Heads up match. 1.00 blinds. Million dollar stacks. Limit Hold ‘Em. No blind increases. Before I name the participants, assume that each player has equal endurance to play the entire match, and they take breaks to eat, use the restroom, etc. Both players also have the required number of days to play the entire match available to them, and on and on.

The players:

Phil Ivey

Brand new Limit Hold’em player (BNLHP) who's just been introduced to the game. He knows what beats what, and can read the board quite well. He’s aware of what constitutes a good hand, and what constitutes garbage.

Barring freak things like one of these players having a stroke during the match, I feel that you could 100% guarantee that Phil Ivey would win this match. Even though it’s only one HU match.

Do you agree? To the 100% guarantee part that is. And, if you agree, do you feel that this shows that skill dominates in this game (versus luck)?

Many times in the past, it seems that we’ve felt unsure about whether the best player could beat an average Joe in one HU match (i.e. we thought they'd mostly win, but felt that the Joe could win a few here and there). But, I think we were setting up the HU match wrong. The thing is, if someone contends that it’s just luck (or mostly luck), then it doesn’t matter how big the stacks are, nor how big the blinds are.

No

Heres a MUCH MORE INTERESTING QUESTION.

If Phil Ivey's opponent MOVES ALL IN EVERY HAND. WHAT ARE THE ODDS HE WILL WIN THE SAME MATCHUP DeScrIbed ABOve?

first of all, the guy said it was limit hold em.

second, i still don't think you could 100% an ivey win. it's quite close to a sure thing, but not 100%.

It's limit hold 'em, and Ivey has a million blinds. (So does the other guy.)

oh when i read phil ivey i immediately assumed limit..

phil ivey isnt even that good at limit holdem...

how in the hell could anyone say he is a 100% favorite. have you lost your mind?

I expect it would be very close to 100% (as in >99.99)

I think Chris ferguson says its the novice will win 40% of teh time but thats probably assuming only 50/100 BB each

The stack sizes would be 500,000 big bets, which would likely take over a million hands, which is clearly the long run. Against a great limit holdem player (I'm not sure Ivey is a great one), I think our newbie would have maybe a .1% chance of winning.
There is no way, the number is exactly 0% because it is possible (although infinitely small) that our newbie has the best hand almost every hand.
Also after 50-100K hands, our newbie may have grasped enough of the game to be at the level of someone like ourselves and would therefore be less of a dog.

If this headsup match was played many times, and the top pro won over 99% of them, then you could prove to a mathematically educated person that this game is a skill game, however there would still be people that don't understand and just think the pro is really lucky.

I don't know, but I bet they're almost exactly the same as the odds that AA holds up against whatever the new player has when Ivey finally calls. If you want an arbitrary guess, I'll go with 85.204%.

Edit: the above assumes that by "he" you meant "Phil Ivey". IE, what are the chances Ivey wins. If you want the opponent's chances, they're about the inverse.

.1% is way way way way overestimating the novices chances of going on a **500,000** BB heater against a superior opponent. That would be about right if the person got supernaturally lucky and won the first $999,000. Assume Ivey has a 1BB/hr winrate and a standard deviation of 10BB/hr. His risk of ruin would be ((1-($2/$20))/(1+(2/20)))^(1000000/20), or about 3.09*10^-4358 (a decimal point followed by 4000+ zeroes and then a 3). Or for comparison, it's about the same likelihood of picking a random hydrogen atom out of the universe. And then randomly picking it again. And again. And again. Fifty times. So yeah, I'd pretty much say it is zero.

Can I be the rake?

Would be close to 50/50 against anyone of a similar character to Ivey. Ivey's poker knowledge goes out the window.

Thanks for this analysis sir. Somehow, a few of the posts have gotten off track, talking about NLHE for example, and not thinking just how many blinds each player has in my example.

I realize no one wants to say Ivey is 100% guaranteed, but it is my opinion that he is in this situation, much the same way that Dwayne Wade would dominate me in heads up basketball (actually Ivey would probably dominate his opponent even more because I'd ever so often make some of my half court shots )

You're all barking mad. The game as specified is pure psychology and memory, not all round poker skills. Ivey may be in the top 1% of natural game players, meaning thousands are as good as him and many will be better. Specially trained memory-men, mentalists and such would be strong favourites.

