Not sure if this is slow pony, but Tom Ashbrook's "On Point" radio program had an interview last fall with Jennifer Shadade and some other folks.

http://onpoint.wbur.org/2014/09/23/c...d-cup-st-louis

While the focus was mostly on chess, Jennifer did mention an upcoming (hybrid) chess-and-poker event in Las Vegas. The idea (as I understood it) is for 2,000 (or more) chess players to each pony up $500.00 and play in a chess tournament. The winner of this tournament receives a cool one million dollars - or wins entry into a $1,000,000.00 buy-in poker tournament. I'm not sure of the exact specifics on this as I wasn't listening closely, but the idea seemed to be combining chess and poker in some fashion.

So basically the chess players get the opportunity to freeroll Alexander Grischuk or Hikaru Nakamura.

Swell idea.

hope they're smart enough to take the $mil

As much as I'd like to see Nakamura on One Drop, I have to agree that I think this idea can't work.

Perhaps the winner could be the one who performs the most above their current rating, but then you have to take care of collusion, cheating, underrated players, and restrict the ratings of their opponents.

Chess for money just doesn't work well.

I wonder how closely the skills required to perform at the top levels of professional chess correlate with those needed for poker. Are there any chess skills that are contra-indicated for poker?

If one makes educated, intelligent, non tilted moves and makes few mistakes, one should do well in poker. Chess needs additionally superior visual skills.

I think there was a thread about that tournament last summer after Calvin Ayre wrote about it:
http://calvinayre.com/2014/09/03/pok...n-in-las-vegas

I still find it hard to believe how they want to come up with 2000 people entering a $500 chess tournament. I played competitive chess as a kid and would never play that tournament because I know my only chance of winning would be a King Ralph situation..

No money in chess, everyones solid

so it actually has nothing to do with poker apart from the option of using the million $ to play a tourney which will never happen. might as well have offered the option of the million, the poker and a million $yacht. they could call it a chess, poker and sailing tournament.

I am not a pro in either, but have played both at a fairly high level (national championship / major tournament). For some years, chess was my all-consuming hobby, and now poker is, so I have thought about this.

Good play in both requires strong reasoning ability, an ability to make sound judgements without allowing emotion to tilt your decisions. I think most good players in either will score very highly in IQ tests.

Both require high mental stamina - I think chess much more so, because it is relentless concentration. In poker, you can usually get away with "taking it easy" for a round or two, but a small lapse of concentration in chess can end the game.

Players of both games will benefit if they have an excellent memory of previous encounters with your current opponents and others, and can learn from those. This is probably much more important in poker. Experienced players will rarely encounter a truly novel combination of circumstances, and remembering how your current opponents, and opponents in general, tend to play those situations gives you important information. It is very rare to get two identical or almost identical chess games - the variety is surprisingly vast.

The skills in chess that are not needed so much for poker include very strong visualisation. Good players can imagine how the board will look after a lengthy series of moves, well enough to be able to see possible moves in those future positions, and to judge intuitively whether those lines are advantageous to them.

The huge area of poker skill that does not feature in chess is personal interaction. Some players have tremendous feel for the mood of their opponents, and excellence at that is much more important than any intellectual capabilities. Also some are excellent at using speech play in subtle ways to upset the balance of their opponents. When such skills are applied in complex multi-way hands, it is much more "feel" than reasoning.

Clearly poker is played in a world of uncertainty, while chess has almost no luck.

The financial risk element is clearly vital in poker - many situations arise where there is an inner battle beween greed and fear, and this can be exploited by skilful opponents.


Live poker, for me provides the perfect combination of interpersonal banter and intellectual challenge. I don't think I will ever return to chess as long as I am able to find good poker games.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ, chess is stupid. Basically need to be a genius to crush souls. Plus it's boring as **** of a game. I'd rather play a strategy video game against 1 or more humans where there is strategy and FUN!!!


Seriously, I bet the next event they will hype will be" who can watch paint dry longer!!"

Nice post rimlog

Played a lot of Chess, played a lot of Poker, both are pretty boring games, compared to an XBox. That said. ..
I don't think any "magical" hybrid is going to revolutionize either.
Watching Chess(4+hour tournament) is like watching paint dry.
That said, it would do well for Magnus to play some $1000 - $2000 buyin events
just to raise the games profile.
I want to see some mass multi table tourney being played live on screens, sponsored by Poker Stars, watching some one tank for 10 min live blows.
Why do I even bother with this ?

@Rimlog - not sure whether you are understating the importance of memory in chess thinking about memory of theory and opening prep, pattern reconition, and previous games.

Interesting post, but i think the bold is incorrect. It is an important skill of a poker player to be able to visualize ahead and understand how future streets will play out in advance. That's a big difference between the way good players and bad/rec players think about the game. I think it probably even shows some evidence of this here:

http://www.yourbrainonpoker.com/

Could you send an email to a friend of yours and/or have dinner with your sister and see what they think about this?

Thanks...

Nonsense. Thinking ahead =/= visualization.
You can think "he will checkraise $200" without visualize the chip moving and how the screen will look like if he checkraise.
Meanwhile, you HAVE TO visualize in chess.

Both are pretty boring to play but highly interesting to watch and learn.

lol, sushi

Nonsense? Clearly what i have said has gone right over your head.

Because surely i must have meant visualizing the chips moving as someone check raises...

So tell me what visualization you meant. The card rolling? The opponent's mouth say all-in?

don't answer that everybody, no free coaching for the arrogant folks out there #sushi

It's actually a somewhat interesting question whether it's the same "visualization" brain system that's in play in both cases. I'm guessing it probably is.

Backgammon is the greatest luck/skill game ever invented.

chess is like checkers, poker is like chess.

I would say that chess is the poker of board games.