Landmark experiment

Pokerevents

During my short visit to the Concord Vienna I was given details by the management of their long legal battle with the authorities for the right to stay open. The situation is still in limbo despite the owner of the Concord producing a 300 page document he commissioned a leading mathematics expert from a Dutch university to complete. The study is a reseach into the claim that poker is a game of skill rather than luck. The results have a rating chart from 0 to 100 with the games of pure luck coming in at 0 and the games of pure skill coming in at 100. e.g roulette comes in at 0 and chess comes in at 100. Every poker game came in over the 50 mark.
However the courts response was that the theory of the report was very complicated and they could not source a expert to question the valididy of the claims. Because of this report the courts will now NOT shut the concord down however they will not accept it as conclusive prove that poker is a game of skill.
However the Concord are determined for the authorities not only in Austria but throughout Europe to reconize the fact that poker in particular tournament poker is not only a game of skill but should be reconized as a sport. They believe a pratical experiment to compliment the report is what is needed. The new idea is to host a series of tournaments with 6 partiscipants. Two professionals, two inexperienced players, two complete novices. Each seat has a value (5k) to ensure the players are motivated to play their best to win the game. This experiment is going to be carried out in several countries simutaneously with the media, leading schoolars, and independent witnesses invited to see the outcome.
I'm strongly considering working with the concord and running this experiment here in Ireland. The costs are considerable (30k prizepool for starters) but I would be able to share the findings and conclusion of the report. This is a massive opportunity for tournament poker to be reconized not only as a game of skill but also a sport. However, the two pro's need to win every tournament in every country. This is where boards.ie comes in, 1) which professionals should be put forward, 2) how do we choose the medium players and 3) how can we be sure of getting 2 complete novices?

bohsman

Andy Black and Donnacha as the pros
2 pokerevents players who play regularly but never quite get there as the medium.
2 of the people who worry about you gambling and refuse to believe its skill as the novices - girlfriends etc

Samba

Darn double post, sorry

Samba

In short the pros would have to win 6 6 seater straight STT's, can be easily done, what if variance strikes? all in Post Flop with AA v J9 SOOOTED? Flop A87 two hearts?

This is not sufficient imo, you need to broaden this experiment and allow for some failure by the pros.

Austrian courts of law can be a strange place.

I'll be your medium ability player Fintan, I am mediocre at best when it comes to Poker.

sleepypriest

Pokerevents wrote:

I'm strongly considering working with the concord and running this experiment here in Ireland. The costs are considerable (30k prizepool for starters) but I would be able to share the findings and conclusion of the report.

However, the two pro's need to win every tournament in every country.

I think this is a great idea but is having the above statement on a public forum wise?

This report when completed will obviously have people trying to knock it and the above statement from one of the proposed organisers gives weight to the arguement that it was not a fair tournament i.e the pros will be given an advantage.

I am not saying they will, but I just think saying it is unwise. You know what tabliods are like and a statement like this can be mis quoted. I used to post on Man United forums and the tabliods used always come on the forums for gossip the amount of BS that got misquoted was unreal.


I am going to take the tin foil off my head and calm down:(

Scotty #

Samba wrote:

In short the pros would have to win 6 6 seater straight STT's

Yea I think there is a better way to "prove" this. One Pro can take the other out early. Then the remaining Pro gets a bad beat and nothing is proven.

I think a team of 6 as above but instead of pitting them against each other in a one off, have them play 10 STT's each, live and online, but not against each other. This will allow for variance and bad beats against each other, and will give a far more accurate result IMO.

nikorami

Heads up poker. Pit the Pro against the Newbie. The pro against the average Merrion/Fitz player and the average Merrion/Fitz Player against a newbie. This would be the better experiment. Skill, class and experience will be showcased at its finest HU and will eliminate any luck or a pro taking out a pro like the other case.

Samba

I would agree, if this was a HU tournament. HU and 6 seater play are very different in terms of how they are played.

Experimenting on HU play would not provide conclusive results.

