Luck/skill in backgammon
paulde...@att.net
skill (poker, bridge, scrabble, and backgammon are four prominent
examples), there is one useful way to evaluate how big the elements of
luck and skill are.
Look at the question: Do the same players consistently get good
results, or are high performances spread more or less evenly over a
large pool of players?
The more skill a game has, the more you see the same players get the
good results.
It then becomes obvious that poker has far more skill than backgammon.
In poker, you see the greats win the WSOP very often; in backgammon,
almost no one has won the world championship even twice.
I believe that the main reason poker is more popular than backgammon is
because poker has a much higher skill ratio.
There are rule modifications to bg which allow much greater skill, but
they would modify the game significantly. But modifying the game to
increase the skill level (such as changing the initial position for
example) might be a good avenue to explore.
The doubling cube is a fairly recent modification which had the effect
of dramatically changing the game and increasing the skill level. And
that did wonders for the game.
Paul Epstein
Maik Stiebler
> Look at the question: Do the same players consistently get good
> results, or are high performances spread more or less evenly over a
> large pool of players?
I agree that this is a relevant question.
> The more skill a game has, the more you see the same players get the
> good results.
It will not only depend on immanent properties of the game, but also on
e.g. tournament formats, tournament attendance...
> It then becomes obvious that poker has far more skill than backgammon.
> In poker, you see the greats win the WSOP very often;
Pardon my poker ignorance: Which players have won the WSOP championship
event more than once?
> in backgammon,
> almost no one has won the world championship even twice.
Except for Granstedt, Meyburg, Robertie; three two-time winners in
about thirty years does not sound that bad to me.
There are also other players who have good results quite frequently,
even if not in Monte Carlo, e.g. Tardieu, Kazaross, ...
ethicalb...@yahoo.com
You make excellent points. Many argue that it is the luck of the rolls
that make backgammon so much fun and so exciting. It is also what
gives lesser skilled players the chance to beat better players, and
without that chance, there would be no reason for anyone but the very
best players to show up at a tournament.
I believe the answer is to have a true "Championship" division that
truly is more skillful. As you stated, there are many ways to make the
game more skillful, and they can be applied only to this top division.
It's a whole different discussion and debate as to what can make the
game more skillful, but I am sure a panel of the top players in the
world could come up with a set of rules that greatly reduces the luck
factor.
Some ideas include:
1. Doubles don't count double in a pure race situation
2. You cannot make a point on the opening roll
3. Changing the starting position to make the game more complex
4. Either longer matches or a series of matches to determine the
winner.
5. A round-robin format so that an unlucky round or two does not knock
out the best players.
6. Seeding the best players so they do not knock each other out in the
early rounds.
I am sure there are others.
Now, we have another problem in backgammon, and I am sure it is the
same problem with poker. If you take the best players in the world and
put them in one room, the difference of skill between them is very
small. So the winner, in poker, will be the one that got the best
cards, and in backgammon, the best dice.
Take any two world-class backgammon players and show them tough
positions, and they will virtually all make the same play or cube
decision, and when they don't, the percentage difference between their
choices will usually be very small. And in a match, where they are
both playing under 3.0, I can assure you that the majority of the time,
the winner will be the one with the better dice.
So one reason there are few repeaters in the world championship is that
there are so many players capable of playing at a very high level.
Another is the high number of entrants. And a third is that the cost
of going to and playing in the world championships is excessive, and
there aren't that many who can make it every year.
David C. Ullrich
opinion here is going to matter...)
There's enough skill already that a significantly
better player is going to come out ahead in the
long run. The large amount of luck is a good thing,
because it lets weaker players win a lot of games -
this is what convinces them that the only reason
they're behind for the year is that they're just
so unlucky (or better yet, the large swings mean
that the weaker player actually doesn't realize
that he's leaking money over the course of a
year...)
************************
David C. Ullrich
Gregg Cattanach
> In games which clearly have significant components of both luck and
> skill (poker, bridge, scrabble, and backgammon are four prominent
> examples), there is one useful way to evaluate how big the elements of
> luck and skill are.
>
> Look at the question: Do the same players consistently get good
> results, or are high performances spread more or less evenly over a
> large pool of players?
>
> The more skill a game has, the more you see the same players get the
> good results.
>
> It then becomes obvious that poker has far more skill than backgammon.
> In poker, you see the greats win the WSOP very often; in backgammon,
> almost no one has won the world championship even twice.
I disagree with your premise and your conclusion vehemently, but wn't take a
lot of time to slice it up. Let's just say I think you are wrong (the luck
element is WAY larger in poker), and you are wrong in a big way. Also,
there are three 2-time winners of the Bckgammon World Championship.
If you look at the results of the World Cup of backgammon, now defunct,
you'll see no one that won that event that could ever be called anything
other than world-class. That format was much more stringent (2 out of 3 or
3 out of 5 11-point matches, not just one long match).
In a long and significant backgammon event, almost no player that plays
poorly throughout will win the event. Bad players win large poker
tournaments all the time, (while playing badly).
--
Gregg C.
VanillaGorilla
I could not disagree more with the conclusions of the original post.
The poster asserts that we see the same people win in poker more often
than in backgammon that poker, therefore, constitutes a game of greater
skill.
My question is: What same players winning what events?
If we are talking about the WSOP Main Event, no player has won the main
event for a subsequent time since 1991. Since 1991, Michael Meyburg
and Jorgen Grandstedt have each won the world backgammon championship
twice. So, on the basis of same players performing well at the world
championship level being indicative of skill, it is obvious that
BACKGAMMON has more skill than poker.
If that isn't enough, feel free to look at the ABT results from the
last 4 years and see how many times you find the name of Neil Kazaross.
I guess Neil is just simply the luckiest son-of-a-gun in the world and
it is only a matter of time before he hits consecutive Powerball
jackpots.
Through the recent television explosion of poker, we have become
familiar with a lot of personalities in the poker world. My guess is
that the poster knows of more top poker players than backgammon
players. I know I do.
I have played in live backgammon tournaments and poker tournaments.
All ABT events have tiers of entry for varying skill
levels...Championship, Intermediate, Beginner, or similar labels. The
next time I go to a poker tournament and see a similar tiered entry
structure will be the first time I see a similarly tiered entry
structure. Why is that?
I hear comments by players in the lower backgammon groups that they
don't want to move up to a higher division because they will get killed
(have heard this from very good players who were not sandbagging).
Chess, a game of complete skill and no luck, will have either tierd
entry or pay out prize money to different ratings blocks as a way to
encourage participation. The 1500 rated players have no chance of
besting a field with a dozen experts and Masters, but they can compete
against the other 1500 rated players for best finish in tournament and
a prize.
So, the backgammon tournament structure more closely resembles that of
chess, an all skill game, than poker does. Funny, the lack of tiering
has not affected participation in poker, at all. Yet the original
poster posits that poker requires greater skill than backgammon. If
this is the case, rank and file poker players should be screaming for a
more equitable tournament structure.
The reason they are not? Enough rank and file poker players cash often
enough under the current formats that there is no need to tier entries.
No coffee shop piece pusher would ever cash at a chess event without a
tiered entry or flighted payout and the poker tournament buy-in/pay out
system would never work for chess for that reason. Newbie chess
players won't "get lucky" and win money from the big boys and girls.
In poker they do. Poker tournament formats are less like chess
tournament formats than backgammon tournament formats are like chess
formats. This must be because backgammon is more similar to chess in
its skill/luck ratio than poker is which means backgammon has more
skill and less luck than poker.
Or, the average chess/backgammon player is smarter than the average
poker player...I will buy that, too.
Stick
You're delusional if you think there's more luck in poker than in
backgammon. Absolutely delusional. I don't have a lot of time right
now to delve this discussion but will tomorrow or Sunday possibly if
it's still active. I am a 'professional' poker player and a backgammon
obsessive so I feel for once my opinion should be worth something? =))
PPL who have won the WSOP more than once: Stu Ungar, Johnny Moss
(recognized), Doyle Brunson, and Johnny Chan. (just listing, not
implying this as an argument for or against)
etichalb...@yahoo.com said: "If you take the best (poker)
players in the world and put them in one room, the difference of skill
between them is very small." --- My ass. But agree the statement is
true of the world's best BG players.
Stick
VanillaGorilla
Stick wrote:
> You're delusional if you think there's more luck in poker than in
> backgammon. Absolutely delusional. I don't have a lot of time right
> now to delve this discussion but will tomorrow or Sunday possibly if
> it's still active.
Good. I look forward to your follow-up. I do expect more in a retort
than "you're delusional."
In your response, please explain to me why poker tournaments are not
tiered, since it is a game of greater skill, according to your clarity.
Following your line of thought it would seem that a strong intermediate
poker player can use his/her skill to whack beginner players, to say
nothing of what a true world class player can do to intermediate and
beginners. This is also true in backgammon.
In backgammon tournaments, however, tournament directors may disallow
entrants from participating in a field that is below their level play.
Why do not poker tournament directors do the same thing? Why don't the
lower level players insist on it?
Answering these questions in a convincing manner will be far superior
to simply calling folks who disagree "delusional".
paulde...@att.net
Stick is of course completely correct.
In high-level backgammon, the majority of plays are obvious to anyone
who's at the level of understanding, for example, Robertie's 501.
In poker, there are far far fewer such automatic plays. It's often
obvious to fold, and it's often fairly obvious to go all in, but it's
not like backgammon where far more than half the plays (both cube and
checker) are obvious to anyone who knows the game.
Hopefully, someone can contribute to the subject who is an expert at
both backgammon and poker.
It is rather obvious though that backgammon has far more luck than
poker.
Gregg, I assume you don't play poker much?
Paul
paulde...@att.net
VanillaGorilla wrote:
>
> Following your line of thought it would seem that a strong intermediate
> poker player can use his/her skill to whack beginner players, to say
> nothing of what a true world class player can do to intermediate and
> beginners. This is also true in backgammon.
>
No, I think it's false in backgammon. I'm no stronger than
intermediate at backgammon but I feel confident that, if I played an 11
point match against Neil Kazaross, my probability of winning would be
greater than 25%.
So, if I'm matched against him in a tournament, I don't consider that
I'm being "whacked".
Paul
VanillaGorilla
If you are a true intermediate player, you would have about a 20%
chance against Mr. Kazaross in an 11 pt match.
Since you brought up world champions, earlier, where those matches are
25 pts, you would have about a 10% chance in that format.
Were you to play Neil (assuming true intermediate level) in a best of 5
series of 11 pt matches, you would have about a 5% chance of winning
that series.
Do not let my arguments against poker having more skill than backgammon
leave the impression that I do not believe there IS a lot of skill in
poker. Quite to the contrary. There are skills needed in poker that
are not called for in backgammon. The observation of the opposition and
the masking of ones own intents are crucial to poker success, but not
in bg.
If the argument is there are more SKILLS required in poker, I would
agree. But if the argument is skill/luck ratio, then backgammon
requires more skill than luck...and the prima face evidence is the
differing tournament structure for each game (a point that has yet to
be addressed by the Pokerislessluck crowd).
mont...@lycos.com
doubles are re-rolled until a non-double is rolled whenever at least
one checker is on the bar. This is similar ot en passant in chess, and
also the beginning of a backgammon game, when doubles are re-rolled.
Maik Stiebler
paulde...@att.net wrote:
> Stick wrote:
> > You're delusional if you think there's more luck in poker than in
> > backgammon.
>
>
> In high-level backgammon, the majority of plays are obvious to anyone
> who's at the level of understanding, for example, Robertie's 501.
There are a lot of automatic plays even in chess.
I cannot contribute to the poker vs. backgammon discussion, but I think
the measure you propose here is useless. The one in the original post
was not perfect, but much better.
Maik Stiebler
paulde...@att.net wrote:
> No, I think it's false in backgammon. I'm no stronger than
> intermediate at backgammon but I feel confident that, if I played an 11
> point match against Neil Kazaross, my probability of winning would be
> greater than 25%.
What will happen to an intermediate poker player who sits at a table
with a world class player for 90 minutes?
muratk
> My vote is we leave the game as it is (like our
> opinion here is going to matter...)
