I'm not sure exactly how to word this, so I'll use examples. If, for instance, a world class chess player plays a very average chess player, I imagine the grandmaster will win 100% of the time. If a world class poker player plays a very average poker player in a HU SNG, the better player will be the favorite, but nowhere near 100%. Obviously if they play millions of HU SNGs, the better player will come out on top, but he will lose a ton of those matches too, whereas the chess player will never lose to a much inferior player.

Is there a card game that is most like chess, in that way? Gin? Hearts? Other?

No card game will come anywhere close to chess, in that regard. I think the biggest skill to luck ratio would be bridge then gin.

That would be my opinion as well.

Duplicate Bridge cancels out the randomness factor of the cards from the results.

The same method could probably be applied to some poker variants if you wanted to.

some of the lower variance versions of poker might be up there in terms of this. something like LHE, 2-7 Triple or Stud8 comes to mind. LHE in particular

No. Not remotely close.

Kind of depends on what u call avg. There are poker variants/set ups where an expert never loses even in the very short term to the median ability person from the population of people who recognize the ace of spades.

It is not really a card game, but I consider quilting an activity that requires a lot of skill. Especially at the higher levels.

Snap. All skill baby.

Are you saying LHE is low variance? Lower variance than NLH?

I'm saying LHE is relatively low variance for poker. Certainly compared to something like Razz or PLO. I would also mostly consider LHE lower variance than NLHE. I'm sure the argument can be made for some of the $8/$16 **** show games being super high variance, I'm talking more about games in the $15/$30+ region.

I guess a lot of this is pretty anecdotal, would be interested to see Hourly Std Dev for some of the different games.

Yeah the variance in limit is significantly higher than nl

I can't even tell who's trolling in here or just FOS.

The variance in LHE is far lower than NLHE, almost by definition from the rules of the respective games. Good players have an SD of maybe 20% of what they have in NL.

And the other thing to be clear on is that no poker game of any kind comes even remotely close to what the OP is asking for. As the first response said, Bridge probably comes closest, and duplicate Bridge eliminates the randomness factor entirely (which still doesn't eliminate variance in the results, even chess has variance).

Anyone whose argument for LHE having less variance than NL because "limit duh" is being super naive.

1/2 NL is way bigger than 1/2 LHE, yes. But 1/2 NL is also bigger than 2/4 LHE (which has the same 1/2 blinds). As a matter of fact, 1/2 NL (which has $120-160/hr SD) is about the same size as 5/10 LHE (which has the same variance).

But what you're able to win at 1/2 NL is way bigger than what you're able to win at 5/10 LHE. The better comparator, which is SD/WR, is going to be something like 5-15 for NL and 10-25 for LHE. LHE will produce much, much wider swings over time because the variance to winrate ratios are so large.

You can use the same ratio to quantify blackjack (and note that blackjack SCORE is simply the inverse, WR/SD, squared). A card counter is going to see 2.5-3.0 units/hand on a +0.01 units/hand winrate. At 60-150 hands/hr (a very wide spread relative to poker) this works out to SD/WR ratios of 25+. That is, blackjack is more swingy per winrate than both forms of poker.

Not completely.

Could you briefly explain why not?

I'm curious too. Yes there is still "luck" involved in duplicate bridge, but not because of the random deal of the cards. That part is effectively cancelled out. But there is still luck because sometimes bad play is rewarded, sometimes the pairings favor certain hands, sometimes the bidding style of a team favors certain hands, etc. Even duplicate bridge is still a game of incomplete information, and the various decision combinations made by players can have different results at different times.

Chess on the other hand, is a game of complete information. Aside from external random factors possibly affecting players decisions (distraction etc) there is no luck intrinsic to the game.

LO8 >>> LHE


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Perfect blackjack requires an enormous amount of skill memorizing cards and the associated playing/betting strategies. If you add in shuffle tracking, the skill required goes off the charts, and reduces variance simultaneously.

Even a donk like me can make regular money at poker below all competent players. In esports, I expect my opponents to be at least as good as I am, that as so comes down to pure luck at best. That is a way longer shot than playing poker tourneys, that provide regular money in most cases (below 100 buyin). If you are the best (I don't think so), a lot of gaming has a lesser luck factor than poker. So, it comes down to asking yourself (and finding out), how good you really think you are relative to your competition.

Double bridge; I would most surely be living under one.

Perfect blackjack, yes. Solid winner blackjack, no.

Basic strategy is easy. You can look up charts online and most of the decisions are easily memorized. It takes probably fewer than 1,000 hands to get the corner cases down. You can do this for free on play money sites.

A level 1 unbalanced system like KO or Red 7 is easy to learn. A level 1 balanced system like Hi-Lo is only slightly more complicated because you need to accurately determine the number of decks. Buy the associated books; you don't need to practice counting at the table - just buy a few decks and count them down. It may take counting down 100 or so shoes at fast speed to get the counting part down.

Most of the value to changes to basic strategy are concentrated in four moves, dubbed the Fabulous Four. You can expand that list to the Illustrious 18 if you want. You'll get about 75% of the value with F4 and 90% with I18. To get it all (and play perfectly), it'll probably be several hundred indices.

None of this is rocket surgery. In a real life situation, it's mentally taxing to remember basic strategy AND keep the count AND remember the indices AND maintain a conversation with the dealer or other players so it's not obvious you're counting. But it's about as hard as memorizing the first 100 digits of pi - you look a lot smarter than you need to be to actually do it.

In reality, the biggest barrier to succeeding at blackjack is longevity, not technical skill.

I think most people already know that. Which is why I qualified my assertion "Perfect blackjack."

And I don't think there is any dispute that precise shuffle tracking requires a skill almost no one possesses.

Fab four surrenders are 75% of the gain from index plays?

Yes. I think insurance by itself is like 25-30%.

Insurance isn't a fab four play. You must just be using some different terminology i guess. Ton of juice near the top of the illustrious 18 fab four is four non basic strategy surrenders, has nothing to do with insurance.