Well, the title says it all. If a chess grandmaster like Gary Kasparov or the top chess players in the world were to dedicate their time to a game like NLH, would they be the best in the world? Or does poker take a different skill set than the ones needed to succeed at chess?

Different, yet comparable skill sets are required.
They would shurely have an advantage and be good at remembering situations and former hands.
So yes, this to some extent right IMO.

The biggest advantage chess GMs would have is the ability and interest to spend lots of time studying something like a game.

There are some chess GMs that are quite good at poker, most notably Alexander Grischuk.

Jeff Sarwer was supposed to be a pretty handy chess player, Lederer got himself to a decent master strength and there's a couple of guys who are Super-GMs at chess (such as Grischuk) who are making the move from chess to poker and doing pretty well. That said, I do think poker has a lot more 'feel' to it in terms of how to play this specific hand at this moment. A lot of chess is about preparation and general strategies which means top players might find it hard to avoid that slightly dogmatic approach, imo.

Still, awesome GMs are smart people (Kasparov, Carlsen, Anand), so they'd probably be better than most simply by being that damn clever.

They obviously possess some attributes that would translate to poker, but it would all come down to the mental aspects of the game. It doesn't matter how smart you are if you can't use your smarts under stressful situations.

I´m pretty sure Ivey or PA or Ziig would never be that good in chess. Totally different game.

Whenever I play NLHE I like to open with the Queen's Gambit move, really throws my opponents off when a Queen comes on the flop.

There's a lot of interesting discussion of the topic in this thread :

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29...rodigy-639004/

LOL imagining Ziig playing chess is just beyond funny.

FU Kasparov

Ziigmund playing chess drunk. FU LUCK.

the answer is yes. They would be good at the poker

Ken "whatta player!" Smith was a grandmaster and assistant of Bobby Fischer when the latter fought Spassky. Smith finished fourth in the 1981 WSOP Main Event which Stu Ungar won.

The question is "would a good chess player be good at poker?", not "would a good poker player be good at chess?".

Completely different questions, imo - not simply reversible.


OT

I know a couple of pretty competent chess players who won't play poker because of the frustration due to luck/variance. If they are a better player they want/expect to win every time. Hmmmm, perhaps Mr. Helmuth should take up chess...?

AW

They wold be very good. Because they are very smart people. and chess is alot harder than poker to master

There has been discussion of this in the chess forum where people might know what they're talking about

Seems like a good time to bring this up http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/14...icated-475373/

Since poker involves a LARGE element of managing risk, then I don't see how it's very comparable to chess.

I also notice a lot of intellectual snobbery.

Err no dude. Poker is 80% luck

people who say grand master chess players are good at remembering things, yes they are, but i would want see how good they are to remember things when they play say 4 tables. it's one thing to play against dude who's game u've studied endless hours, it's another thing to take on 20 different players at once and gain information in real time.

i think chess players would learn faster that average joe, but they would work hard as hell to become good players too, like anywhere else if u want to be top tier player.

I disagree.

However, even IF you were correct, the other 20% is managing risk.

I don't know if many people realise the level of dedication it takes to reach grandmaster strength. I spent thousands of hours working on my game and reached the level where I could very occasionally beat an International Master (level below Grandmaster) in very quick games. To become a grandmaster usually requires at least a decade of hard work at the game, really slogging hard.

Analysing your own games is key and GMs will have spent thousands of hours in their lifetime doing this. Coincidentally, this is exactly the best way to improve in poker. In both games, there is a limited amount of theory that is relatively easy to learn* - it is correctly applying this knowledge that is awesomely hard in both games. GMs are all able to objectively analyse their own performance and improve on it, or they would not be GMs, so I think would generally make strong poker players.

*excluding opening variations, which does not involve understanding if you already understand strategy, just memorisation.

imo a lot of the chess guys are to nitty for poker.

they are smart obv and better than average ---> they can beat the game.

but they are not over the top.

not sure if it's ever been posted here but there is a great episode on "Bluffing" in the "Conversations with Mensa" podcast featuring Howard Lederer where they discuss this topic(@16mins49sec). In short Howard thinks GrandMasters would have a lot problems making the transition to a game of incomplete information.

http://www.us.mensa.org/Sites/founda...f/ArtBluff.htm

you can also listen to it on iTunes

I played chess online for years before I played poker, but switched to poker after several other from the server I played at made the switch and started making sick money. Off the top of my mind, danny98765, nimzon, and andymcleod were the most successful ones.

Compared to the average person, I'm sure a chess player would have an easier time getting through the learning curve to beat small stakes. But I think a math PHD would have an infinitely easier time becoming a winning player at mid/high stakes compared to a chess GM.