Good idea but a little too late... BG has already been
bastardized by sick gamblers by the use of the cube! :(
A classical casual quick match is a 5-pointer without
the cube.
A classical challenging match is a "two-fives", that is
winning two out of three 5-pointers without the cube.
A classical quick challenging match is a 7-pointer
without the cube.
Try it for a change sick gamblers... You may like it... :))
MK
gammo...@yahoo.com
make matches longer.
I forget the format of the world chess championship. When Fischer
played Spassky, it was 24 games. I know Fischer later wanted to change
it to until someone wins 6 with no draws. Each game at that level is
timed for 5 hours.
The world bridge championship is about 12 days of play, 8 hours of play
a day, and they have already pre-qualified, so teams have usually
played a week just to qualify.
The world backgammon championship is 2 matches a day for 4 days.
However, backgammon has evolved as a gambling game. If you put too
much skill in it, the weak players won't play.
Plus everyone has different attitudes about how much free time they
have and how much they need the money.
If the world champion were getting publicity, endorsements, appearance
fees, etc. it would be a different story. But that's not how the game
works.
Kees van den Doel
<mont...@lycos.com> wrote:
Why not just get rid of doubles completely, or play them like singles?
Kees (I feel threatened and Mutlu answered.)
mont...@lycos.com
Kees van den Doel, who is always there for me when I write up a post to
this newsgroup. I wish all of you had someone like Kees, but then
again, only a Superhero gets a sidekick.
:-)
muratk
It must be nice to have somebody kiss your ass, unless you are
ticklish like me... ;)
You responded to "ogrehburreh" without quoting what he had said:
"Why not just get rid of doubles completely, or play them like
singles?"
Sick backgammon gamblers have bastardized it with the use of the
cube but only to the limit of their "incestuous little" brains...
Many times I proposed "Murat-gammon" where sick gamblers could
raise the value of the cube more like raising the stakes in poker but
no monkey brained van del "_Kees_" my ass ever kissed my ass...
The bottom line is that sick backgammon gamblers can not handle
such a complex betting skill...!!
Neither could the father fucking sick cocksuckers could develop bg
bots that could cheat at that level...!!! :)))
When you bastards finally evolve to play backgmmon raising the
stakes by an amount between one and twice the current value of
the cube (or by the value of the chips your opponent has on the
table, like they do in poker) you owe me to call it Murat-gammon...!
MK
Gregg Cattanach
I thought the Monty rule was that jokers are illegal. Any really good roll
by either player must be re-rolled. (At least that's how you recommend
sparring against a bot).
--
Gregg C.
Fred
donkey can learn how to play poker and almost any donkey can win a tourney
and a lot of money.
Backgammon requires a whole different skill set from poker and and the only
luck intensive part is the dice (which granted are a considerably
significant part of the game.)
Take into account the mathematical aptitude that it takes to be a high level
backgammon player and compare it to the average for the majority of the
population. It may seem simple to us backgammoners, it is not as simple for
a lot of people.
In the long run, a backgammon donkey has no chance of succeeding against any
high level player. In poker, they always have hope of cashing in big on some
tournament no matter how poor their play is.
Put simply, backgammon is a much more complex game without the TV appeal
that no limit hold'em poker has.
"I believe that the main reason poker is more popular than backgammon is
because poker has a much higher skill ratio".
C. Ullrich
ri...@notyahoo.com
>In the long run, a backgammon donkey has no chance of succeeding against any
>high level player. In poker, they always have hope of cashing in big on some
>tournament no matter how poor their play is.
You are making an invalid comparison.
You are comparing long run success in backgammon against short term
success at a poker tournament. Apples and oranges.
I could equally say that in the long run a poker donkey has no chance
of succeeding against any high level player. But in a single
backgammon tournament there is always hope of cashing in no matter how
poor their play is.
Btw I don't think that a very poor poker player would have much of a
chance against a World Class player in a typical tournament.
The chances of long term success of a poor player is very low in both
backgammon and poker. I have seen some very poor players win
backgammon tournaments when clearly superior players were entered.
This is because is the short term of a backgammon tournament luck of
the dice can turn a donkey into a winner.
Rich
Derek Ray
Hash: SHA1
VanillaGorilla wrote:
> If the argument is there are more SKILLS required in poker, I would
> agree. But if the argument is skill/luck ratio, then backgammon
> requires more skill than luck...and the prima face evidence is the
> differing tournament structure for each game (a point that has yet to
> be addressed by the Pokerislessluck crowd).
Tournament structure, having nothing to do with the actual play of the
game itself, makes very poor evidence for determining whether a
particular game is based on skill or luck, and certainly still whether
one particular game is more so than another.
I would instead separate the "luck" features from the "skill" features
of the game, and move on from there. We'll use the typical "tournament
no-limit texas-hold'em" stuff featured on TV for our poker example, as
otherwise there's a lot of inconsistency (factoring in amount of
bankroll available, for example).
Luck factors in backgammon: Dice rolls. Each player's move, every
single turn, is limited to a small subset of the possible moves, and
that subset is completely random.
Skill factors:
- -- Computer analysis indicates that in nearly all circumstances, there
is always a single "right" move out of that subset; selecting that move
is a matter for play skill. Computers play very closely to the level of
the best players in the world; some players believe the computers can
beat anyone in the long run.
- -- Doubling cube is entirely skill-based; computer analysis indicates
that there is always a right cube decision, and selecting the time to
use the cube is ALSO entirely skill-based.
- -- Player personality is largely a non-factor, especially among players
of high skill levels, as playing the single correct move each turn will
always give you the best chance of winning, and the rest must be left up
to the dice.
- -- Backgammon is a 100% information game. Nothing is hidden.
- -- Playing 100% correctly does not guarantee a win.
- -- While technically it is possible to resign from a 100% won position,
this event occurs so rarely that I cannot identify or recall a single
instance when it has happened.
- -- Whether you have played better than your opponent (made more of the
'right' moves, lower error rate, whatever) has very little bearing on
whether or not you win, especially if the skill factors are relatively
equal. If you are less lucky than your opponent, you will usually lose.
======================
Luck factors in poker: All cards received, to yourself, your opponents,
and the table, are totally random. Player options for 'moves' (whether
to bet, raise, or fold, and how much to bet) are not forcibly
constrained in any way by the cards received.
Skill factors:
- -- Computer analysis indicates that certain subsets of "moves" typically
give a higher probability of winning than other moves, but there is
never a single "guaranteed best" move in any situation. Computer
programs currently lag well behind the best players in the world, to the
level of open mockery.
- -- Player personality and recent "move" history is a major factor.
Being able to judge a player's mental/emotional state and correlate that
with recent events is possibly the single most skillful factor in poker;
far more so than being able to calculate pot odds.
- -- Poker is a hidden-information game. Almost all decisions must be
made without full knowledge of the game state.
- -- Playing from the most probable subsets of moves does not guarantee
a win.
- -- It is possible to lose (by folding) when your position is 100% won,
and this occurs very frequently.
- -- Whether you have played better than your opponent typically has a
very large bearing on whether or not you win; if you can successfully
'read' your opponent and determine whether or not he has you beaten, you
can avoid big losses. If your opponent cannot successfully 'read' you,
you will typically win big money off of him both when the cards are in
your favor, and when they are not.
===============
When you subject it to close analysis, it seems patently obvious from
the entries under each -- poker contains MUCH more skill than backgammon.
The most obvious standout when comparing the two categories is that you
can lose despite having already won -- because of the player-personality
factor. The other obvious standout is that while you hear both plenty
of poker players and backgammon players complaining about "bad luck"
knocking them out -- it's generally only the backgammon players who are
telling the truth. The poker players have often made a bad read, a bad
bet, or a bad decision somewhere, and are seeking to make excuses for
their loss. Backgammon players, on the other hand, can analyse their
games post-mortem and determine exactly how unlucky they were, as well
as whether they had a better error rate.
If you're curious where I get the information for that assumption, just
look at the communities for each. Poker players actively discourage
'bad beat' stories and point out that most bad beats could have been
avoided by playing smarter earlier in the hand -- and most skilled poker
players will, when pressed, admit that they could have played better in
earlier circumstances. Backgammon players also discourage 'bad roll'
stories, but it's very rare that a 6-6 joker is anything other than
exactly what it appears; the 1-in-36 perfect roll which costs them a few
of the match points.
- --
Derek
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VanillaGorilla
Thank you for your very fine post. I appreciate the time and effort
spent to make such a well structured and well thought out argument for
you point of view.
However, being dismissive of my tournament structure point is not a
rebuttal. I will come back to that point.
I was recently playing a backgammon match where my opponent was rated
over 600 points below me on the Gammon Zone rating system. I don't
have tables that give match winning chances with such an Elo disparity,
but my chances of winning were quite good for a 7pt match.
My opp rolled his/her 3 best rolls in a row, and played them horribly
wrong each time. After each roll I was afraid of the game swinging to
a gammon with opp holding the cube, but after each move I said to
myself "Wow, I think I am still winning."
I got a good roll and my opp danced and I got the obligatory "lol" as
it was clear to my opp I was incredibly lucky, and only for that
incredible luck I was on my way to win.
We do have robots to analyze matches and then judge our play based on
what they say. For the most part, this a pretty good standard. You
correctly point out that there is no such analysis available for poker,
and there really never should be as there is too much quantitative
information that is unknown in poker, as it should be (I don't like
pocket-cams), to say noting of the qualitative information not suited
for cyber thought.
The next poker player I meet that says "I am no good at poker, but like
to play, anyway," will be the first. Everyone I have met that plays a
lot of poker argue that there is so much skill involved and that is why
they play...because they are very skillful and can win...as long as the
opposition doesn't get lucky. On the flipside, I have met a lot of
people who play backgammon who freely admit to not being very good at
the game, but still enjoy playing. Probably about 95% of the United
States Chess Federation players would describe theitr ability/skill
ratio in the same terms (chess being the humbling hobby it is, once you
leave the coffee shop to play in a sanctioned event).
Please correct me if I am misattributing the author, but I believe it
was Helmuth that described different poker players as dfferent animals
and they exhibit different traits. The best was the lion or tiger, I
believe...they player that played smartly and waited out the aggresive
players and pounced on the timid players. The next time I hear a poker
player describe himself as something other than the lion/tiger, that
too will be a first time.
Let's say a top poker player finds himself in a single table event vs 9
opps of varying skill from novice to intermediate. The top player
smartly avoids all in plays because he knows he has a better chance by
not risking his tournament life on any single hand vs this inferior
field. However, the top player is dealt AA and, cool beans, someone
pushes him all in...this is just what he wants, and gladly calls
pre-flop. He continues to play smartly, biding his time and again is
dealt AA and an opp puts him all in. For the sake of illustration,
lets say the chips distribute in such a way that no one is eliminated
from the table except when they put the top player all in when he is
dealt AA, and these all-ins occur pre-flop.
The top player has played skillfully to avoid being taken out on
anything but the best hand he can be dealt. He has been extremely lucky
to get AA as often as he has, but that is part of the game.
AA vs a random hand is an 89% favorite (I believe...it may be 87%, but
will use the higher number, here) to win, heads-up.
The chances of the top player winning 9 all-ins with AA, and thus, the
tournament, based on an 89% win rate, is 11%, or just 1% more than if
the players just decided to high card for the prize at the start. To
have skillfully played and gotten good luck and only to have increased
his chances from 10% to 11% certainly is not a demonstration that poker
is a game where skill reigns over luck.
Relatively recently I was at a bg tournament and was talking to a lower
level bg player who plays a lot of poker with friends and on-line and
was planning to enter the upcoming WSOP main event. I asked him
questions about his play out of genuine curiosity, and he kindly
indulged me with stories and insights.
I asked him what he would do in this odd-ball situation: Heads-up play
each player has put $100 in the pot for a pot of $200. Opponent has
$100 in front of him (money not tournament play). You feel that your
opp's play is equivelant to your own. after the flop, opp accidentally
reveals his cards and shows he has a good hand. So, he puts his last
$100 in the pot...question is, what chances of winning do you need to
have to make the call?
I have put this question to probably a dozen non-bg poker players (who
would all describe themselves as good poker players and think that
poker has a great ammount of skill) and none of them have answered
correctly.
