Re: Ability to Predict a Players Skill based on Intelligence.
 

I think some people really want to believe that smart = success because they believe they are smart and they wish to avoid uncertainty.

I think its more like:

(statistics and basic math skills) + (discipline) + (emotional control) + (people reading skills) + (constant learning) + (experience) + (luck) = success.

If this were not the case your freshmen stats proffessor would be rich.

Re: Ability to Predict a Players Skill based on Intelligence.
 

Many very sharp people can't handle the swings of the game for whatever reason. Which is one factor that you can't really measure in a test until you're in the thick of it.

If cards were played without monetary investment, you might be right. Money changes quite a bit. It can go very deep psychologically. To become a pro, you not only have to be at least somewhat sharp, i think you have to have the right psychological make-up for it also. Which to me, would be a big factor longterm in their success.

b

Re: Ability to Predict a Players Skill based on Intelligence.
 

Ok... so that is the rough list... now we should rank them.

1. Experience

2. Constant Learning

3. Emotional Control

4. Discipline

5. Statistics and Basic Math Skills

6. People Reading

7. Luck

Re: Ability to Predict a Players Skill based on Intelligence.
 

SpiderMnKe, I meant in no way for my post to be naive or express my distaste for the general population. I grew up in a working class mining town - most of my friends will never go to college and I would never hold that against them. I am aware the my experience with the SAT is extremely rare and I am thankful for my genes.

I wanted to show how arbitrary the SAT seemed to be - I jumped 130 points without any further study (this is way outside the accepted 50 point error range the collegeboard claims). As well I got only 1 question wrong the entire verbal section on my 2nd attempt (down from something like 13 the first time)....yet I have never, and will never be anything better than a decent writer and a competent reader.

The SAT is an extremely artificial test and I really hope colleges take scores with a grain of salt for admissions policies. As to its application to poker I could see it as a rough guide (+-100 points) toward a player's potential, but beyond that I think it would be entirely worthless.

-SmileyEH

Old and New Pros with no SAT or GPA
 

There are many old-time pros (and maybe many new pros) that are very "poker intelligent" and have no GPA and no SAT grade. Indeed, many quite successful pros have had neither. Stu Ungar comes to mind.

Poker and Intelligence and a very interesting topic, because Intelligence has many definitions and facets. Emotional intelligence for example is a facet that has received alot of press in recent years.

We can debate various tests and measures of "intelligence facets" that may apply to poker. These may include the college GPA and SAT, etc.

I suspect poker (NL and PL in particular) is a game that vigorously exercises ALL the facets of human intelligence.

Thus, poker itself becomes a kind of grand measure of all the various and generally agreed-upon facets of human intelligence such as verbal, math, emotional/social and so on.

Perhaps "poker intelligence" is a category of human intellect, like emotional/math/verbal intelligence measures.

In any discussion about Poker and Intelligence, Stu Ungar certainly comes to mind as a topic for serious discussion.

I'm pretty sure Stuey didnt have a GPA or SAT grade.

Re: Ability to Predict a Players Skill based on Intelligence.
 

SpiderMnKe: for 2003 the national averages on the SAT 1 were

507 verbal 519 math 1026 overall. I imagine the test takers attempt to make 1000 the average every year so that you can compare year to year scores.

I guess we can assume that half the people in the US get below a 1000. And if that is the case, seems to me like many of the 2+2ers are much higher than the average person just based on their SAT scores alone.

I think many people posting here are ignoring the general public, and I think that probably many people you sit down with at the poker table would have an SAT score <1000. I agree with you that it seems many people are just closed off in their little college educated worlds and dont recognize this general public.

Also, I really like your list of attributes:

1. Experience
2. Constant Learning
3. Emotional Control
4. Discipline
5. Statistics and Basic Math Skills
6. People Reading
7. Luck

I like experience being the #1 attribute. Many people seem to believe that they SAT measures what you have already learned. So the test shows how well you can apply your experience to those type of questions. I would also think that when you sit down at the poker table it shows your ability to apply your previous experiences. Maybe this will allow some people to agree that SAT may be a good general measure of potential poker ability.

