Thinking ahead in poker ~> frontal lobe.
Visualization in chess ~> occipital lobe.

It's useless to visualize in poker since it drains your brain when you can get the same result of thinking without visualization.

HE is like checkers, PLO is like chess.

I think its evident just by the fact that no high level chess players really made the transition to prolonged periods at the top of poker that the skills arent really transferable. There are HS players who are "good" at chess, and top level chess players who are (were?) "good" at poker, but none that really caused a big splash. Curtains i think is the most well known high rated poker playing chess player, and there was Magnus Carlsen who was supposed to storm the tourney scene which seemingly never panned out. So idk, maybe there is crossover in skills, but there doesnt seem to be evidence to back it up.

Alexander Grischuk, who was (not sure if 'is' still applies) a professional poker player.

I wasnt sure how to phrase that (and still dont), but i meant a high level chess player who is well known for playing poker. This might be 2+2 bias, but i've never heard of that guy as an online or HS player.

Isn't this just because of the time required to learn a new specialty?
Dan Smith and Ike Haxton were excellent chess players as children, but they switched their allegiances as it were. I'm sure that if Carlson or Nakamura stopped playing chess and focused entirely on poker, they would quickly learn to crush.

Same goes for poker.

The money is seemingly much much higher in poker, there's plenty of incentive for GMs to convert over and dedicate the time to it. But it hasnt happened, or it did and they werent successful, which is my point.

Poker - "anyone can win" element - hordes will pay to play no matter payouts or rake.

Chess - no "anyone can win" element - no chance 2000 would travel to and pay $500 with all money to winner.

I don't believe the skill is transferable but you can't just tell GM to play poker just because the money incentive. You can't be a GM if you're not passionate about chess and passionate person just can't spend 5 grinding hours/day to do something he doesn't like. Even if they have interest in poker that doesn't mean they will success at poker cause the skill set is different.

GMs are a minuscule percentage of the population, as are truly great poker players. Take the intersection of those sets and you aren't going to be left with much, even if it would be greater than the intersection of two randomly chosen subsets of similar size.

The emotional control needed for chess and poker are different. One thing about chess is, if you make the right moves at all the right times you don't lose. You can't "run bad" at chess, you can only "play bad". I'm aware there are caveats to this, but they are extremely insignificant relative to poker. In poker you have to deal with sometimes long periods of losing where you can't be completely sure your play hasn't slipped, and this can damage your confidence. Being off-form at chess just shows up in your results immediately.

There is also little incentive for a GM to put a lot of effort into a new game. Although the money might be better in poker in a way, it takes a lot of effort with no guarantee of success. It's probably better for a GM who is not making enough by playing chess to get into teaching.

There do seem to be a large number of players who are good but not great at chess switching to poker, and doing good but not great there, for a lot more money.

Chess is far more complex/interesting (in terms of strategic concepts at least imo) than poker and requires more skill/study/dedication to reach the top ainec.

Idk what you mean by top chess players who are also well known pro poker players, but because of the anonymity of poker (and the unpopularity of chess), I don't think this is a fair judgement to make unless you know both scenes well.

So as mentioned Grischuk is prob the best at poker of the top level chess players, but e.g. Simon Ansell is an IM who has been SNE for some years now.

I should be clear that i'm really not talking about todays poker landscape, i think its pretty difficult for anybody who's not a natural poker talent (like a jungleman) to break through and rise to the top, making a lot of money. I'm talking more about like the golden era, 2003-2011 kinda, when it was relatively easy (compared to now), for talent/intelligence to break through and be noticed.

Stepping back, if you take something like Magic, its would seem clear that there's transferable skills between both, just because of the sheer number of players who came through and had tangible success in poker. Sure their love for poker, or appetite for risk or whatever might be questionable, but thats kinda beside the point, those guys were in there winning.

This.

What do you base the bold claim off of?

"and requires more skill/study/dedication to reach the top ainec."