If in fact poker is a game with greater skill/luck ratio than bg then
lesser poker players should demand a teired/flighted format in their
tournaments. But everyone that plays tournament poker thinks they are
a good poker player because they cash often enough not to get
discouraged and stop playing.
To take a line from Stick (I am disappointed he has not yet responded
to my previous post because I know he is a very intelligent person and
has put a lot of effort into both bg and poker...and I really like the
book reviews on his web site...check it out those of you that haven't)
poker players are delusional. The poker boom spawned by the pocket-cam
which makes every play look so easy and the top players look so mortal
has brought in literally millions of players to a game they think is
easy.
Bobby Fischer's rise in the world of chess brought in a surge of young
chess players, but this was short lived as those who thought they would
naturally be Fischer learned that they had no chance against players of
the same age and experience but with a superior apptitude. But the
poker players have stuck around since Moneymaker "lucked" (as so many
newly born poker experts have asserted) his way to the WSOP Main Event
title. Like welfare mothers buying scratch-off tickets twice a month,
the influx of poker players has won often enough, and heard of people
like themselves winning big often enough, that they keep on playing
because they can win, too....and it is true....anyone can win a big
prize by scratching off a lottery ticket and , according to the ESPN
promotions, anyone can win the WSOP.
You will NEVER hear it said that anyone can win the World Backgammon
Championship. Unless it is from a delusional poker player.
The tournament structure diffence in bg and poker IS bottom-line
evidence of the greater skill/luck ratio in bg...or, as I previously
said, proof positive that the ave bg player is simply smarter than the
ave poker player.
Fred
VERY poor players with almost no understanding of the game win tournaments
also.
My point is that the big draw in poker is the tournaments with the monster
prize pools. And why the huge draw? Because hold'em is a stupidly simple
game to quickly learn and understand. All you have to do is turn on the tv.
<ri...@NOTyahoo.com> wrote in message
news:hgur8252r41pvg78j...@4ax.com...
bob_...@hotmail.com
1) Suppose I am faced with a bet and luckily guess correctly that the
opponent is weak and call. In poker that is called not luck but a good
read and is skillful play. The opposite situation is a bad read and is
unskillful play.
How much of that situation actually is skill versus luck?
2) Suppose we call a beginner one who barely knows the rules but
hardly anything more. Since poker is on TV, there must be many more of
these players for poker than backgammon. I strongly suspect that they
are much more likely to enter tournaments
than backgammon beginners.
Bob Koca
Derek Ray
Hash: SHA1
(VanillaGorilla's post has not been ignored, but will require a much
larger amount of time to respond to; this is a quickie)
bob_...@hotmail.com wrote:
> Two thoughts:
>
> 1) Suppose I am faced with a bet and luckily guess correctly that the
> opponent is weak and call. In poker that is called not luck but a good
> read and is skillful play. The opposite situation is a bad read and is
> unskillful play.
> How much of that situation actually is skill versus luck?
100% of it is skill-related. Your use of the word "guess" doesn't mean
that there's any luck involved at all at this point -- there was luck
involved in dealing the cards up to this point, and there will be luck
involved if there are more cards dealt, but your decision is completely
independent of luck.
If you choose to use all the information available to you to help you
make your decision (betting patterns this hand, cards in your hand,
betting patterns on previous hands, "tells" your opponent may be
displaying), then you are likely to make this decision ("guess")
correctly most of the time, and will be a skilled player.
If you choose to ignore all available information and instead check the
wall clock to see if the minute hand is pointing to odd or even as your
indicator of whether to call, then you will be wrong very often, and
will be an unskilled player. But you weren't "unlucky" -- you just
played in an ignorant manner.
> 2) Suppose we call a beginner one who barely knows the rules but
> hardly anything more. Since poker is on TV, there must be many more of
> these players for poker than backgammon. I strongly suspect that they
> are much more likely to enter tournaments
> than backgammon beginners.
Summarized: Beginners are more likely to enter tournaments in poker
than in backgammon. This is probably true. How is this relevant to
comparing the luck/skill factors of poker vs. backgammon?
- --
Derek
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David Kinston
the game. There'd be 2 consequences:
1 you've invented a new game. OK, great.
2 the new game would have zero appeal. Even greater.
Are you trying to take arbitrariness out of BG? WTF for?
It's the intriguing and exciting mix of luck and skill that appeals.
Devote your attention to reducing unfairness in areas of significance,
not in BG where it is the essence of the game.
OTOH as idle speculation with zero possible utility - go for it!
Just my 200000000000000000000000000000000000c
David Kinston
melbourne.au
<paulde...@att.net> wrote in message
news:1149843978....@f6g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> In games which clearly have significant components of both luck and
> skill (poker, bridge, scrabble, and backgammon are four prominent
> examples), there is one useful way to evaluate how big the elements of
> luck and skill are.
>
> Look at the question: Do the same players consistently get good
> results, or are high performances spread more or less evenly over a
> large pool of players?
>
> The more skill a game has, the more you see the same players get the
> good results.
>
> It then becomes obvious that poker has far more skill than backgammon.
> In poker, you see the greats win the WSOP very often; in backgammon,
> almost no one has won the world championship even twice.
>
> I believe that the main reason poker is more popular than backgammon is
David Kinston
"Maik Stiebler" <stie...@onlinehome.de> wrote in message
news:1149924328.3...@m38g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
bob_...@hotmail.com
Derek Ray wrote:
> 100% of it is skill-related. Your use of the word "guess" doesn't mean
> that there's any luck involved at all at this point -- there was luck
> involved in dealing the cards up to this point, and there will be luck
> involved if there are more cards dealt, but your decision is completely
> independent of luck.
>
> If you choose to use all the information available to you to help you
> make your decision (betting patterns this hand, cards in your hand,
> betting patterns on previous hands, "tells" your opponent may be
> displaying), then you are likely to make this decision ("guess")
> correctly most of the time, and will be a skilled player.
----
So by use of the word most you agree that even the most skilled
player in the world will be wrong sometimes. So to me that means it is
not 100% skill related. If it is a question of semantics let me
rephrase: How often does a supremely skilled player "guess" correctly
if the opponent's hand is weak or strong in that situation
and how much better is he at it than a beginner?
> Summarized: Beginners are more likely to enter tournaments in poker
> than in backgammon. This is probably true. How is this relevant to
> comparing the luck/skill factors of poker vs. backgammon?
>
> - --
> Derek
It is relevant becasue one way of discussing the difference between
the games is to talk about how an intermediate level player might fare
against a world class player. For example suppose an intermediate
player and a world class player play heads up and that the average time
for a match is 1 hour. This may be a 9 pointer in backgammon. I
don't have enough poker background to know what structure would make
that happen in poker but the details are not that important. Suppose
that the better player wins 75% of the time in both cases. That is an
argument for the skill/luck ratio being the same for the games.
But what is meant by an intermediate player? Should it be a median
level player taken from those who play tournaments or from those who
just know the rules? I think in this discussion that most have the
first interpretation in mind. If it is true as we both suspect that
beginner level players are more likely to enter poker tournamnets than
backgammon tournaments then that interpreation favors poker having less
luck.
Bob Koca
bob_...@hotmail.com
VanillaGorilla wrote:
>
> Let's say a top poker player finds himself in a single table event vs 9
> opps of varying skill from novice to intermediate. The top player
> smartly avoids all in plays because he knows he has a better chance by
> not risking his tournament life on any single hand vs this inferior
> field. However, the top player is dealt AA and, cool beans, someone
> pushes him all in...this is just what he wants, and gladly calls
> pre-flop. He continues to play smartly, biding his time and again is
> dealt AA and an opp puts him all in. For the sake of illustration,
> lets say the chips distribute in such a way that no one is eliminated
> from the table except when they put the top player all in when he is
> dealt AA, and these all-ins occur pre-flop.
>
> The top player has played skillfully to avoid being taken out on
> anything but the best hand he can be dealt. He has been extremely lucky
> to get AA as often as he has, but that is part of the game.
>
> AA vs a random hand is an 89% favorite (I believe...it may be 87%, but
> will use the higher number, here) to win, heads-up.
>
> The chances of the top player winning 9 all-ins with AA, and thus, the
> tournament, based on an 89% win rate, is 11%, or just 1% more than if
> the players just decided to high card for the prize at the start. To
> have skillfully played and gotten good luck and only to have increased
> his chances from 10% to 11% certainly is not a demonstration that poker
> is a game where skill reigns over luck.
----
I am with you that there is less luck in poker than backgammon but
you've made a major mistake in the above calculations. After winning
some of the all ins the player is very likely to have more chips then
the player he is going all in against and thus the player could lose
some of them and still win the tournament.
Bob Koca
bob_...@hotmail.com
VanillaGorilla wrote:
.
>
> I asked him what he would do in this odd-ball situation: Heads-up play
> each player has put $100 in the pot for a pot of $200. Opponent has
> $100 in front of him (money not tournament play). You feel that your
> opp's play is equivelant to your own. after the flop, opp accidentally
> reveals his cards and shows he has a good hand. So, he puts his last
> $100 in the pot...question is, what chances of winning do you need to
> have to make the call?
>
> I have put this question to probably a dozen non-bg poker players (who
> would all describe themselves as good poker players and think that
> poker has a great ammount of skill) and none of them have answered
> correctly.
>
---
I think the following experiment could be instructive: Ask that
question of 50 players randomly chosen from the world championship
poker tournament and ask it of 50 players randomly chosen from the
world championship backgammon tournament. Does any one think the poker
group would do better at that question about their own game?
Bob Koca
bob_...@hotmail.com
paulde...@att.net wrote:
>
> I believe that the main reason poker is more popular than backgammon is
> because poker has a much higher skill ratio.
>
If that truly is the main reason then why is chess less popular
than poker?
Bob Koca
Derek Ray
Hash: SHA1
bob_...@hotmail.com wrote:
> Derek Ray wrote:
>> 100% of it is skill-related. Your use of the word "guess" doesn't mean
>> that there's any luck involved at all at this point ... your decision is completely
>> independent of luck.
>>
>> If you choose to use all the information available to you ...
>> then you are likely to make this decision ("guess")
>> correctly most of the time, and will be a skilled player.
>
> So by use of the word most you agree that even the most skilled
> player in the world will be wrong sometimes. So to me that means it is
> not 100% skill related.
Not so.
Michael Jordan missed plenty of shots in his day.
Tiger Woods has bogeyed many holes of golf.
Joe Montana threw a great number of incomplete passes.
Is shooting a basketball, hitting a golfball, or passing a football not
100% skill-related? Au contraire; it most certainly is, as is making
your decision to bet, raise, or fold in poker.
The fall of the cards that gets you to that point is luck; the fall of
the cards after that point is luck; but your decision at that point is
entirely based on skill.
The best players in the world don't make the right decision every time
because they're human, and humans are not perfect.
>> Summarized: Beginners are more likely to enter tournaments in poker
>> than in backgammon. This is probably true. How is this relevant to
>> comparing the luck/skill factors of poker vs. backgammon?
>
> It is relevant becasue one way of discussing the difference between
> the games is to talk about how an intermediate level player might fare
> against a world class player.
In both backgammon and poker? He'll get creamed consistently. What
else do you need to know, really?
> For example suppose an intermediate
> player and a world class player play heads up and that the average time
> for a match is 1 hour. This may be a 9 pointer in backgammon. I
> don't have enough poker background to know what structure would make
> that happen in poker but the details are not that important.
If you're going to try to dig into specifics, the details are extremely
important. But this has little to do with tournament structures; you're
discussing an individual heads-up match between unevenly skilled
players, something entirely different from a tournament.
Are you then agreeing to abandon the assertion that tournament structure
has anything at all to do with indicating luck/skill factors?
> But what is meant by an intermediate player? Should it be a median
> level player taken from those who play tournaments or from those who
> just know the rules? I think in this discussion that most have the
> first interpretation in mind.
"Those who play tournaments" are a self-selected subset of "those who
play backgammon", and as such are not representative of the actual game
itself. This is true of poker as well, as many excellent players prefer
to spend time in cash games rather than player tournaments (rate of
return is much higher in a cash game, as well as consistency of win
ratio)... and, for that matter, the parenthetical statement is ALSO true
of backgammon. In both games, it's much more profitable to get hooked
up with a fish who'll play you for a long period of time than it is to
enter a tournament and know you'll be playing people who are at your own
skill level.