Re: Ability to Predict a Players Skill based on Intelligence.
 

i hav ebene in the situatoin of evaluating talent in terms of being successful at poker, as me and my friends have played since sophomore year of high school (and are now onto being freshman at college).

in terms of the better players, i feel there is no correlation to verbal sat scores and poker ability. as for sat math, i think that does* show some analytical ability, but in a very condensed way. i consider myself one of the better players in the poker group i play in, but my no means the best, and i did better than any of them on the sat math section.

i think if you want to try and correlate intelligence with poker, you should start backwards (with things that make a poker player successful, and then tie tihs in with a test that measures these abilities)

so it would include
1) analytical skills

quick mind for math
theoretical understanding of pot odds, implied odds and so forth.
also, an ability to process different ideas at once, not just focusing on what they are doing, but how what other people are doing affects the situaiton

psycological skills
reading poeple, understanding emotions, psychology.

patience. being able to control ones own emotions (read not going on tilt)

feel free to add more. i think that you can meet someone and be able to tell whether or not they would make a solid player ( or even a great one ) but i dont think there are any tests ( or cominations of tests) that could do this.

Re: Ability to Predict a Players Skill based on Intelligence.
 

I think we really need to add the ability to think to a certain depth in plys.

This is a traditional direct measure of the power of chess-playing computers. It is also sometimes used to talk about an aspect of the abilities of human chess and Go players. Chess computers are getting more sophisticated, but for quite a while all they did was apply brute force calculation and then, importantly, extend the path of each calculated move out many steps into the future to see as many outcomes as possible for those moves, and then choose the correct play depending on which moves panned out best. Computers were discussed in terms of the number of "plys," like the layers in plywood, or numbers of steps ahead, that they could see. The further ahead they could see the results of each move(in an acceptable span of time), the more reliable their choices and rejections of moves would be.

Poker players often can be seen to fall into certain levels of competency based on their ability (or perhaps desire, too) to think ahead and keep those thoughts coordinated.

Terrible players don't really think much about the next move, or the one after that. Better ones do, but only think about their cards. Your actions don't matter to them, because that's not part of the play of the game they recognize. Better players think about your cards, too.

Still better players think about what you think, and what you might think they think, and what you might think they think you think, and so on, even including what still others think. And they use all this information or hypothesizing, when they can, to make better moves.

This involves chaining a lot of steps and "if-then" problems together, all dependent on one another, with no breakdowns in memory or understanding of what every step in the chain means as it is assembled. Slower thinkers might take so long to think through these things that it becomes too cumbersome to do, and less bright ones or ones with poorer memory might simply screw up the chain at some point in its construction, or not realize there is a useful chain of thinking to go through.

The best players can keep many things in mind at once as they construct detailed understandings of the situations they're faced with, and do it without the whole edifice crashing down in confusion. Odds, general psychology and mind games, strategy...the best players can see many steps ahead and keep those steps clear enough to be useful.

So, the depth to which one can reason ahead -- the plys or steps one can work through -- is I think a definite ability that is very valuable in poker.

And the ability to keep many thoughts stuck in one's memory and awareness while sorting through them until something useful might be made of them.

Re: Ability to Predict a Players Skill based on Intelligence.
 

[ QUOTE ]
So... can we start creating a list of skills needed to play poker? I will just throw something out there to build on.

1: Self Control - Emotional Indifference

2. Basic Math - Understand simple probabilities

3. etc etc etc


[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, and I also agree with the ordering of 1 and 2.

Justin A

Re: Ability to Predict a Players Skill based on Intelligence.
 

[ QUOTE ]
1. Experience
2. Constant Learning
3. Emotional Control
4. Discipline
5. Statistics and Basic Math Skills
6. People Reading
7. Luck


[/ QUOTE ]

So how are these related to intelligence?

Experience

Gaining experience doesn't require intelligence. But the ability to sensibly record and apply the experience does require intellgence.

Constant Learning

Indirectly. Well educated people tend to be more inclined to buy books to improve their knowledge, and better at absorbing and applying that knowledge. Recognising the need to read books on poker is the biggest single step in turning a losing player into a winning player, IMHO, but it won't turn you into a great player.

Emotional Control

Not significantly correlated to intelligence.

Discipline

Not directly related to intelligence, but certainly improved by a good education.

Statistics and basic math skills

Big link with intelligence, but note that the math skills required aren't that great. Being able to identify the nuts requires some intelligence. Being able to calculate pot odds requires a little more intelligence. Being able to understand and apply game theory requires still more intelligence. Beyond that level, any additional intelligence doesn't help much. Being able to perform complex integral calculus is of no benefit in poker.

People reading

Definitely related to intelligence. Requires good observation, memory and logical deductive reasoning.

Luck

Actually intelligence might hinder you here. Being intelligent enough to identify purchasing a lottery ticket as a -EV decision, and declining so to do as a consequence, will definitely destroy your chances of getting lucky and winning the jackpot.