Samba

I honestly feel that the scope would have to be very very broad, 100-500 STT's and analyse the results of each player individually, it would clearly be seen who profited & placed the most.

It's a bit like saying, this RNG is rigged, I have 100 samples of hands proving it.........

RoundTower

Pokerevents wrote:

The study is a reseach into the claim that poker is a game of skill rather than luck. The results have a rating chart from 0 to 100 with the games of pure luck coming in at 0 and the games of pure skill coming in at 100. e.g roulette comes in at 0 and chess comes in at 100. Every poker game came in over the 50 mark.

The new idea is to host a series of tournaments with 6 partiscipants. Two professionals, two inexperienced players, two complete novices. However, the two pro's need to win every tournament in every country.

Let's say, for the sake of argument, that you really can put different games on a "rating chart". So chess, draughts, go, x's and o's, etc, all come in at 100. Poker comes in somewhere above 50, probably behind scrabble and backgammon, maybe ahead of bridge and definitely ahead of Monopoly.

Then why would you expect the better players to win every time? That would indicate that poker was completely skill-based, with no luck involved whatsoever. If the report's rating chart isn't completely meaningless, you should be able to use it to predict the number of tournaments the professionals will win, on average, using this format. And it definitely isn't 100%.

Pokerevents

Quote sleepypriest "This report when completed will obviously have people trying to knock it and the above statement from one of the proposed organisers gives weight to the arguement that it was not a fair tournament i.e the pros will be given an advantage."


I'm sure I understand this. How can the tournament be not fair and how can the professionals get a advantage??

RMcG

I think poker is a game of skill with some amount of luck involved. Probably 70% 30% or somewhere around there. But it will be a bad day for professional poker players if authorities do start to recognise poker as a game of skill. People think they are doing great work trying to get our sport recognised as just that but the consequences could be catastrophic for pros.

If our sport does become recognised as a sport and as a profession we then become taxable and playing poker tax free is what makes it worth while playing as a professional, certainly for me anyway.

I hope Im wrong, does anyone know for definite if we can become taxable if poker becomes recognised as a legitimate profession and sport?

I hope not.

Mr. Flibble

Not to rain on your parade but somthing like that isn't very scientific and shouldn't be given much consideration in court, imho. Using the results of a long career playing poker would give much stronger evidence that skill is involved. If somone makes money 90% of the time over 10000 hours its pretty strong evidence. If they are that lucky they should stick to playing the eurolotto.

That said, I'll take a seat as a nonpro if you go ahead

Pokerevents

bohsman wrote:

Andy Black and Donnacha as the pros
2 pokerevents players who play regularly but never quite get there as the medium.
2 of the people who worry about you gambling and refuse to believe its skill as the novices - girlfriends etc

Hi Oscar,

Donnacha certainly would be one of my nonimations. However Andy's type of play may not suit. What I mean by this is I think Andy is a more sophisticated player and some of his incredibly brave moves may not work on total novices.
I think what is required is a complete rock tight grinder. Also the prizepool needs to be considered. It may not be substanstial enough to motivate Andy. I could be totally wrong here, please comment.

Pokerevents players I would like to think would be medium to good as the venue's we host the tournaments are weekly with a good structure, and this gives the partiscipants opportunity to improve their play each week. What about 2 x pub tourney players?

Last catagory should be easiest to fulfill. Your suggestion is a good one about girlfriends, only thing Oscar you'd be coaching your missus day and night to win that prizepool and f-ck the experiment.

Hectorjelly

This seems bizarre to me, I think its a near certainty that the pros dont win every event.

Pokerevents

Hectorjelly wrote:

This seems bizarre to me, I think its a near certainty that the pros dont win every event.

Why is it bizarre?
If the pro's dont win every game i.m.o the medium players/s will pick up a game or two and most definetly not the complete novices.
Does this not then give a clear idea of how much skill/luck involved?

RoundTower

I also think Andy is too prone to messing around. Haven't played with Donnacha. Someone like Scott Gray would be ideal.