I think if we are to compare the two games, we need to either compare
the individual game structure itself, deconstructed (my post), or
compare the performances of two individual matches of opponents with
similarly disparate skill ... but doing THAT requires gallons of detail,
much of which would need to be assumed (bad) or carefully measured
(time-consuming).
- --
Derek
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Corinthian McVitie Keogh
> [...] hold'em is a stupidly simple
Tournament NLHE is what's big right now, but there's a bit more to poker
than that. There's a bunch of guys out there making a living without
ever playing tourneys.
--
It's five o'clock somewhere
Corinthian McVitie Keogh
said:
>
> The next poker player I meet that says "I am no good at poker, but like
> to play, anyway," will be the first.
I won't go so far as to say I'm NO good, but I'm never going to come
close to going pro, I know it, and so I play for recreation, in games
chosen to, usually/hopefully, give me a small profit.
Corinthian McVitie Keogh
You don't get between 20 (live) and 60 (online) games of chess per hour.
Corinthian McVitie Keogh
backgammon (and chess) is a 2 person game.
poker is for 2 to 10. A typical ring game online has between 5 and 10
players as they come and go.
A poker player is "One man standing alone against a pack of ravening
wolves", as I used to put it. Way more _romantic_.
Plus it's 3 to 10 times faster, so you get the law of large numbers
evening out the variance in a time frame more people can handle
Stick
I'm sorry I haven't made it to this discussion earlier and to try to
cover everything that has been posted would leave you and me depleted.
One thing you need to get out of your head is that poker = no limit
hold 'em. This is just the tip of the iceberg why poker is more of a
skill game than backgammon, because every form of a poker is a new game
but the best poker players, the 'experts', will be able to play every
form of poker like a champion. I only play texas because it's where
the money is at, and I play NL when I enter tournies but I prefer cash
games, and play high stakes limit.
Chess is also not currently more popular than poker because that's not
where the action is, that's not where the money is, and you certainly
aren't going to get in 1 millionth of the hands to chess games ratio.
Also, poker you can learn while playing, chess ... ehh... not so much.
Poker you can study and learn both at and away from the table while
chess you do certainly pick up things at the table, more of the
learning is from study.
Poker has no forced plays, backgammon has many many many decisions made
for you. There are few decisions that experts would make differenlty
from one another in backgammon whereas poker you have a style, put Dan
Harrington in place of Johnny Chan from the WSOP in 87 (or 88, forget
which year offhand) and see if he plays the flopped nuts the same way,
my guess is, the tourney doesn't end that hand if Harrington is
sitting, but Chan destroyed Seidel.
More people enter poker tournaments and more beginners enter
tournaments because they're a wide variety of them available, different
buyin amounts, different structures, different time frames, but if I
want to play backgammon, I probably have to take a weekend out of my
life and enter an ABT event. I'm in no small town, I'm in Columbus,
Ohio, and there's simply 1 monthly tournament here, which draws about
10 people. If I want to enter a poker tourney I could find one any day
of the week ...
"I asked him what he would do in this odd-ball situation: Heads-up
play
> each player has put $100 in the pot for a pot of $200. Opponent has
> $100 in front of him (money not tournament play). You feel that your
> opp's play is equivelant to your own. after the flop, opp accidentally
> reveals his cards and shows he has a good hand. So, he puts his last
> $100 in the pot...question is, what chances of winning do you need to
> have to make the call?
With the above question you need to be more specific, I don't think any
'world class' poker player would answer you, they'd want details. You
can't say he 'has a good hand', you saw his cards, tell me what he has,
tell me what I have. How much money do I have? Is my opponent going
to rebuy after his 'last $100'? Are we indeed playing NL? First
questions that come to mind...
Fred said:
> [...] hold'em is a stupidly simple game to quickly learn and understand. <
Got any money? Want to prove your point? =)
I forget what else...if anyone has anything they'd like to know about
I'd be more than happy to discuss.
Stick
VanillaGorilla
>
> "I asked him what he would do in this odd-ball situation: Heads-up
> play
> > each player has put $100 in the pot for a pot of $200. Opponent has
> > $100 in front of him (money not tournament play). You feel that your
> > opp's play is equivelant to your own. after the flop, opp accidentally
> > reveals his cards and shows he has a good hand. So, he puts his last
> > $100 in the pot...question is, what chances of winning do you need to
> > have to make the call?
>
> With the above question you need to be more specific, I don't think any
> 'world class' poker player would answer you, they'd want details. You
> can't say he 'has a good hand', you saw his cards, tell me what he has,
> tell me what I have. How much money do I have? Is my opponent going
> to rebuy after his 'last $100'? Are we indeed playing NL? First
> questions that come to mind...
>
>
> Stick
On the same point:
---
I think the following experiment could be instructive: Ask that
question of 50 players randomly chosen from the world championship
poker tournament and ask it of 50 players randomly chosen from the
world championship backgammon tournament. Does any one think the poker
group would do better at that question about their own game?
Bob Koca
In response to Stick:
All information needed to arrive at the answer is given.
In response to Bob:
The 50 backgammon players would all get that question correct. Since I
have had 2 poker advocates not arrive at the correct answer (one asking
for information and the other positing that poker players would figure
out a trivially elementary backgammon question transposed to a poker
setting at a better rate than bg players) I am confident that many
(probably most) of the players at the WSOP Main Event would miss it,
also.
There is more luck in poker, period. That is why you have more people
playing it with a chance to win.
A previous poster offered that he/she is not a good poker player but
enjoys playing and hopes to make a little bit of money in the process.
If a player is not good but still has a reasonable expectation of
winning money at a given session, then that is all the evidence you
need to acknowledge the huge luck factor in poker!
I have a reasonable expectation of winning money playing roulette if I
lay a chip on red...less than 50%, but a reasonable chance. And, if I
find it enjoyable to watch the wheel spin and ball bounce, hey, why
not? If I win 5 times in a row, that does not make me a skillful
roulette player, nor does it indicate that roulette is a game of skill.
Following the 2004 WSOP, ESPN had it's single table Tournament of
Champions (or something like that) which was won by Annie Duke. If
that scenario was played out 100 times, would Ms. Duke (or any other
player in the field of 10) have won the event 25 times? 20 times? Did
anyone in that group play so badly that they had no chance of winning?
However, had Doyle Brunson not correctly folded his pair in the hand
that was a key laydown for Annie vs Raymer, he would have probably won.
10 brilliantly excellent poker player playing against each other comes
down to a crap shoot. However, if it was not Doyle Brunson, but Doyle
Alexander (nothing against the fine pitcher, just playing on the name)
playing that hand, Doyle Alexander could have incorrectly called and
aquired a crushing chip lead. It is very difficult to make a play that
bad, in the first place (though some would argue that I have often come
close, and they may be correct), and then have it turn into such a
large tournament equity swing that the tournament hinges on one single
bad play getting 'lucky'.
I will offer this out to the "pokerislessluck" crowd:
Since there are so many unskilled poker players playing poker a
skillful poker player has a better chance of using his/her poker skills
to overcome the luck factor in poker and be profitable than does the
backgammon player.
There are definitely tiers of skill in the Championship flights of bg
tournaments, but the difference in skill between the top player in the
field and median player in the field is much less than the top player
at a poker event and the median player in that event (with the
exception of a special tournament such as the 2004 WSOP TOC), so luck
plays a much bigger factor in the outcome of the bg tournament....not
because the game is more luck, but because of the composition of the
field.
Look at the results of no money on-line bg events. Hundreds of players
enter these events, but the final four players rarely offer a suprise.
On the other hand, rarely will I click on the World Poker Tour
broadcast and recognize more than 2 of the final 6 players as top
players on that circuit. ANYONE can get lucky in poker and make a
final table. You do need luck to win a backgammon tournament, but you
cannot win a backgammon tournament relying only on luck.
I am confident in predicting that over half of the final table
participants will be unkowns to all but the most feverent poker
followers...for a more objective standard, they will be non-bracelet
holders.
I am also confident in predicting that the final table at the World BG
Championship will not see a player that hasn't won a tournament
previously and wasn't at least mentioned on one Giant of Backgammon
ballot.
And if some wealthy benefactor wanted to go to Monte Carlo and before
the start of the tournament upgraded all the entries in the lower
divisions to Championship divisions, I am sure you still wouldn't see
an 'unknown' slip into that final table.
VanillaGorilla
10 brilliantly excellent poker player playing against each other comes
down to a crap shoot. However, if it was not Doyle Brunson, but Doyle
Alexander (nothing against the fine pitcher, just playing on the name)
playing that hand, Doyle Alexander could have incorrectly called and
aquired a crushing chip lead. IN BACKGAMMON, it is very difficult to
Raccoon
VanillaGorilla wrote:
> >
> I am also confident in predicting that the final table at the World BG
> Championship will not see a player that hasn't won a tournament
> previously and wasn't at least mentioned on one Giant of Backgammon
> ballot.
>
> And if some wealthy benefactor wanted to go to Monte Carlo and before
> the start of the tournament upgraded all the entries in the lower
> divisions to Championship divisions, I am sure you still wouldn't see
> an 'unknown' slip into that final table.
You lost me with these last two paragraphs. Looking over a list of
champions in 27 years of Monte Carlo, I'd rate them thus: 13 winners
who were first-tier world class players; 4 other winners who were very
good players, but not among the very best; and 10 winners who were not
world class players (I wish I had a list of their opponents, too, but I
don't).
This observation does not say anything about the relative amount of
luck in poker and backgammon, and not much about luck in backgammon
either, except that there is some, and that the format of the Monte
Carlo tournament is not designed to guarantee that only the very best
players reach the final table.
It's true that intermediate players have had a tougher time winning in
Monte Carlo in recent years than in the 1980s. On the other hand, I'd
bet that three of the last six winners, as good as they might be, did
not get a single vote on the previous Giants of Backgammon ballot.
VanillaGorilla
Raccoon wrote:
> VanillaGorilla wrote:
> > >
> > I am also confident in predicting that the final table at the World BG
> > Championship will not see a player that hasn't won a tournament
> > previously and wasn't at least mentioned on one Giant of Backgammon
> > ballot.
> >
> > And if some wealthy benefactor wanted to go to Monte Carlo and before
> > the start of the tournament upgraded all the entries in the lower
> > divisions to Championship divisions, I am sure you still wouldn't see
> > an 'unknown' slip into that final table.
>
> You lost me with these last two paragraphs. Looking over a list of
> champions in 27 years of Monte Carlo, I'd rate them thus: 13 winners
> who were first-tier world class players; 4 other winners who were very
> good players, but not among the very best; and 10 winners who were not
> world class players (I wish I had a list of their opponents, too, but I
> don't).
>
To clarify, first off, I should have said "OR wasn't at least mentioned
on one Giant of Backgammon ballot."
Secondly, my hypothetical is that if the 126 entrants in the
intermediate and beginner sections of the WBC joined the championship
field of 238 for a 364 player field, there would be no shocker at the
final table (since there is a luck element in bg, of course there is a
chance, just as there is a chance I can pick 6 numbers for a lotto
jackpot).
You will not see a bg player at the final table who has just been
playing bg once a week with his buddies in Maryland, as you saw a poker
player do just that in 2005 (not slighting Steve Dannenmann, I love the
guy (never met him personally, just from what I have seen on TV)).
Why did 126 players in 2005 travel to Monte Carlo and NOT enter the
Championship division? Heck, they spent the money to get yourself
there, and the difference in entry fees is minimal, in comparison to
travel and lodging.
Why did ZERO players out of 5,619 pay $10,000 to enter the WSOP main
event (when that entry fee would have been a much greater percentage of
trip expenses than travel or lodging to Monte Carlo) and not enter an
intermediate or Beginner division? Aside from the fact that there
aren't other divisions to enter (and there WOULD be if players demanded
such), each player thought he/she had a chance to win.
