense that someone with 30 correct answers in 20 minutes beats out someone with 30 correct answers in 30 minutes. Perhaps i misunderstood your earlier remark about timing. That is what i was referring to.

And you're also wrong about there not being any IQ tests that allow unlimited time. There are a few. The Chorium comes to mind. They even allow you to access any reference books or the internet if you want.

That's your opinion. Many people disagree, which is why there are many types of IQ tests, with much variance between them. What type of degree do you possess that enables you to determine which type of IQ is the correct type?

Geography questions exist in many IQ tests. For example, one common question is "how far is it from LA to NY?". The purpose of these questions is to test how well someone learns and retains the school material they are exposed to. The theory goes that smarter people tend to learn and retain more efficiently than others. Vocab sections are often testing similar effects.

I take it you meant "IQ test". Natural intelligence without nurtured intelligence is meaningless. See the Wild Child for an example of someone who was not nurtured. Humans cannot function without nurturing and learning from others.

It helps to measure your ability to learn and retain knowledge, which is commonly believed to be a partial measure of intelligence.

Of course that can be learned. It can also be practiced. Spend a few days in a modern kindergarten or first grade class, and you'll see the kids learning this type of thing daily. Besides, why would you want to limit an IQ test to only spatial problems? Some incredibly smart people suck at spatial problems, but excel in other areas.

Yes, they will. But that still doesn't prove they are measuring actual IQ.

Chemistry and Applied Computer Science

I'm not trying to say which is the correct type of IQ test overall, I was trying to put it into context regarding Poker. Essentially, I was looking at the basis that poker is a game of analysing imperfect information and odds. Therefore, an IQ test which measures logic, reasoning, numerical abilities, etc as the important test for this area.

We have exams in High Schools and Universities which measure what students have learnt. Therefore, it seems pointless to me to have another type of IQ test to measure general knowledge and specialist subjects.


This may be true, but a test which requires little or no nurturing to complete would be favourable to measure the speed at which a person can process information.

Take a man who lives within a tribe in Africa. Just because isn't educated doesn't mean that he couldn't do the type of IQ test I am referring to. Lack of education doesn't mean that this person's brain can't process information. An IQ test which can measure this raw, inherent processing speed without any educational prerequisite or bias would be favourable.

Hmmmm, I'm a bit skeptical here. I have a friend who is a primary school teacher so I will see what she thinks regarding this.


From this discussion, it seems to me that there are many differing views on what IQ really is. I know that there are various forms of intelligence but the one I was really trying to focus on here was the logic, reasoning and numerical processing forms of intellience because they are the key ones, IMO, for poker. Sure, you need emotional intelligence to handle the stress of risk but how do you measure that or even define what it is?

Initially, from your first post towards what I had written, I thought you were being difficult for the sake of being difficult. However, I now appreciate what you have been trying to convey; just because a person can't process numbers exceptionally, for example, doesn't mean they are unintelligent. They may have an excellent ear for music or be brilliant at language, etc. Both of which require a form of intelligence measured in an entirely separate way.

qft

There are other important factors in poker, including memory skills, endurance, etc. You can't just boil it down to 3-4 factors.

And yet the vast majority of people who develop IQ tests disagree with you, since those types of questions keep popping up. As i said before, it has to do with the ability to learn and retain knowledge. Teach two people (one with an IQ of 65 and the other with an IQ of 135) a new word. Which person do you think is more likely to retain knowledge of the new word?


Why do you assume the man from Africa is not educated? Because he doesn't go through your educational system based on Western philosophies? Be assured that no human can survive long without education from his society. And how would you measure his IQ without any bias? No one to date has been able to make a single IQ test that transcends all cultures and ethnicities.


Earlier, you mentioned spatial abilities. Did you drop that one?



Your previous post:
Your original conclusion was that since Ungar had a higher score on an IQ test, then he was probably better at poker than Ivey. You then appeared to generalize this to the entire population of poker players.

