Slashdot Mirror
Revised Mass. Gambling Bill Won't Criminalize Online Poker
travdaddy writes "As reported on Slashdot only about a week ago, a passage of a gambling bill in Massachusetts would have criminalized online poker. That passage has been stricken due to the help of a grass-roots organization called the Poker Players Alliance. It 'quickly got the message to all of its Massachusetts members — around 25,000 people — and over 1,000,000 nationwide to make their voices heard; apparently lawmakers were listening since the language making online poker illegal — and online gaming in general — was taken out of the legislation.' Another Massachusetts bill may even 'take [poker] completely out of the gambling genre' and make it legislated as a game of skill."
After watching Phil Ivey burn out at the WSOP last year... I'd say it's both. It's about making the right decision based on what you know, and what ou have. You can't last long in tournament play if you're a sloppy player, and on the reverse, no matter how good you are, if you're drawing crap hands, even if you muscle in with crap cards, it's going to destroy you.
It's also certainly gambling, but it's not the same as blackjack or slots which is entirely a you vs the house, it is a you versus everyone else(the house gets a small cut) situation.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
Considering that the biggest gripe of the WSP old-hands is that young players are ruining the game by relying too much on aggressive betting, I would like to argue that it is not nearly as much a game of skill as a lot of people think.
Yes, there's a big gap between someone who doesn't what they're doing and someone who knows the odds, the optimal bet associated with the odds and when someone's bluffing. At the same time, once you get to a certain level, it boils down to whether you get the cards you need. If you don't, you will lose - regardless of how awesome your strategy, card-counting and face-reading is.
So, yes, there's skill in Poker. But you can still do nothing but lose just because you're getting crap cards - or win just because you keep getting awesome cards.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Likewise I suppose, while the 500m sprint is usually a game of skill, theres nothing stopping a meteorite from pummeling you into the clay dirt and losing the race.
It's all a matter of chance really. Albeit, the odds of being dealt a crap hand are pretty high, and being hit by space rock are...
wait for it....
astronomical!
Considering that the biggest gripe of the WSP old-hands is that young players are ruining the game by relying too much on aggressive betting, I would like to argue that it is not nearly as much a game of skill as a lot of people think.
Tournament play is heavily influenced by luck. One bad beat and you're out. End of story.
Cash play, however, is a game of skill. A skilled player brushes off a bad beat, waits out the cold cards, and makes money in the long run. The overly aggressive risk-taker who just won a tournament will lose every penny of his winnings, and then some, if he chooses to sit down at a cash table and see how his playing style works for him in the long run.
"You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war." -- Albert Einstein
Yet strangely grandmaster chess games are often like 3-2, and not always 5-0. I guess chess isn't a game of skill then. Hmm.
obligatory: I'm not saying that the apparent chance element of chess is in any meaningful way the "same" as the intrinsic chance element of poker, but it does seem hard to define legislatively. Certainly your definition would exclude (almost?) all interesting games.
I mean, there are even people who manage to gain statistical edge in rock-paper-scissors tournaments. Apparently anytime there are 2+ people in symmetric situation, who both want something, a skill pops up.
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
if the deck keeps spitting out cards that favor your opponent
Too much personification is misleading, and by grammar nazi rule, nicht erlaubt.
Yes, there exist a probability that your opponent will receive repeated winning hands, but that is just probability. In a general sense, games of pure probability are not games of skill. The skill in poker lies in the ability to read people's playing tactics over a period of time, recognize biological cues and behavioral patterns to 'read' their hand, 'read' their non-verbal signals, and manipulate the table with a high degree of personal physiological control.
Poker is a social game, and theirin lies the root of the skill. The probability involved in poker is just the medium for influencing the social dynamics that constitute the 'skill' portion of the game.
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
In any game or sport there are elements of luck. Take Scrabble for example. I doubt many would deny that Scrabble is a game skill. Yet there's a huge amount of luck involved in which letters you choose, and when you get them.
Granted, luck plays a large factor in a single hand of poker. However, poker is not a game of individual hands. The better players will be distinguished from the less skillful in the long run; hundreds of thousands of hands.
I mean, seriously, a game of skill is a game where if your skill is superior to your opponent's you win, period. In poker if the deck keeps spitting out cards that favor your opponent you can have all the skill in the world, and you will lose...
You're thinking short term. Skill pays off in the long run.
It's statistically impossible for the cards to always favour your opponent. Eventually, you will be dealt a better hand than your opponent's hand.
A simple way to look at it is this. In an infinite number of hands dealt randomly to two players, Player A will be dealt the better hand 50% of the time, and Player B will be dealt the better hand 50% of the time. If A is "perfectly" skilled and B is "perfectly" unskilled, then A will ensure that he wins the maximum amount of money on the hands that he wins, and loses the least amount of money on the hands that he loses. Additionally, when both players have "iffy" hands, A will play in such a way as to convince B that B's hand is inferior, even when it's not, so that B will fold and give the pot to A.
Over the long run, A will make more money, even though he isn't dealt more winning hands, and even though there will be periods of time when B is being dealt a sequence of winning hands.
Of course, this only really applies to cash play, as tournaments have a designated end, and therefore they are much more influenced by luck.
"You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war." -- Albert Einstein
First, tournament poker is only one form of the game and involves higher variance compared to a cash game. But while the outcome of any individual hand or of a single tournament is a combination of luck and skill, long-run outcomes can only differ among individuals on the basis of skill, since the random factors do not favor any particular individual in the long run.
There's more to poker than "reading", it has multiple levels of skills.
If two people are playing and neither of them knows how to play at all it'll be pure chance, whomever gets the best cards will win.
If one of them know some pretty simple probability (either book knowledge or just from experience of seeing what happens), they'll have an edge.
If one knows basic probability, and the other knows conditional probability they'll have an edge.
If one knows conditional probability but the other also knows game theory, they'll have an edge.
Then there's the reading you mention, which operated in parallel. Though I would argue that simple things like observing (and remembering) betting patterns are significantly more useful than observing biological cues.