Hectorjelly

Pokerevents wrote:

Why is it bizarre?
If the pro's dont win every game i.m.o the medium players/s will pick up a game or two and most definetly not the complete novices.
Does this not then give a clear idea of how much skill/luck involved?

You could play 100 of these and still have no idea. There has been tonnes of research done into this already, not least by the stt forum on 2+2; where they have analysed data sets of over 10k stts. Playing one tournament (or 6) is the equivalent to tossing a dice once and concluding that its biased.

Pokerevents

Hectorjelly wrote:

You could play 100 of these and still have no idea. There has been tonnes of research done into this already, not least by the stt forum on 2+2; where they have analysed data sets of over 10k stts. Playing one tournament (or 6) is the equivalent to tossing a dice once and concluding that its biased.

Is the research done by 2+2 based on the same idea? And/or can you forward me a link to what you are referring to?
The idea is that these are run in several different countries. If the results are completely different and we still have no idea as you suggest than that is the result and so be it. However I think you will find that there will be almost identical results from each location (imho).
Putting 2 x pros 2 x medium and 2 x complete novices against each other cannot be compared to tossing a dice. Any way you will have a good opportunity to put your money down and bet on the out come.

willis

RMcG wrote:

I think poker is a game of skill with some amount of luck involved. Probably 70% 30% or somewhere around there. But it will be a bad day for professional poker players if authorities do start to recognise poker as a game of skill. People think they are doing great work trying to get our sport recognised as just that but the consequences could be catastrophic for pros.

If our sport does become recognised as a sport and as a profession we then become taxable and playing poker tax free is what makes it worth while playing as a professional, certainly for me anyway.

I hope Im wrong, does anyone know for definite if we can become taxable if poker becomes recognised as a legitimate profession and sport?

I hope not.

I have to agree with the above. Also by saying poker is a skill based game you may drive away the fishies who think "its all luck". Also as others have stated i dont think this experiment would be useful or prove anything. who cares if some people think its a luck based game, let them. Is it only casinos in Austria or is this worldwide??

Hectorjelly

Pokerevents wrote:

Is the research done by 2+2 based on the same idea? And/or can you forward me a link to what you are referring to?

No its not, but there has been several threads about what type of edge good players have over bad ones, using results from 10k+ data sets. The biggest edge its felt a player can have whilst playing stts is to run a ROI of about 40%. This means winning 1/5. When you consider that, to suggest that running an experiment using 6 trials will give any useful data is crazy. I understand that this will be a different structure and with unusual match up of players, but you cant get away from the fact that the results will be statistically insignificent.

NickyOD

The problem with the experiment is tournament poker without a doubt has a high element of luck. Even in a tourney with pros Vs fish the increasing blinds may provide a safety net for the bad players. The deeper the stacks and longer the blinds the more likely the pros are to triumph. If you put the same players together in a deep stacked cash game, an amateur stands absolutely zero chance against a professional.

RoundTower

Pokerevents wrote:

However I think you will find that there will be almost identical results from each location (imho).
Putting 2 x pros 2 x medium and 2 x complete novices against each other cannot be compared to tossing a dice. Any way you will have a good opportunity to put your money down and bet on the out come.

I would like to bet on the outcome of this. I'll bet that over six of these tournaments, if they go ahead, not all of them are won by one of the professional players. Will you take this at even money for €1000?

hotspur

That is a rather novel but bizarre idea. If it is a hook for promoting poker tournies across different countries with media and some shared interest in the results it's fair enough, as a genuine scientific experiment it is crazy and will be dismissed as such. With respect to the issue of whether or not it is a sport (which is irrelevant to whether it is gambling, it can be 2 things, so legally this is irrelevant), from an international perspective what body are you trying to convince it is a sport? The only one I can really think of that one might want to convince is the Olympic committee like the chess heads are trying at the moment, but they aren't the arbiters of what is a sport, just what they include as medal sports in their games eg body building!!! Sport is a fuzzy concept without any agreed upon geenral definiton, but things can be considered eligible for sports funding in individual countries according to their own criteria. Incidentally the very vast majority of definitions of sport anywhere include a physical activity element as being a necessary criterion.