If backgammon is MORE luck than poker, than the 126 non Championship
entrants at the WBC are complete fools. And if poker is more SKILL
than backgammon, then 5500 entrants in the WSOP Main Event are greater
fools, because if it is such a skill based game, there is no way they
can compete with the best in the world.
It was previously argued that poker is more popular than chess because
there is more action and more money available in poker. That is not
why. If a sponsor added $10M to a chess tournament prize pool that
charged $10,000 an entry, there is no way you would get 5,000 players
entering it, because there are not 5,000 players in the world that
could win it...maybe 50....MAYBE...and probably a half dozen players
would win 90 out of 100 such events.
People don't play poker anticipating sure losses...just as people don't
play roulette anticipating losses. They CAN win. Over the long term,
no, just like roulette. But just like roulette, a game of complete
luck, they can win in the short term, and vs the best competition the
world has to offer.
I have said before that there are more SKILLS in poker than backgammon,
but that doesn't make it a greater skill/luck ratio game. There are
more skills needed in poker and backgammon than in chess, and is anyone
going to argue that chess involves a greater ammount of luck than
either other (or ANY other) game?
Befunge Sudoku
ethicalb...@yahoo.com says...
>
> 1. Doubles don't count double in a pure race situation
Isn't that pretty much what the Jacoby rule is about?
> 2. You cannot make a point on the opening roll
> 3. Changing the starting position to make the game more complex
There have been different starting positions, in various places at various times. It
doesn't make a lot of difference, except to prolong the game, as far as I can see.
--
News: use seven bits;
or accept you cannot know
how it looks elsewhere.
Befunge Sudoku
says...
>
> If we are talking about the WSOP Main Event, no player has won the main
> event for a subsequent time since 1991. Since 1991, Michael Meyburg
> and Jorgen Grandstedt have each won the world backgammon championship
> twice. So, on the basis of same players performing well at the world
> championship level being indicative of skill, it is obvious that
> BACKGAMMON has more skill than poker.
Tournaments really wipe out the advantage of being more skilled, in poker. They made it
televisable, though. If you look at the Big Game in Vegas, the same small group of guys
pull down the money month after month. But that's a fixed-limit cash game, not a no-
limit tourney. Cash games are where skill really matters.
Befunge Sudoku
stie...@onlinehome.de says...
>
> paulde...@att.net wrote:
> > No, I think it's false in backgammon. I'm no stronger than
> > intermediate at backgammon but I feel confident that, if I played an 11
> > point match against Neil Kazaross, my probability of winning would be
> > greater than 25%.
>
> What will happen to an intermediate poker player who sits at a table
> with a world class player for 90 minutes?
>
>
minutes.
Gregg Cattanach
> In article <1149853167.7...@j55g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
> ethicalb...@yahoo.com says...
>>
>> 1. Doubles don't count double in a pure race situation
>
> Isn't that pretty much what the Jacoby rule is about?
He was referring to doubles on the dice, not the doubling cube.
>
>> 2. You cannot make a point on the opening roll
>> 3. Changing the starting position to make the game more complex
>
> There have been different starting positions, in various places at
> various times. It doesn't make a lot of difference, except to prolong
> the game, as far as I can see.
The main starting variation that does make the game a bit more difficult is
Nackgammon (take one checker each from the midpoint and 6 point and put them
on the 23 point). It is more difficult (takes more skill) mainly because it
the game is longer. It is also harder because if you try some 'normal'
backgammon tactics, (like blitzing early), they often backfire when in
regular backgammon they work well. However, when played well it usually
evolves into the same time of game quite often, which makes it somewhat
boring, IMO. You get into mutual holding games all the time, and lots of
bar-point holding games.
The Simborg rule (you can't make an point on the opening roll), doesn't make
the game more skillful, IMO, it actually makes it less so. It just leads to
MORE mutual holding games because the normal point-making rolls pretty much
force you to split your back checkers instead. The more interesting first
roll rule: Nack Ballard's Slot rule, leads to more interesting and perhaps
more difficult games. This rule is that you MUST slot your 7, 5,4,3 or 2
point on the opening roll.
--
Gregg C.
Befunge Sudoku
says...
> Befunge Sudoku wrote:
> > In article <1149853167.7...@j55g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
> > ethicalb...@yahoo.com says...
> >>
> >> 1. Doubles don't count double in a pure race situation
> >
> > Isn't that pretty much what the Jacoby rule is about?
>
> He was referring to doubles on the dice, not the doubling cube.
oh, right. could be fairer.
or maybe agree to chop the stakes according to equity, if it is a pure race?
like chopping blinds at poker, or the deals sometimes made near the end of a poker
tourney.
Gregg Cattanach
> In article <sEckg.47413$4L1....@newssvr11.news.prodigy.com>,
> rl31...@excite.com says...
>> Befunge Sudoku wrote:
>>> In article <1149853167.7...@j55g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
>>> ethicalb...@yahoo.com says...
>>>>
>>>> 1. Doubles don't count double in a pure race situation
>>>
>>> Isn't that pretty much what the Jacoby rule is about?
>>
>> He was referring to doubles on the dice, not the doubling cube.
>
> oh, right. could be fairer.
> or maybe agree to chop the stakes according to equity, if it is a
> pure race?
> like chopping blinds at poker, or the deals sometimes made near the
> end of a poker tourney.
People currently do this in money games, some players do it a lot. It's
called settlement. It usually comes up when someone has one winning shot,
or during very short bearoffs. With simple positions, the fair settlement
offer can be computed exactly, and usually one side or the other tries to
settle and get a bit more than it's worth.
Settlements are not allowed in tournament match play, however.
--
Gregg C.
Stick
VanillaGorilla, you're still a crackhead :) Do you really think those
five thousand and some odd people paid 10 grand to enter the WSOP main
event? Maybe 1/4th of them did...maybe, I don't know the exact figures
but it's waaaaaaaaaaaaaay low. So many people are entering the WSOP
because they get in through qualifiers, nobody is showing up and paying
ten grand lol
I guess I can't steer this conversation clear of backgammon v. NL texas
hold 'em player tournament style...everyone is fixated. :sigh:
10 expert poker players make the final table = crapshoot --- ok
16 world class bg players make the final 16 = crapshoot --- ok
Your point is?
As far as "Doyle Alexander would have made an incorrect call and taken
a crushing chip lead" there are so many things wrong with that idea.
First of all, do you think he'd have been in a position to have that
many chips in front of him still? Even if he does make the call and
get paid off because he's an idiot, still doesn't make him the
tournament winner playing some of the world's finest.
As to the question at hand, the mathematical spin on a 'poker problem'
of $300 in the pot and you see your opponent's hand. Don't tell me
it's all the information I need, it's not. Maybe it's all the
information you need because you're blinded into making it a math
related problem, or it's all the information any bg player needs
because they don't play poker, but when I tell you all the info isn't
there to make an informed decision, it isn't. Also asking 50 people at
the WSOP event is a crapshoot since so many people get in through
qualifiers. The people who play the WSOBG actually paid to get in,
they have 'more on the line' and are probably bgahollics. The entire
poker field is not but I can guarantee you I can give you a rather
large list of entrants in the tourney who would get it correct. (after
of course they asked you to expound lol)
"A previous poster offered that he/she is not a good poker player but
enjoys playing and hopes to make a little bit of money in the process."
These people are not playing poker against the best, they're playing
against complete and total chumps, usually home games or low limit
poker online. That should have nothing to do with this conversation.
Just because you get together a table of 10 donkeys and someone has to
come out on top shouldn't be a basis overall for world class players.
I
Stick
Befunge Sudoku
says...
>
> "A previous poster offered that he/she is not a good poker player but
> enjoys playing and hopes to make a little bit of money in the process."
>
> These people are not playing poker against the best, they're playing
> against complete and total chumps, usually home games or low limit
> poker online.
Oi! The peeps in the home game I play in aren't donks. I have to go online to get back
what I lose to them... And I never said I was "not a good player", I just said I
"wasn't very good". A different shade of grey, but it matters to me!
The WSOP 10k NLHE event has turned into a crapshoot.
But the WSOP 50k HORSE event... now that's one for the skilled players
VanillaGorilla
Stick -
My understanding is that there were about 40% on-line qualifiers for
last year...just pulling that off the top of vague memory...have no
idea what the ave buy-in was for each winner, but you are correct in
pointing out that a great number did not plunk down $10,000.
Regarding the problem:
It IS all the information you need....in case you missed it...opp is
equal in skill and puts in last $100 in heads up play (hand started
with just the 2 players) into a $200 pot making it a $400 pot if you
call after seeing his cards....it IS a math question, and that is all
the info you need.
Poker IS very much a math game...talk about all the soft psych skills
you want, but the best poker players not only have those, but can
problem solve and number crunch at a very high level, as well. If you
read your opp perfectly (as you have in this case, since you saw his
cards) and you can't figure out the math, you cannot be a poker player
of any stature.
Regards,
VG
VanillaGorilla
To clarify:
meant the use of "you" in final paragraph as an indeterminate pronoun,
not one personally assigned or directed to/at you
gotta run and score some rock before I post again
VG
bob_...@hotmail.com
Stick wrote:
>
> Poker has no forced plays, backgammon has many many many decisions made
> for you.
---
If the first two cards are not good isn't it just about automatic to
fold and then sit idly by
while the hand is played out. Does that occur about half the time?
> "I asked him what he would do in this odd-ball situation: Heads-up
> play
> > each player has put $100 in the pot for a pot of $200. Opponent has
> > $100 in front of him (money not tournament play). You feel that your
> > opp's play is equivelant to your own. after the flop, opp accidentally
> > reveals his cards and shows he has a good hand. So, he puts his last
> > $100 in the pot...question is, what chances of winning do you need to
> > have to make the call?
>
> With the above question you need to be more specific, I don't think any
> 'world class' poker player would answer you, they'd want details. You
> can't say he 'has a good hand', you saw his cards, tell me what he has,
> tell me what I have. How much money do I have? Is my opponent going
> to rebuy after his 'last $100'? Are we indeed playing NL? First
> questions that come to mind...
>
---
Suppose I ask you "In backgammon I am losing 2 away 3 away and am
doubled, there is no chance that the game ends that roll. What win
chance do I need to take the double". I hope you agree that question
can be answered without talking about the exact position. Similarly why
can't a minimum win percentage be given for the poker question without
knowing the exact cards?
Bob Koca
diceydave
Stick
I never said poker isn't very much a math game in some instances but
I'll take Doyle Brunson's feel of a hand over 'straight math' any day.
Sure, you may know the odds of you having kings and your opponent being
dealt aces the same hand, but can you figure out if that time is now?
In theory it may be correct 'mathematically' to call with any two cards
when a person moves all in on your BB at certain points in the tourney,
but does the amount of chips you're risking hurt you more than it would
help you? Is this a person you want doubling up since all you have is
trash or would you rather give him the blind and call it a day?
As I said, I play limit poker, which is very math based (much more so
than NL I'd say) so I do agree with you.
Bob K. said: " If the first two cards are not good isn't it just about
automatic to
fold and then sit idly by while the hand is played out. Does that occur
about half the time?"
It depends ... in short, sure, later stages of a tournament, definitely
not. It occurs more than 1/2 the time if you're playing the correct #
of hands where you pick them up and muck em but knowing what to muck is
often a sharper blade than one might think. I could give countless
examples but I doubt anyone is interested enough ...
With your backgammon question of course I don't need to see the
position, though I do need to know what MET you're using ;o) I don't
feel the poker question is the same ... maybe I should have just
answered so everyone could hear what they wanted to hear in the
beginning lol
Stick
Befunge Sudoku
says...
>
> Stick wrote:
> >
> > Poker has no forced plays, backgammon has many many many decisions made
> > for you.
>
> ---
>
> If the first two cards are not good isn't it just about automatic to
> fold and then sit idly by
> while the hand is played out. Does that occur about half the time?
If you're seeing 50% of flops in hold'em, you're probably playing too loose.
A lot depends on position relative to the dealer - given the right table conditions,
I've had great fun pulling decent pots with hands that should have been rubbish. In
certain positions, if the right people have folded and you've managed to build the
right image, you can make some fun plays regardless of your cards.
And even when you have folded, you shouldn't be sitting idly by, you should be studying
your opponents.
paulde...@att.net
Bob,
It's actually debatable whether chess is less popular than poker.