You should unbold this part. I agree with watergun but sort of see why you might be skeptical of the first half of his sentence. But the second half is unequivocally true. Just do some Googling, familiarize yourself with the career paths of a lot of elite GMs, and see how many hours and years they have put in.

I guess in some sense with poker being a game of hidden info it is actually simplified. I.e. there isn't that much you can maneuver around. Every decision is just you just trying to maximize EV- which is something that can be estimated well compared to chess.

Even deepstacked hunl, or 6max cash games with different dynamics (fish etc), it's not that hard to use backwards induction to work out what to do/how to get better. Like you would "solve"/go through some spots etc and have better and better estimates of ranges. And these days with software help, either through pseudo gto solvers, or statistical analysis there is only one way to get better. If you go through your database and see that you are losing money with opening 86o on the button in 6max you would fold it next time. If it's really close you look at sb/bb's stats to see that they are not defending enough and then you prob can make it a +EV open.

In terms of concepts in poker- they are all variants of how EV of a strat works (EV of betting vs checking, blockbetting oop, EV of betsizes etc). Once you understand how poker should be played, know some game theory, the better players are just better at these spots. You can also throw in tilt factor, icm and even the "6max hyper sats timebanking to not be on BB when blinds go up".

In chess, due to how abstract it is, it's really hard to use backwards induction to work things out. You literally have to learn thousands of concepts/positions/themes which have little connection intuitively. An easy example- why is King+2 Bishops or King+Bishop+Knight a win vs lone King, but King+2 Knights vs lone King only a draw? There is no way you would know without having studied it, and if you don't know this you have massive leaks in your game missing some possible drawing combinations involving sacrificing pieces to remove the last pawn(s). You can also say something about opening preparation- which is a must if you are at high level chess- but it doesn't qualify as "concept/strategy" in my book although it definitely requires a ton of work ethic.

But maybe in poker it is easier to reach the top because the game is still played at a low level relative to where it could be, similar to chess in the early 19th century, when getting to the top required a mix of talent and a work but not too much.

If there had ever been a poker equivalent of the Soviet chess program aimed at identifying any potential world champions in the population of children and giving them intensive training then getting to the top in poker would require way more than it does now (and the Soviet program was just a more extreme version of what goes on in other countries to train kids in chess).

So maybe the difference is not in the game itself but in the position it holds in society.

Yes that's why it takes more effort to get to the top at chess by far.

But this is my 2nd point- my first point is that chess is a far more complex game (at least for humans), and this is a different issue.

WGM Zuzana Borosova is a national women's champion at chess and grinds NL100 online - not sure where that ranks her in the world of female poker players. She was a contestant on the Shark Cage - she gets extra poker degen points for wanting to win a million dollars to spend on more poker.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...&postcount=184

To the guy that said chess takes ALOT more mental focus/stamina: you pal, are ******ed. How long does a chess game last? Have you ever played a 12+ hour cash game session? Poker is so much more complicated than chess in the first place, I have no idea how you came up with that assumption. Poker is chess on crack.

It's like comparing connect 4 to monopoly.

I hope this is a sarcasm.

12+ hour cash game session but how much hands per hour? And you even talk during hand. LOL.

Carlsen regularly play 7+ hours game and it's not counting 2+ hours prep to memorize opening.

And about poker much more complicated than chess, how about we ask WCGRider, Dan Smith, and Ike which game is more complicated?

Poker is an interesting and complicated game, but sir, it's not even close.

Chess is a game of complete information and still not solved. Chess is a LOT more complex than poker, and if you think otherwise you're misinformed. It's not an opinion, I played chess for 8 years and poker for 8 years. I'm pretty good at poker, I suck at chess.

I doubt that. Look at his posting history, unfortunately you won't find a single good one.

Chess at the top level is far more complex than Poker. Chess getting very boring these days though as it has turned into who has the best memory Re starting strategies/variations. Chess 960 is the way forward to bring the masses back.