Spending time trying to establish it as a sport will be waste of time which could be focused on establishing it as a game of skill instead, which *might* float in some jurisdiction with a dumbass judge. Look to California for that. But I don't think that any intelliegent, unbribed judge who ever deliberates over the issue with comprehensive evidence will ever dismiss it as gambling, which is the main point. And the bottom line is: yes there is an element of skill involved, but the vast majority of players playing it are playing at the level of chance, if their cards run good they do well if not they don't, only a small % are consistently demonstrating the skill element in terms of results.
It's gonna be tricky. I htink the best strategy is to accept it as gambling and fight the issue over the right to hold tournaments in which there is gambling involved.

bohsman

My table in the Joeshow - Myself Chris Green, Christy Reilly(?) a good Gutshot player and 4 novice players. I knocked the gutshotter out in 6th or so with the classic AK v QQ all in preflop, other than that it was a final 3 of myself Chris and Christy.

RMcG

I forgot that the Joe Show was on at the weeknd Oscar...have you any reports or News on who won it etc etc...or is it a secret till its shown on telly....

ocallagh

don't know who won it rob. norman qualified from my table. i was CL for most of it after an early double up. Snowy caught up with me and we both had 11k from our starting 5k. last hand b4 break i get AA. Snowy limps in mid position. I raise to 900, he calls. Flop Qc9h5h. Snowy announces all-in for 10k:eek: I know I'm currently ahead as he'd never play a set this way. I call knowing I have a few cards to avoid. He turns over KhQh:mad: and he is favourite. I was happy enough with the call. Only one winner from each table and if I took that 23k pot I'd have fancied my chances. I have no idea how Norman came back from 4k to beat Snowy!!

RMcG

Cheers Niall, unlucky mate.

DeVore

How did we get onto the topic of the Joe Show?

Back on topic please. Fintan I would agree with your analysis of Andy with regard to this but I would also have to agree with HJ... this will statistically prove nothing I'm afraid and I'd be amazed if all pros won all events in all countries. I'd also bet against that if you are taking RT's bet.

DeV.

mewso

Yes indeed. Someone is joking right? Is it April yet? You cannot seriously think 6 STTs will prove anything. Even if the pros won all 6 it would still be an inaccurate representation. Is this a reaction to the courts inability to understand a complicated mathematical document on the matter. Give them a completely simple but ridiculous stunt instead.

jacQues

Pokerevents wrote:

They believe a pratical experiment to compliment the report is what is needed.

There are a few 'obstacles' to this.

1) Define "poker". The definition of a "poker hand" is easy enough. But are we talking just "Texas hold'em" or is "draw poker" included? Simply saying "poker" isn't good enough, as all the variations are soooo different. Who here would play a high stakes "draw poker" game? I consider them to be different games, even though they are all based on the same "poker hands". My conclusion: you would need a different experiment for each game and not let one conclusion apply to another game.

For argument-sake, for the rest of my reply I will assume the game "Texas hold'em".

2) Include all variations. Just running a six-people STT doesn't "stretch" it. You would need to include all variations. This is including, but not limited to:
a) fixed limits, spread limit, pot limit, no-limit, CASH GAME (ignore b to e)
b) freeze-out, re-buy without top-up, rebuy with top-up
c) heads-up, short-handed (6 people), full-table (10 people), multi-table with table balancing, multi-table shoot-out
d) turbo (5 minute blinds), fast (10 minute blinds), normal (15-20 minute blinds), slow (25-30 minute blinds)
e) short-stacked (start with 10-74 BBs), mid-stacked (start with 75-150 BBs), high-stacked (start with 151-250 BBs)
My conclusion: Texas hold'em has many different variations. Some variations may be more gambling and less play whereas other variations may be more skill and less gambling.

