Three weeks ago the World Champion lost against a 1869 rated 10-year-old boy...

Just a simul, but still...

I would say that chess is more complicated at the highest level, although poker isn't too far behind (but chess is clearly more complicated because GMs often think for hours on one move in a long game, whereas in poker you are only given a minute or under to think).

In chess, you have 6 or 7 candidate moves. Same with poker (6 or 7 betting options)

You evaluate the position of the board at the end of each tree in chess, just as you evaluate the end of each line in poker.

But in poker, the repetitions are more frequent, and so new situations are rarer, whereas in chess, new situations arise much more frequently (once you're experienced) imo.

So chess is more complicated

Total side-track and this has probably been discussed, but what's so different about chess tournaments that allows us to play them for money in a fairly unregulated manner but poker tournaments aren't that way?

At least around here it's the luck vs skill differentiation, in other words poker tournaments are considered similar to a lottery

Right now, poker might be the more complicated of the two, if you live in certain areas of the North American subcontinent that is.

I think the perception difference is that poker is, and always has been, a "gambling" game, while chess isn't. Poker has a stigma from its cash game roots that isn't there for chess. In practice there's no fundamental difference between playing a chess tournament or a poker tournament,* both are a scenario where you pay money, play a game for a while, and if you outperform the rest of the field, you win prize money back, but people look at them differently because of the nature of the respective games.

*other than the structure, with multiple opponents at once, I guess, but then again there's no reason you couldn't play a multi-round heads up poker tournament and use Swiss System pairings...

One can play poker like **** and still beat even tough games as it mixes up one's play. Chess is more uptight and critical.

I voted chess because a chess player can enter the wsop and run hot and be a world champion while a Jerry Yang/Moneymaker could never accomplish that in the game of chess.

Chess is more complex. Poker is more complicated.

Just the opposite.

Simple:

The average player could take a WSOP champion HU at least 10 of 100 times.

The average player would be lucky to take Nakamura 1 of 1000 times.

Poker vs Starcraft would make a better poll

Chess is just on completly another level.

+1

I was going to point that if we take in account even the time to take the action to add even if a infinitesimal amount of advantage then both games would have infinite complexity... but a second might not be possible of being divided in infinite units...

Without adapting to villain, chess.

While adapting to villain depends... if by adapting you want the biggest ev and in chess is just winning obviously is poker, even limit is more complex.

If by complex you mean easier to develop non-exploitable strategies then poker it's probably easier being easier the smallest number of actions possible to be taken.

The mate with a B+N is not as difficult as some people might think. A key idea as some have already posted is the W-trajectory of the knight when the defending king is close to the wrong corner. When I was young and playing blitz against extremely stubborn players that would almost never resign hopeless positions, I would deliberately mate with a B+N and could likely accomplish this in less than 30 seconds from any B+N+K vs K position in my prime.

In my experience, there was only one game ( a blitz game! ) where this endgame "legitimately" occurred, but by then, I already had hundreds of "practices". On the other hand, I know of someone who had this happen OTB not once, but twice! It was a shame too, because this person didn't bother to study how this was done - he wasn't able to accomplish the mate the second time within 50 moves! The longest mate with B+N+K vs K is only 33 moves ( see: http://www.gilith.com/chess/endgames/kbn_k.html ), so there is ample room for "error".

I didn't bother reading all the posts, but simply put:
-it's proven that a computer can beat a world-class chess player
-it's not proven that a computer can beat a world-class poker player

The complex human mind is still required to master poker, whereas a 'simple' (read: methodical) computer can easily master chess. That is my argument for why poker is more complicated.

The rules of chess are obviously more complex than those of poker (however, that is not what you should focus on), but you only have 1 opponent and a finite # of moves (for each move there is only a finite #). In poker, you have 9 other opponents all of whom can be predictable or crazy and they can make seemingly illogical moves. There are many factors/variances in poker that obviously are not there in chess (who cares if your chess opponent is 'aggressive' or 'passive', you will see it plainly in his moves, there is very little subterfuge).

Poker is definitely harder than chess.

This thread is silly. If anyone really wants to post in it, you can PM me after you've read all the posts. If you haven't slit your wrists and still feel you have something new to add, I'll be happy to unlock it then.