Consider the whole family of chess games where two players move their
own pieces and where the object is to checkmate or capture the king.
(Chess, Chinese Chess and Shogi are by far the three most popular in
this class.)
How does this family of chess games compare in popularity to the family
of poker games?
(This is a non-rhetorical question. I don't know the answer.) But
chess does have rather similar variants that are hugely popular in
global terms. It doesn't seem a fair comparison to leave out Chinese
chess but to include all poker forms. (Not implying you were making
this unfair comparison.)
Furthermore, an important element in popularity is the complexity of
the rules (rule complexity seems to be negatively correlated with
popularity). If so, it would make sense (if true) that chess would be
less popular than poker.
It seems to me that the poker rules for the standard forms of hold-em
have a very similar complexity level to the rules of backgammon. Thus
rule-complexity doesn't explain poker's greater popularity than
backgammon.
Some on this thread seem to think poker has simpler rules but I don't
agree. For example, a beginning poker player will usually need a handy
reference to the rules about which hands are superior to which -- that
is generally too much information to memorize quickly. Similarly, a
beginning backgammon player will generally have problems remembering
the initial position for the checkers.
Paul Epstein
Befunge Sudoku
says...
> Furthermore, an important element in popularity is the complexity of
> the rules (rule complexity seems to be negatively correlated with
> popularity).
I'm not sure this holds at all. Look at Go - incredibly simple rules, but not exactly
sweeping the world. But maybe that's a marketing problem ;->
>
> It seems to me that the poker rules for the standard forms of hold-em
> have a very similar complexity level to the rules of backgammon. Thus
> rule-complexity doesn't explain poker's greater popularity than
> backgammon.
Backgammon's more like 5 card stud, in terms of complexity. imho.
paulde...@att.net
Stick wrote:
...
> With your backgammon question of course I don't need to see the
> position, though I do need to know what MET you're using
...
Stick, this is actually wrong. You do _not_ need to know what MET the
questioner prefers.
The correct answer is rather different -- "This backgammon problem
can't be solved exactly because the correct MET table at 2 away, 3 away
has not been exactly determined." You could then go on to speculate
about the correct MET table, and then reach an answer consistent with
your own MET assumption.
Note that MET tables are not a matter of taste or personal preference
-- merely an unsolved problem in backgammon.
Similarly, I think that in the poker problem, you call for more
information even where more information is not needed.
Paul
Stick
This question is actually much simpler than that... since I don't use
any MET I'd have no problem whatsoever =))
Stick
Derek Ray
Hash: SHA1
bob_...@hotmail.com wrote:
> Stick wrote:
>> Poker has no forced plays, backgammon has many many many decisions made
>> for you.
>
> If the first two cards are not good isn't it just about automatic to
> fold and then sit idly by while the hand is played out. Does that occur about half the time?
First: there's a big difference between choosing to not play (a
skill-based decision) the two cards you're dealt, and a _forced_ play
(no skill involved since it's the only legal move).
Second: It's not automatic in many situations. A skilled player who has
been dominating the table can typically win with any two cards, simply
by betting in such a manner to cause everyone else to fold. Sometimes
that's by just throwing lots of chips in; sometimes that's by making a
big bet at the right time; and sometimes it's just by trying to look
'sneaky', as though you're fishing for callers with a huge hand and
don't want to scare anyone.
>> "I asked him what he would do in this odd-ball situation: Heads-up
>> play
>>> each player has put $100 in the pot for a pot of $200. Opponent has
>>> $100 in front of him (money not tournament play). You feel that your
>>> opp's play is equivelant to your own. after the flop, opp accidentally
>>> reveals his cards and shows he has a good hand.
>>> So, he puts his last
>>> $100 in the pot...question is, what chances of winning do you need to
>>> have to make the call?
Just setting this apart in the quoting for easy reference later.
> Suppose I ask you "In backgammon I am losing 2 away 3 away and am
> doubled, there is no chance that the game ends that roll. What win
> chance do I need to take the double". I hope you agree that question
> can be answered without talking about the exact position.
Sure, only because you're specifically referring to "win chances". But
this is so because backgammon is an odds-based game; all decisions
should be made entirely based on the odds of the match winning chances
at that point, and there is a single correct decision.
> Similarly why
> can't a minimum win percentage be given for the poker question without
> knowing the exact cards?
Because poker has an additional level of skill above and beyond the
winning chances dictated by the pot odds and cards held -- and
backgammon does not. Stick's questions are extremely valid,
specifically the one that reads: Is this guy going to rebuy if I bust
him here? If he isn't, then I'm more likely to call and try to finish
the job. If he IS, then I need to pay a lot closer attention to what
I'm risking, because things aren't anywhere near over.
There's another question he didn't ask (or maybe he did and I missed
it): How much do I have left in front of me?
In other words, if I fold, this guy will have $300 in front of him. If
I call and lose, this guy will have $400. Heads-up no limit, there's
one overriding consideration that must always be kept in mind: Do You
Have Your Opponent Covered? If I have $500 left in my stack, I may
consider folding a much wider variety of hands than the odds might
dictate, because that will leave me having him covered by $200. If I
call and lose, we will be even, and that is a much weaker position to be in.
On the other hand, if I have $2000 in front of me, I call if I have any
half-decent winning chances at all -- say, 5 outs? When I have ten
times my opponent's stack, I can't let him slide for free unless I'd
just be donating money (ie chasing runner-runner for the win, etc).
- --
Derek
insert clever quotation here
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Stick
Oh shit... someone agreed with me, must be my birthday, want to give me
the details for the 'math question' yet or do I need to call X-22
before you'll believe me? lol
Stick
bob_...@hotmail.com
Derek Ray wrote:
>
> Because poker has an additional level of skill above and beyond the
> winning chances dictated by the pot odds and cards held -- and
> backgammon does not. Stick's questions are extremely valid,
> specifically the one that reads: Is this guy going to rebuy if I bust
> him here? If he isn't, then I'm more likely to call and try to finish
> the job. If he IS, then I need to pay a lot closer attention to what
> I'm risking, because things aren't anywhere near over.
>
> There's another question he didn't ask (or maybe he did and I missed
> it): How much do I have left in front of me?
>
> In other words, if I fold, this guy will have $300 in front of him. If
> I call and lose, this guy will have $400. Heads-up no limit, there's
> one overriding consideration that must always be kept in mind: Do You
> Have Your Opponent Covered? If I have $500 left in my stack, I may
> consider folding a much wider variety of hands than the odds might
> dictate, because that will leave me having him covered by $200. If I
> call and lose, we will be even, and that is a much weaker position to be in.
>
> On the other hand, if I have $2000 in front of me, I call if I have any
> half-decent winning chances at all -- say, 5 outs? When I have ten
> times my opponent's stack, I can't let him slide for free unless I'd
> just be donating money (ie chasing runner-runner for the win, etc).
>
> - --
> Derek
---
The scenario said money play and not tournament play correct? If we
add "suppose that you are playing to maximize expected winnings" will
that make the question answerable?
Since it was already supposed that the players are equally skilled the
expected value of future hands will be 0 regardless of your decision on
the current hand. So the question becomes how to maximize the expected
winnings of the current hand.
Was there a calculation you did to get the 5 outs number? It doesn't
sound like half decent winning chances to me.
Bob Koca
Derek Ray
Hash: SHA1
bob_...@hotmail.com wrote:
> Derek Ray wrote:
> >
>> Because poker has an additional level of skill above and beyond the
>> winning chances dictated by the pot odds and cards held -- and
>> backgammon does not. Stick's questions are extremely valid,
>> specifically the one that reads: Is this guy going to rebuy if I bust
>> him here? If he isn't, then I'm more likely to call and try to finish
>> the job. If he IS, then I need to pay a lot closer attention to what
>> I'm risking, because things aren't anywhere near over.
>>
>> There's another question he didn't ask (or maybe he did and I missed
>> it): How much do I have left in front of me?
>>
>> In other words, if I fold, this guy will have $300 in front of him. If
>> I call and lose, this guy will have $400. Heads-up no limit, there's
>> one overriding consideration that must always be kept in mind: Do You
>> Have Your Opponent Covered? If I have $500 left in my stack, I may
>> consider folding a much wider variety of hands than the odds might
>> dictate, because that will leave me having him covered by $200. If I
>> call and lose, we will be even, and that is a much weaker position to be in.
>>
>> On the other hand, if I have $2000 in front of me, I call if I have any
>> half-decent winning chances at all -- say, 5 outs? When I have ten
>> times my opponent's stack, I can't let him slide for free unless I'd
>> just be donating money (ie chasing runner-runner for the win, etc).
>
> The scenario said money play and not tournament play correct? If we
> add "suppose that you are playing to maximize expected winnings" will
> that make the question answerable?
No. Tournament play would actually remove the question "is this player
willing to rebuy" from the equation, as the tournament would be over and
I would have won. (And I would be much less willing to take a flyer if
I were behind in the hand).
> Since it was already supposed that the players are equally skilled the
> expected value of future hands will be 0 regardless of your decision on
> the current hand.
This is wrong, Bob. I understand that you're not a poker player, and so
you don't really understand why the stack thing matters -- but if I have
$2000 in front of me and my opponent has $400 in front of him and we are
equally skilled players, I am a big favorite to get his $400 simply
because I can push much harder than he can.
The rebuy factor is somewhat correlated to the stack factor, but at a
more extended fashion -- if he's going to put more money in, then I
can't assume that I'm about to win it all and walk away here, and so it
matters a little less that it's his "last" $100.
> Was there a calculation you did to get the 5 outs number? It doesn't
> sound like half decent winning chances to me.
5 outs is a shorthand description of how many cards I have that will win
me the hand. If I have 5 outs, typically I have a hand like JT and my
opponent has a hand like A5, and the flop has come AJ6. We each have a
pair, and he is ahead of me. I need one of five cards in the deck to
win this hand: either of the other two jacks, or any of the three
remaining tens. (A King and Queen on the next two cards would also win
for me, but the chances of this are so small as to be not worth
factoring in. One of my 5 outs showing and then one of HIS outs showing
(any ace if I got a J, any A or 5 if I got a T) would also lose it for
me; the chances of this are also very small and balance out the KQ
scenario reasonably well).
So, typically the simplest description here of my chances would be "five
outs twice". With 45 cards remaining in the deck, my chances of winning
are 1 - (40/45 * 39/44), which is roughly 22%. 1 to 4 flyer with 1 to 3
pot odds and I still have him way covered if I miss... compared to just
letting him slide? I probably call with that, honestly, especially if
he's the superstitious or scared sort. It's going to be hard to get him
to put all his chips in the pot when I have so many more than him; if I
have $2000, another $100 here won't hurt me anywhere near as much as
going broke will hurt him. By the same token, if I only have $500 in
front of me, this is a clear fold as it's just stupid to give up stack
advantage on such a poor shot at winning.
- --
Derek
insert clever quotation here
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Derek Ray
Hash: SHA1
Derek Ray wrote:
> So, typically the simplest description here of my chances would be "five
> outs twice". With 45 cards remaining in the deck, my chances of winning
> are 1 - (40/45 * 39/44), which is roughly 22%. 1 to 4 flyer with 1 to 3
> pot odds and I still have him way covered if I miss... compared to just
> letting him slide? I probably call with that, honestly, especially if
> he's the superstitious or scared sort. It's going to be hard to get him
> to put all his chips in the pot when I have so many more than him; if I
> have $2000, another $100 here won't hurt me anywhere near as much as
> going broke will hurt him. By the same token, if I only have $500 in
> front of me, this is a clear fold as it's just stupid to give up stack
> advantage on such a poor shot at winning.
Oh, and by the way -- my action here changes based on what type of game
it is. In fixed-limit hold'em, this is a clear fold in all
circumstances where you aren't at least a 3-to-1 dog, because stack
pressure matters a lot less when you can't actually use the entire stack
to bet with.
In pot-limit hold'em, depending on what the blinds are, I probably don't
jump in the situation I described (harder to use your stack in PL), but
there are plenty of others where my chances don't match up perfectly the
pot odds where I do. Just depends, man. =)
- --
Derek
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bob_...@hotmail.com
>
> > Since it was already supposed that the players are equally skilled the
> > expected value of future hands will be 0 regardless of your decision on
> > the current hand.