The point is that Ungar's IQ test (assuming he actually took one) was most likely one of the standard tests that are based on many measures, including vocab, geography, historical knowledge, etc, which are all measures you profess to deny have anything to do with IQ. There is no indication that his score was based solely on spatial, logic, reasoning and numerical processing, measures which you appear to support as measures of "true" intelligence. It is likely that he was good at most or all areas, but the breakdown of individual areas is unknown.

Now do you see the inconsistency in your conclusions?

Yes, I agree that the higher level of intelligence will retain the information better. However, I'm pretty sure you can measure the spacial abilities of two people with IQs of 135 and 65 and you will find that the 135 IQ remembers the word more often than the 65 IQ. We do not need a separate IQ test to test this, as the more intelligent one in spacial tests is going to be the one who is more intelligent at memorizing words or other types of knowledge.

Also, there is a problem with more general IQ tests like this as how do you ensure that everyone who does the tests has been taught the answers at some point in their past? For this reason, I don't even regard them as IQ tests.

Sure, he may be educated to speak in his language and cook, hunt, trade, basic addition, etc. However, that doesn't mean he has been taught how to interpret patterns. He may be found to be a genius at math even though he wasn't taught any of the theory.

Also, a radio telescope in Puerto Rico, transmitted a binary signal to a galaxy in 1973. The signal was a pattern which contained information on how the human race represents binary, atomic numbers of the main life elements, Earth's population at the time, etc. I have seen this pattern and couldn't make much sense of it. However, more intelligent people than myself and, if they exist (which is why the signal was sent), intelligent alien life would be able to understand it. Therefore, I disagree that an IQ test which consists of processing nothing but patterns can't be used in all cultures and ethnicities.

No, but I did forget that one. It has been found that, in most cases, those with high levels of spacial abilities also had high levels of reasoning, deduction, numeracy, etc. I guess the same parts of the brain are responsible for those areas of intelligence.


I also said in my first post, "Don't take this to mean that I think all you need to be good at poker is raw intellect. I just mean that if the other factors are equal or similar (the ability and psychology to gamble, take risk, etc) then the higher intellect will win in the long run."

Knowledge, geography, etc are nothing to do with IQ. I will, however, agree that knowledge retention and comprehension are part of IQ.

You seem to believe that everyone can be taught to do anything as long as they are physically capable. This, however, from my own and others experience, simply isn't true. We are all genetic variations with some of us having distinct abilities - these abilities come from our genes and can be improved with training but only by a degree or two.

I reached an impasse in both athletics and mathematics at university. Despite training and learning for both religiously during the 4 years I spent there, I could not improve my 100m time to anything near what would make me World class. Math became so profoundly complex, I couldn't comprehend the equations I was looking at any longer. Regarding the math side, many students were like me but some could just 'do it' without any help or assistance. One of my friends who studied pure mathematics did not need to do any work for his degree. He was just so gifted. Einstein needed help with his math eventually from people who were mathematically more gifted than himself.

Some people are genetically just 'better' at some things than others regardless of their nurturing.

I never said anything of the sort, and i have no idea how you interpreted that from my post. Obviously, each person has limits, and we are all genetically different.

At most, i said that i could improve a child's IQ test score within a week. And i could very easily, assuming they were in a normal or above-normal category to begin with. It would be as simple as teaching him/her the common vocab words that show up, a few tricks to solving many of the math problems, etc. It's very much the same technique that SAT and GRE training courses use. The ability to improve your IQ test score that quickly clearly indicates that your IQ score does not correlate perfectly with actual intelligence.

As for the rest of the discussion, i think we've reached a point of diminishing returns.

if he had a photographic memory, why didn't he go into his memory bank and deduce that drugs are bad the 3rd time or even the 28th time?

I agree with what you say here - IQ can be improved to a point. All I was trying to say is that there are levels of natural IQ which require little or no nurturing, IMO. Therefore, we should be able to test this but, I do agree, it is very much an imperfect science with many ambiguities and false conclusions drawn from the results.


Agreed - a good discussion, nonetheless.