What part of this explanation of Ivey's opponent is not getting through?

"Brand new Limit Hold’em player (BNLHP) who's just been introduced to the game . He knows what beats what, and can read the board quite well. He’s aware of what constitutes a good hand, and what constitutes garbage."

We are not talking about pitting Ivey against anyone with any particularly specialized ability or knowledge. There is a VERY GOOD REASON FOR THIS. It's because we would WANT to put him against your regular average Joe off the street to help prove that skill exists. The reason we would want to put him against a regular average Joe is because it shouldn't take someone with any particular abnormal (in the sense that most citizens don't have it) skill to beat Ivey if this game is dominated by luck, and it would show over the course of this EXTREMELY long game.

If this were roulette, and we put him against an average Joe off the street, we would have no way of knowing who would win. However, in the scenario I wrote, it would be highly apparent.

The agenda is to prove the game is skill. This is about as close (I think) as we can get to proving it.

Read what I wrote again. Poker knowledge is irrelevant.

If the 'pro' were Derren Brown, who as far as I know has never played poker, the Joe from the street would have even less chance. Proving what? Nothing except that some guys are more gamey than others.

If you want to prove something about poker, you'll have to use poker, not some imaginary game.

No, because you're not addressing what the thread is about. You're talking about Ivey versus someone with some special ability or Ivey against someone with the ability to play well like him.

That is not needed in my example.

Why?

Because if poker is dominated by luck, then any average Joe off the street that hardly knows anything should have a shot at beating him IN THE EXACT GAME I OUTLINED IN THE FIRST POST.

WTF?? Read the entire first post, and stop changing the damn scenario around. You're like a 6 year old who doesn't have the attention span to go past the first few sentences (and you're not the only one since someone already thought I was talking about no limit hold 'em when it clearly states limit hold 'em in the first sentence.)

You're quite angry now, aren't you?

Your average f’ing Joe doesn’t have a Wiki article on him you twit.

First off, your man with the Wiki article would not be the pro. Ivey is.

And, the Joe off the street is unknown (and described in the [censored] article of the original post). What are you not understanding here. I almost feel like you’re playing at this point.

This is not some stupid imaginary game. The only difference, in fact, is the structure. You play the same limit hold ‘em you always would with gigantic stacks, and small blinds.

If the game is mostly luck, then I feel this particular game would prove it.

Anyhow, I’m done talking with you. You lost any type of debate when you said the following:

“Would be close to 50/50 against anyone of a similar character to Ivey. Ivey's poker knowledge goes out the window.”

Even though I had clear stated this:

“The players:

Phil Ivey

Brand new Limit Hold’em player (BNLHP) who's just been introduced to the game. He knows what beats what, and can read the board quite well. He’s aware of what constitutes a good hand, and what constitutes garbage.”

Okay, I'm sorry, you're right and I'm confused and silly.

Why is BNLHP not like Phil Ivey?

Why would he need to be?

If the game is dominated by luck, then you or I would have just as much chance to win vs. Ivey. For example, if it were you against Ivey in Slot Machines or Roulette, then there's no predictor of who will win. It should be the same way IF (KEY WORD) poker is dominated by luck.

A second reason would be that if someone with skill like Ivey beat Ivey, it would prove nothing (on either side). But, if an average unknown with no extra special abilities (someone that 'could' beat Ivey in Roulette for example) would win against him in this game, I would think it would show the game is mostly dominated by luck.

And if BNLHP is better than Ivey, what do you conclude about the game?

Yours isn't a test of the game (which isn't even poker), it's a test of the players. It proves nothing useful.

Wow. Are you 12?

No, this is a serious question. Because you seriously do not comprehend.

Outside of Fraac's total miscomprehension of what is going on, I would like to say to everyone else that I absolutely don't think that the test I propose is the 100% guaranteed way to prove the luck vs. skill debate in poker. I just wanted to make that clear...