>
> This is wrong, Bob. I understand that you're not a poker player, and so
> you don't really understand why the stack thing matters -- but if I have
> $2000 in front of me and my opponent has $400 in front of him and we are
> equally skilled players, I am a big favorite to get his $400 simply
> because I can push much harder than he can.
>
Yes. If the play continues until one player is busted you are a
favorite to win if you have more money. This does not at all mean that
the expected increase in your fortune is not 0 on the future hands.
I am guessing though that you do not have a background in stochastic
processes and I doubt I will be able to explain to your satisfaction.
If you or others are interested though I would recommend Sheldon Ross's
text book Probability Modeling.
Bob Koca
Derek Ray
Hash: SHA1
bob_...@hotmail.com wrote:
> Derek Ray wrote:
>
>>> Since it was already supposed that the players are equally skilled the
>>> expected value of future hands will be 0 regardless of your decision on
>>> the current hand.
>> This is wrong, Bob. I understand that you're not a poker player, and so
>> you don't really understand why the stack thing matters -- but if I have
>> $2000 in front of me and my opponent has $400 in front of him and we are
>> equally skilled players, I am a big favorite to get his $400 simply
>> because I can push much harder than he can.
>
> Yes. If the play continues until one player is busted you are a
> favorite to win if you have more money. This does not at all mean that
> the expected increase in your fortune is not 0 on the future hands.
No, Bob. It really means that on any given hand, from the next one to
all future ones, I am a favorite to win that hand because he will need a
stronger hand to call an all-in bet with than I will. Simple math tells
us that the stronger a hand is, the less likely it is to come up -- and
if we completely remove player skill from the equation with your
insistence on "equally skilled", then it is obvious that the guy with
the bigger stack is _always_ more likely to take home the dough on any
given hand.
> I am guessing though that you do not have a background in stochastic
> processes and I doubt I will be able to explain to your satisfaction.
I don't need a background in stochastic processes; I have a background
in "Common Sense" and a not-insignificant amount of experience playing
poker (and other games) for money. You cannot "explain this to my
satisfaction" because what you are saying is just plain wrong. Stack
Size Matters, in whatever gambling game you are playing -- it is just
more obvious in poker because the money is already on the table. And
curiously, I _do_ consider myself to be good at poker by the only
criteria that matters -- my bankroll is bigger now than when I started
out, and I keep very good records of both winning _and_ losing sessions.
(You have to, you see, or you really don't know what the score is.
This is where all the poker players who think they're good, TELL you
they're good, but always seem to keep buying chips come from -- bad
record keeping and selective memory.)
> If you or others are interested though I would recommend Sheldon Ross's
> text book Probability Modeling.
And for you, I recommend Doyle Brunson's "Super System", where you can
learn that Stack Size Matters. An optional course at your local poker
room of bothering to play the game would be ideal, as well.
- --
Derek
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bob_...@hotmail.com
Derek Ray wrote:
> No, Bob. It really means that on any given hand, from the next one to
> all future ones, I am a favorite to win that hand because he will need a
> stronger hand to call an all-in bet with than I will. Simple math tells
> us that the stronger a hand is, the less likely it is to come up -- and
> if we completely remove player skill from the equation with your
> insistence on "equally skilled", then it is obvious that the guy with
> the bigger stack is _always_ more likely to take home the dough on any
> given hand.
>
---
I am sincerely trying to follow the logic used in saying that the
stack loser needs a stronger hand to call an all in bet. Your answer to
the following will assist me. Do you agree with the following
statement: "In a two player game in which the contestants are equally
skilled, playing to maximize your expected winnings on each individual
hand is equivalent to the optimal strategy used to win if the game will
continue until one player is busted?"
---
> > I am guessing though that you do not have a background in stochastic
> > processes and I doubt I will be able to explain to your satisfaction.
>
> I don't need a background in stochastic processes; I have a background
> in "Common Sense" and a not-insignificant amount of experience playing
> poker (and other games) for money. You cannot "explain this to my
> satisfaction" because what you are saying is just plain wrong. Stack
> Size Matters, in whatever gambling game you are playing -- it is just
> more obvious in poker because the money is already on the table. And
> curiously, I _do_ consider myself to be good at poker by the only
> criteria that matters -- my bankroll is bigger now than when I started
> out, and I keep very good records of both winning _and_ losing sessions.
> (You have to, you see, or you really don't know what the score is.
> This is where all the poker players who think they're good, TELL you
> they're good, but always seem to keep buying chips come from -- bad
> record keeping and selective memory.)
>
> > If you or others are interested though I would recommend Sheldon Ross's
> > text book Probability Modeling.
>
> And for you, I recommend Doyle Brunson's "Super System", where you can
> learn that Stack Size Matters. An optional course at your local poker
> room of bothering to play the game would be ideal, as well.
>
> - --
> Derek
---
I don't argue with your results in poker and agree about your
selective memory explanation of why there are seemingly more poker
winners than are possible.
Not relevant to the discussion at hand though. It is possible to be a
winning poker player with some misconceptions about the underlying
math. Also realize that there are several aspects of probability and
statistics in which the correct result is somewhat counterintuitive.
The common sense approach does not always work.
I'll look for the book. Although this particular question we are
discussing is of interest
I find the game itself not so interesting so I'll pass on the optional
course. Like I said before though, just knowing the rules is enough to
analyze this particular question.
Bob Koca
Derek Ray
Hash: SHA1
bob_...@hotmail.com wrote:
> Derek Ray wrote:
>
>> No, Bob. It really means that on any given hand, from the next one to
>> all future ones, I am a favorite to win that hand because he will need a
>> stronger hand to call an all-in bet with than I will. Simple math tells
>> us that the stronger a hand is, the less likely it is to come up -- and
>> if we completely remove player skill from the equation with your
>> insistence on "equally skilled", then it is obvious that the guy with
>> the bigger stack is _always_ more likely to take home the dough on any
>> given hand.
>
> I am sincerely trying to follow the logic used in saying that the
> stack loser needs a stronger hand to call an all in bet.
When you understand this statement, you will be able to follow it:
Poker is a game of incomplete information, and there is almost never a
single "correct" play at any given point in a hand.
If you knew what your opponent has, and you knew what you have, you can
calculate the mathematical odds of your call 'til the end of time and do
reasonably well in all circumstances. But you DON'T know what your
opponent has, and that's the rub.
For an example: let's say I have $2,000 and my opponent ('B') has $400.
Let's also say that the blinds are something non-trivial for both
players, yet still not crippling to the small stack: $15 and $30. Now
let's follow the play through a sample hand. By the way, blinds are
part of _all_ poker games, not just tournament games, including heads-up
matches. You may have overlooked this in your calculations.
- -- I post the big blind of $30 and my opponent posts $15.
- -- B looks at his cards and they are the 8-9 of spades. This is far
from a terrible hand, and heads up you could play it reasonably well.
He calls and puts $15 in the pot.
- -- I bet $400.
As B, can you call here without some sort of indicator that I'm not
holding, say, aces and just faking the bluff? Of course not. Your hand
isn't good enough, even though I might be holding the 5-3 of hearts and
really BE bluffing.
What if you were holding the A-9 of spades? Is that hand good enough to
call? I might make that bet on K-Q; you'd be ahead. But I might make
that bet on A-J, too.
What about if the 9 is an 8, giving you a pair? Is THAT hand good
enough to call? Not if I'm betting on 10-10, it's not -- and if I'm on
A-J, you don't want to leave it all up to a coin flip, do you?
Lacking any other information (which, since these players are equally
skilled, we assume is not available) about the contents of my hand, B
has to fold here because he cannot afford to call and be wrong... or
worse, call and be unlucky. He needs to have some indicator that he has
an advantage -- whether it be that I've made the same play four or five
times in a row (indicating that I _certainly_ have not "had it" at least
a few times in there), or whether I've waited for the flop and am making
an uncharacteristic bet... whichever.
If you reverse the circumstances, I will (in most situations) call with
the pair of 8s, because I *can* afford to call and be wrong or unlucky;
I will still have him covered at $1600 to $800. As the big stack, I am
in a position where I do not need to take as many risks to make money as
the smaller stack does, and when I enter a pot, I am risking less of my
betting power to do so.
Put another way: If he loses his $400, his game is over. If I lose
$400, I have sacrificed none of my ability to win what is now his $800.
> Your answer to
> the following will assist me. Do you agree with the following
> statement: "In a two player game in which the contestants are equally
> skilled, playing to maximize your expected winnings on each individual
> hand is equivalent to the optimal strategy used to win if the game will
> continue until one player is busted?"
No; I do not believe this statement applies to all two-player games, and
I am certain it does not apply to poker.
(There is a sub-discussion here related to someone else's remark about
"what happens if ten equally skilled poker professionals sit down at a
table and play a winner-take all tournament; isn't the result determined
by luck then?" And the answer is of course 'no' -- the result is
determined by which professional is playing the best during that
tournament. However, this is a total non sequitur to the above. =)
> Not relevant to the discussion at hand though. It is possible to be a
> winning poker player with some misconceptions about the underlying
> math.
It is also possible to make the incorrect assumption that the math is
the _only_ aspect that is relative in poker. It isn't; player
personality must also be considered, as must stack size.
> Also realize that there are several aspects of probability and
> statistics in which the correct result is somewhat counterintuitive.
Such as the Monty Hall problem, yes.
> The common sense approach does not always work.
And then again, many times it does.
> course. Like I said before though, just knowing the rules is enough to
> analyze this particular question.
"Just knowing the rules" and not having played the game is also enough
to produce an incorrect analysis of this particular question, it seems.
- --
Derek
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Stick
Holy Lord, you guys are still going!? I am going to say it again as
Derek has tried time and time again to prove. The question at hand did
not have enough information available to give an answer taking in all
the factors that should be taken in to account. It's the most common
problem I see among rookie players writing for advice, they leave out
TONS of information, things they don't even know they should be
thinking about. It's not their fault...they just don't know.
I am much to lazy to explain it, thankfully Derek has tried, and done
quite a nice job. I'm telling you and you can listen to me or not,
idrgaf, but if you asked Ungar a question about Gin (the card game!)
and he told you you didn't supply him the correct information would you
sit there and argue with him or listen to him and figure he's right, he
_is_ the professional player. Now I'm no Stu Ungar of the poker world
but I've played for a living for many years now and I'm telling you,
your question didn't take everything into account so let it go, please
lol
You will never have 'ten equally skilled professionals' at a poker
table even if you hand selected them. It's not even which may be
playing the best that day and yes, there may be some luck involved on
that particular day. I never claimed luck wasn't part of poker, I
claimed that compared to backgammon ... laughable.
"In a two player game in which the contestants are equally
skilled, playing to maximize your expected winnings on each individual
hand is equivalent to the optimal strategy used to win if the game will
continue until one player is busted?"
The above is not true. Nice theory maybe, but not true. I will do
what it takes to win the session, not the hand. If I bluff the first
two hands and he calls me down (or folds and I show him the bluff) and
takes down those pots and that causes him to become a calling station
the rest of the session, that's what I'm going to do, bluff and lose
bluff and lose so I'll win. This is the shortest example I could think
of ... there are many many others...
Stick
bob_...@hotmail.com
>
> Put another way: If he loses his $400, his game is over. If I lose
> $400, I have sacrificed none of my ability to win what is now his $800.
>
Did you really mean to say none? It sounds like you are saying you are
in just as good shape as you were before that hand.
I would appreciate your opinion of the following situation. Player A
has $400, player B has $1600. They are betting on the tosses of a fair
coin until one player is busted. Player A always has the privilege of
deciding what the bet is, it can be any whole amount of dollars from
$1 to the maximum amount either player could cover. Can skillful
betting give A a better chance of busting B than non skillful betting?
If so what is the best betting strategy for A and what probability of
winning does it give?
Stick, what other information do you think it is needed? If you need
to suppose it is a Tuesday evening and that both players are over 5
feet tall.