Actually, I am certain that "may be" above is "defenitely is". Note that I don't consider the value (buy-in) to be of no relevance what-so-ever in regards to how skillfull the game is. If a player changes his/her play because of the low/high stakes, (s)he is not playing optimal. Therefore, such players by default are gambling more and playing less. (read: that player intentionally gambles) This is especially true in cash games. On a full table you will typically see 1 (or more) player(s) playing ultra-tight with their min. buy-in and 1 (or more) player(s) playing ultra-loose with their huge stack. This leads me to point 3.

3) Money talks. It is important for legislations to have a good understanding of the role of money in any given game. If money is the only motivation to play the game, its arguably a gambling game no matter how skillfull it may be. Suppose that all casinos around Ireland would run a qualifier tournament, say once or twice a month. It would cost -say- 5 euro to enter, to pay for dealers etc. Only a single ticket can be won, for the winner of-course, to the yearly Irish Texas hold'em championships. In these championships, there are trophies for the final table but there is no prize-money to be won. (maybe some sponsored prizes though) IF such a thing would exist, would it get players? If you would get NO players, then wouldn't it logically be a gambling game? I think it would get many players. You'd be surprised how many people flock to feeders of qualifiers for certain other games, where you cannot win a cent. All for the fame and glory. :-) I for one would definitely play. And I think some of the serious (pro?) players here would too. Why? Because Texas hold'em is still a fun and competative game of skills AND luck. Winning money is nice, winning money by playing a fun and competative game is even nicer. This doesn't however dismiss the true nature of the game. My conclusion: Its both skills AND luck. The relation between them depends on what variation you are playing. But 51/49 would be a good estimate I'd guess.

jacQues

Pokerevents

musician wrote:

Yes indeed. Someone is joking right? Is it April yet? You cannot seriously think 6 STTs will prove anything. Even if the pros won all 6 it would still be an inaccurate representation. Is this a reaction to the courts inability to understand a complicated mathematical document on the matter. Give them a completely simple but ridiculous stunt instead.

O.k lets get this clear. No-one mentioned anything about 6 SnG's.
This is my understanding (I need to point out I have'nt got anything in writing yet).
6 different patiscipants playing a series of tournaments in several countries.
2 x pro's 2 x medium 2 x complete novice. I understand the tournaments will consist of hold em (nl & lim)/ omaha( nl & pl) / 7 card stud / draw/ and other variants to be decided.
I believe the pro's will come out on top. However I would'nt bet my house on it , but what I would bet my house on is that the novices will not, in any country. I think this is the whole point, that the same formula in several places that will produce almost identical results.

kincsem

NickyOD wrote:

The problem with the experiment is tournament poker without a doubt has a high element of luck. Even in a tourney with pros Vs fish the increasing blinds may provide a safety net for the bad players. The deeper the stacks and longer the blinds the more likely the pros are to triumph. If you put the same players together in a deep stacked cash game, an amateur stands absolutely zero chance against a professional.

I agree. The longer the game the less chance that luck will influence the result. You would need about 100 hours of serious poker to prove that skill wins.

What amazes me is the difference in standard between the bottom and top (there is a huge gap). Most players don't realise this. High blinds, self-dealt (pub poker) is a luck fest. In those games you don't see many hands.

I played a 10000 player freeroll on PokerStars last weekend. There were no prizes, just an entry into something else. I finished 129th. If those 10000 players were given free entry into the $215 PokerStars Sunday night game ($1,000,000 guaranteed) I doubt if more than a handful would cash. Top players would pressurise the hell out of them.

JuliusFranco

Pick some of the judges as the novices! Let them put their money where their mouth is!

RoundTower

Fintan, do you have a link to the original study?

robinlacey

i don't mean to be rude,but i don't see how someone who runs poker tournaments could fail to see how ridiculous this idea is-you would need to run 10's of thousands of tournaments to prove anything,for the reasons mentioned by hectorjelly and others...however,i remember reading about some landmark supreme court case in america which concluded that poker was a game of skill,some player needed to prove this as part of his case,and in conclusion the judge suggested that those lawyers arguing that there was no skill involved play the poker player for their fees and see how they get on...
i think,and again i could be wrong on the details,but i think this court case was also what made poker winning taxeable in the states,so maybe keeping it on the qt would be the best policy...