Poker Superstars
Phil Hellmuth
|
|
Poker Debate: Skill vs Luck |
It’s probably one of the oldest arguments in poker: do people win because of luck or because of skill? To one extent, it’s a completely ridiculous argument⎯obviously it requires some level or skill in order to understand even the most basic concepts. But how much really is skill? A recent study by student Michael DeDonno, a PhD student at Case Western Reserve University, claims to have the goods.
For his experiment, Michael DeDonno got together a group of 41 college students who did not have any knowledge of poker. He separated them into two groups: one group did not receive any instruction about the game, and the others got a basic layout wherein they were told what hands were good starting and how professional players tend to play less than 20% of their hands. These two groups both went through 200 hands of poker with “results” graphing their outcomes in chips.
As you might guess, the players who’d been given information about the game did better than those who didn’t. In another related study, DeDonno also found that players who played less hands tended to do better than when they played a lot of hands.
I’m not sure what this information is supposed to prove. Yes, it’s clear that someone given a basic understanding of the game is going to do better than someone who has no idea. But that’s true for anything: craps, darts, Candyland. If no one tells you how to play Candyland, you’re going to get whipped by those who are given some ‘strategy’. So I really don’t see how this study ‘proves’ poker is based on skill, though it does prove the obvious: those who understand the game tend to do better than than those who don’t.
So moving beyond this study, then, how much of poker is really skill?
I don’t think it’s quite right to cite a basic understanding of the game as a sole determinant, but I’m also in agreement that in order to do well OVER TIME, skill is more important as opposed to in the short run. In the short run, luck has a big effect, as anyone who’s seen the donkey at the table end up catching all the chips can attest to.
But what can also be attested to is this: if that donkey continues to play by riding on his ‘luck’ he will go broke. Part of the law of probability includes the idea that the improbably will happen. Over time, if you keep putting all your money in blindly or at will, you will go broke. The odds will break you. Though the same is true of roulette: you have to know how to play to even have a chance.
One of the major argument people tend to make for poker being skill is ‘If poker’s not skill, how come you see the same players at the final tables everytime?’
Well, you don’t anymore. The days of enormous fields have put an end to that, making luck a bit more of a presence than it ever had been. When you’re playing with players who are all well-versed in the game, it tends to come down to who gets lucky as opposed to who is the best. If the best were always the best and luck had no factor, you wouldn’t see fields of unknowns ending out the huge tournaments. A lot of the reason you kept seeing those faces is that they were always at the tournaments! They were the majority of people buying in, and they show up at all the big ones. So by numbers alone, you’re going to see them. Now those days are gone.
So in the end, poker is probably a lot more luck than people like to admit. What I think really makes the difference are the long run numbers. In order to make money in the long run, there’s no question you have to have discipline and skill, otherwise the odds will catch you, as they do everyone. Poker is a game of luck that can be tilted in your favor in many key ways, which over time (hopefully) add up to showing you a profit when you are playing ‘with skill.’ For that reason, and that reason alone, poker should be considered skill based and luck governed. |
|
|
.jpg){kind=small}