Bob Koca
Derek Ray
Hash: SHA1
bob_...@hotmail.com wrote:
> I would appreciate your opinion of the following situation. Player A
> has $400, player B has $1600. They are betting on the tosses of a fair
> coin until one player is busted. Player A always has the privilege of
> deciding what the bet is, it can be any whole amount of dollars from
> $1 to the maximum amount either player could cover. Can skillful
> betting give A a better chance of busting B than non skillful betting?
Bob, you are describing a situation that is not comparable to poker,
because it contains perfect information about the game state (an exact
50% chance of winning), there is no money already in the pot, and player
A cannot back out of the bet ('fold'). Your example is not relevant to
the current discussion.
Regardless of this, I no longer believe you are continuing this debate
in good faith. Please go back and reread my previous messages if you do
not understand; all the information is there for you. I hope I meet you
at the poker table someday and you can demonstrate your theories more then.
- --
Derek
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Stick
TUESDAY!? THAT WOULD SWING EVERYTHING ... OMG, U CAN'T MAKE THAT BET
ON A TUESDAY, TUESDAY IS THE 2ND WORST DAY OF THE WEEK (AFTER MONDAY)
TO MAKE SUCH A BET. YOU CAN'T POSSIBLY THINK OF LAYING THIS DOWN ON A
TUESDAY, MIGHT AS WELL HAND OVER YOUR MONEY....
Btw, any time you want to test any of your theories so far, I have a
bankroll that's waiting to be tested. Any time I know I'm right I'll
happily put up the cash to prove it, you just let me know where and
when. Also, as Derek said, your current question is way OT but still,
I'd get the answer 'more correct' than you would lol .... I'm sure
you're a phenomenal backgammon player, but since I suck @ bg and am
only a mediocre poker player you could teach me a lesson at fair
stakes. Let me know ... =)
Stick
Derek Ray
Hash: SHA1
Stick wrote:
> I'm pretty wasted right now but a Tuesday? ARE YOU KIDDING? A
> TUESDAY!? THAT WOULD SWING EVERYTHING ... OMG, U CAN'T MAKE THAT BET
> ON A TUESDAY, TUESDAY IS THE 2ND WORST DAY OF THE WEEK (AFTER MONDAY)
> TO MAKE SUCH A BET. YOU CAN'T POSSIBLY THINK OF LAYING THIS DOWN ON A
> TUESDAY, MIGHT AS WELL HAND OVER YOUR MONEY....
"This must be a Thursday. I never could get the hang of Thursdays."
- --
Derek
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bob_...@hotmail.com
Derek Ray wrote:
> bob_...@hotmail.com wrote:
> > I would appreciate your opinion of the following situation. Player A
> > has $400, player B has $1600. They are betting on the tosses of a fair
> > coin until one player is busted. Player A always has the privilege of
> > deciding what the bet is, it can be any whole amount of dollars from
> > $1 to the maximum amount either player could cover. Can skillful
> > betting give A a better chance of busting B than non skillful betting?
>
> Bob, you are describing a situation that is not comparable to poker,
> because it contains perfect information about the game state (an exact
> 50% chance of winning), there is no money already in the pot, and player
> A cannot back out of the bet ('fold'). Your example is not relevant to
> the current discussion.
>
> Regardless of this, I no longer believe you are continuing this debate
> in good faith. Please go back and reread my previous messages if you do
> not understand; all the information is there for you. I hope I meet you
> at the poker table someday and you can demonstrate your theories more then.
>
> - --
> Derek
>
I agree there are poker elements missing in my situation. I suspect
that there are some basic math misconceptions which would carry over to
the poker situation so I asked a question which stripped away the poker
to test that theory.
For those interested the answer is that the chance of player A
winning the match is
400/(400+1600) = 1/5. This is true no matter what betting strategy is
used.
Like I said before I am not that interested in playing poker. I hope
to meet you at the backgammon table someday though.
Bob Koca
bob_...@hotmail.com
How do you propose that the question at hand could be made into a
bet? For starters it would require 2 equally skilled players.
Regarding the OT question: The answer is that A has 1/5 chance of
winning regardless of his strategy. It has been mathematically proven.
If you want to look into it further a key word is bounded martingale.
Your statement about getting the answer more correct is out there, a
joke?
I am not sure.
I don't enjoy poker but I'll play backgammon with you sometime.
Thanks for your contributions regarding rollouts of openings.
Bob Koca
Derek Ray
Hash: SHA1
bob_...@hotmail.com wrote:
> Derek Ray wrote:
>> Bob, you are describing a situation that is not comparable to poker,
>> because it contains perfect information about the game state (an exact
>> 50% chance of winning), there is no money already in the pot, and player
>> A cannot back out of the bet ('fold'). Your example is not relevant to
>> the current discussion.
>>
>> Regardless of this, I no longer believe you are continuing this debate
>> in good faith. Please go back and reread my previous messages if you do
>> not understand; all the information is there for you. I hope I meet you
>> at the poker table someday and you can demonstrate your theories more then.
>>
> I agree there are poker elements missing in my situation. I suspect
> that there are some basic math misconceptions which would carry over to
> the poker situation so I asked a question which stripped away the poker
> to test that theory.
However, your situation also stripped away some key elements of the
original scenario which are necessary to the discussion. Again, you are
no longer arguing in good faith -- every time your "questions" are
responded to with an answer you do not like, you go back and attempt to
redefine the premise and circumstances so that your expected answer will
be the one you receive. Your "situation" is simply another example of
this, and so I chose to not waste time responding with the obvious answer.
> For those interested the answer is that the chance of player A
> winning the match is 400/(400+1600) = 1/5. This is true no matter what betting strategy is
> used.
And, for those interested (just to remove all misconceptions that Bob is
trying to create), these chances do NOT hold true for a similar
situation in poker, for the reasons I have mentioned in many places in
this thread, and specifically in the first quoted paragraph.
- --
Derek
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bob_...@hotmail.com
Suppose there are two equally skilled world class poker players
playing Texas holdem no limit until one player is busted. Player A has
$400 and player B has $1600. The blinds are $10/20. Who is the big
blind to start is determined randomly.
What is the probability that A wins?
Stick, what other information is needed?
Derek Ray, Is this question on topic enough for you? I am sincerely
interested in an answer to this question. You say my answer of 1/5 is
incorrect and gave a reason why you think my reasoning is incorrect. Do
you (or anyone else) have an answer though? If so is it based on
intuition/common sense, stats based on actual past results, math
modeling, other?
Bob Koca
Derek Ray
Hash: SHA1
bob_...@hotmail.com wrote:
> I am sincerely interested in an answer to this question.
I don't believe you. Sorry.
Good luck at the tables, Bob.
- --
Derek
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Peter Hallberg
on the wrong foot. Perhaps it's just a way to get the debate started,
I don't know.
To compare backgammon and poker you need to understand the basic
differences of the games. First let's take a look at the standard
tournament structure.
Backgammon:
· Players are divided into flights primary based on their skill
level.
· All matches are played heads up.
· The draw is random (no seedning).
· When a match is over one player has 100% ME and the other 0% ME.
Poker (No-Limit):
· Everyone plays in one flight
· You are playing against several players
· When a table is broken up you don't have to leave with 0 or all
the chips (unless it's a shootout)
These differences makes it impossible (or at least very difficult) to
compare the two games. On the other hand it seems quite obvious to us
heads up poker championships as the common ground for comparison.
At the world backgammon championship (WBC) there are between 250 and
300 participants. Every match is played to 17 points in the opening
rounds and 25 points in the final. By reasons beyond my understanding
the WBC is played without clocks which make a standard match last from
3 to 7 hours.
To have the same go for a heads up poker tournaments you would have to
play with very deep stacks, which the better player benefits from.
Now, the games.
To master any of the games you have to be extremely skill full. The
higher level any of the games are played at the more facets of the
games comes into play. At this level it could be an endless discussion
about details of each game. I think it's more interesting to look at
the general (and up) level of play. Let's compare games again.
Backgammon:
· The rules are quite easy but even the simplest strategies takes
some practice and work to grasp.
· A good (might not be the best) strategy is to try to make the
objectively best move.
· A sound mathematical understanding of the game won't get you far.
· Understanding game plans is the key to the game. Long time
planning.
· You have to make both easy and (really) hard decisions.
Poker (standard NL tournament, not heads up):
· The rules are extremely simple. Learning to play ultra tight and
betting hard with good cards will get you surprisingly far in the game.
· A good (definitely not the best) strategy is to try to make the
objectively best move.
· A sound mathematical understanding of the game will get you quite
far.
· Understanding that poker is a game of information is the key to the
game.
· Understanding the dynamics of "what has happened in recent
hands" is crucial in reaching a fair playing level.
· You have the option to have a hand selection which will generally
keep you out of harms way.
· You can chose not to get involved with the best players at the
table.
I think the understanding of poker is undeveloped even among most poker
players. The idea of never have to face a computer telling you what was
right or wrong leeds a lot of players into believing they never or
seldom make mistakes. As a backgammon player you know exactly what you
did wrong and the magnitude of the error.
The fact that you can do reasonable in poker with little understanding
of the game adds to the misconception of how difficult it is to
learn/master the finer thinks of poker strategy. The most important
part of poker is to get information and not give any away. Yes, I know
- nothing new here. I have been playing full time poker for two years
now and I tell you that most players don't use that concept much.
Information costs and most players are not willing to pay. They rather
play their hands in the dark. I can compare it with not wanting to
leave blots in backgammon. Leaving a blot is a kind of payment for
getting a chance to improve your position. Everybody does that in
backgammon except the novices.
My conclusion is that the luck/skill ratio is about evenly shared among
poker and backgammon. It takes more skill to play backgammon but you
have more ways to avoid troubles (read: bad luck) in poker.
Regards,
Peter Hallberg
Gregg Cattanach
> My conclusion is that the luck/skill ratio is about evenly shared
> among poker and backgammon. It takes more skill to play backgammon
> but you have more ways to avoid troubles (read: bad luck) in poker.
>
A good post, Peter, and despite my earlier foray into this discussion, you
are probably right. The luck/skill component of the two games is probably
quite similar, with lots of 'bad beats' possible in both games, and lots of
opportunities for very weak players to win in the short-term.
I really like what Danny Kleinman had to say when asked what percent of luck
there was in backgammon. He responded by saying that this is completely the
wrong question to be asked and misses the essence of the game. Backgammon
is a 100% LUCK-MANAGEMENT game, where all your decisions and all the skill
is based on managing what luck, good or bad, you've had already and planning
ahead for the luck, good or bad, that will be coming in the future.
Basically, the same concept applies to poker.
--
Gregg C.
Stick
People are paining me ... get over poker = NL Texas Hold em and maybe I
can join the discussion. When you see who enters the 2006 H.O.R.S.E.
event and come back and talk to me about luck v. skill, backgammon v.
poker.
Stick
Peter Hallberg
but isn't that event designed to honor skill in poker? $50K buy-in and
different games.
You could do the same with backgammon. Make a nackgammon and
supernackgammon tournament with long matches and ultra high buy-in.
If you have to compare the games in generel you need to look at the
most widely played variations of each game.
Regards,
Peter Hallberg
Stick
But those games ARE widely played. The only reason more people won't
be entering is the entry fee & no online poker sites (as far as I know)
are offering gimpy qualifiers to get into the HORSE event. Nobody
seriously plays Nackgammon or Supernackgammon for money like people
play the poker games. The comparison is ... laughable.
Stick
Peter Hallberg
> But those games ARE widely played.
If you say so...
> The only reason more people won't
> be entering is the entry fee & no online poker sites (as far as I know)
> are offering gimpy qualifiers to get into the HORSE event.
Full Tilt Poker does. And still my point is that of course its going to
be really strong players entering the event when it was made/designed
for the pros as a tournament to crown their king. I don't dispute that
the HORSE event is the event which takes the most skill to win.
> Nobody
> seriously plays Nackgammon or Supernackgammon for money like people
> play the poker games.
I was setting up an example of how to make a tournament structure which
horners skill more in backgammon. I didn't say a lot of players are
playing the game.
> The comparison is ... laughable.
Please...
As I read your post you say that a significant part of the poker played
today aren't (NL) hold'em?
Regards,
Peter Hallberg