Just Poker Talk

• Poker is it Luck or Skill the Debate Continues

 PokerPro Magazine has an analysis of the Luck vs Skill in Poker written by Tony Guerrera that is very detailed and is an excellent thought provoker. Your ‘Dead Money’ blogger when it comes to Poker of course isn’t very Skilled or Lucky it seems. Do yourself a good deed and click on the link and read the entire magazine article. 

You know about Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) that has caused many Online sites to not allow US players to play any longer at their site. If Poker can be proven to be a game of Skill, Congressman Robert Wexler’s HR 2610 Skill Game Protection Act will have a better chance of succeeding. That success will hopefully open the Online sites up again. Here are some of the points made in the analysis.

• Games of Skill

Wikipedia’s definition of a Game of Skill:

as one in which “the outcome is determined mainly by mental and/or physical skill, rather than pure chance” “games of skill can be mastered, and when two parties engage in a game of skill, the party with the higher level of skill is favored to win”

The analysis talks about Chess and Sports as the examples of Games of Skill that nobody debates. In the article Tony makes a point about the difference in the skill set of the competitors and the likeliness the less skilled competitor will prevail.

“games of skill can be mastered, and when two parties engage in a game of skill, the party with the higher level of skill is favored to win”

• Games of Chance

Wikipedia’s definition of Games of Chance:

“A game whose outcome is strongly influenced by some randomizing device.�

Tony talks about these games as the ones the games that random events determine the outcome. You know, shooting craps, playing roulette, playing the lottery, etc….You probably played lots of these Games of Chance.

The analysis moves onto Probability and Expectation Value (EV) and how Poker Players that are very skillful master this ability and apply it to Poker playing. The article goes into much mathematical detail about how to determine Probability and EV. 

EV = (Payout of Outcome #1)(Probability of Outcome #1) + (Payout of Outcome #2)(Probability of Outcome #2) + … + (Payout of Outcome N)(Probability of Outcome N).

I recommend you go to the story to better understand the EV formula, he provides examples.
The last part of the article provides extensive discussion about:

• The Poker Playing Process

Tony outlines the four sections that make up The Poker Playing Process.

1. Putting your Opponent on hand distributions
2. Evaluating your hand relative to opponent’s hand distribution
3. Predicting how your opponent will respond to each of your possible actions
4. Executing the line of play yielding the highest possible EV based on 1,2 and 3.

Tony explains each process expertly and makes numerous great points. This leads to the Summary section and we see these items:

The big difference between poker and other well-accepted games of skill is that chance events appear to have a much bigger effect on poker outcomes. However, the proper way to view poker decisions is to consider EV, which is a quantity that only makes sense when considering the long run.
accomplished poker players make decisions yielding higher monetary EV than those made by their less skilled counterparts, resulting in them making more money in the long run.

Since money is the metric by which score is ultimately kept, poker is, therefore, as much a game of skill as chess, basketball or any another commonly accepted game of pure skill.

Great analysis by Tony.

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