IQ/Poker/David Sklansky
 

Like Howard Lederer, I am a competitive chess player turned poker player. When I'm honest with myself, I know that one of the reasons I made this switch is intellectual insecurity (turns out that this is not an uncommon trait among 2+2ers). I know I'm pretty smart (I'm a Phd student at Harvard), but I resent it when I have to admit to myself that someone else is unarguably smarter than I am. In chess, I had to do this quite often. In poker, I pretty much never have to do it, becuase variance befriends my ego -- I can attribute my good results to skill and my bad results to chance. I've talked with David Sklansky a few times and he strikes me as one of the more intellectually insecure people I've ever met. He's very smart -- but he is several levels below a first-rate talent such as Chris Ferguson. Poker is a game that allows people like David to believe that he is, in fact, a first-rate talent. I can't fault him for it -- I'm attracted to the game for the same reason. -wins_pot

Re: IQ/Poker/David Sklansky
 

have your honesty caused you any harm?

Re: IQ/Poker/David Sklansky
 

[ QUOTE ]
intellectual insecurity (turns out that this is not an uncommon trait among

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Harvard

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[img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

-DB

Re: IQ/Poker/David Sklansky
 

"but he is several levels below a first-rate talent such as Chris Ferguson."

Chris Ferguson wrote in a recent issue of ALL IN magazine that it was NEVER correct to bet head up on the river with a hand that can never get a worse hand to call or a better hand to fold. He got his Phd from UCLA.

If you batted 700 in Little League and a teammate batted 460 and then when on to be a major league allstar, you would be presumptious to think you could have done even better just because of your teenage stats. But if he only became a utility infielder in double A ball, that 240 batting average difference even way back when, is more than likely to mean you could still outhit him had you pursued your baseball career.

Re: IQ/Poker/David Sklansky
 

[ QUOTE ]
I've talked with David Sklansky a few times

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Big mistake. Now he knows your IQ...

Re: IQ/Poker/David Sklansky
 

That's incredibly funny.

Re: IQ/Poker/David Sklansky
 

[ QUOTE ]
Chris Ferguson wrote in a recent issue of ALL IN magazine that it was NEVER correct to bet head up on the river with a hand that can never get a worse hand to call or a better hand to fold. He got his Phd from UCLA.

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Naturally, with a high IQ we would know which players would be holding a better or worse hand and attempt a check raise on a better hand if the player is bluffable or otherwise fold (preferably on an earlier street). Against a worse hand we would check to show weakness and induce a bet.

However, if the stakes are large then of course the best hand will win unopposed because the worse hands being held by intellectualy superior people would have been folded already.

Re: IQ/Poker/David Sklansky
 

[ QUOTE ]
Like Howard Lederer, I am a competitive chess player turned poker player.

[/ QUOTE ]

How competitive? I laugh every time they say Lederer was 'studying to become a master' - if he was, he never got very close. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] Although, to be fair, a 1951 rating means he is/was quite a strong player (I'm a mere 1600).

And since when have you had to admit someone was smarter than you while playing chess? If you think chess skill is largely a factor of intelligence, I'm pretty sure you're wrong. Many of the players who were masters or better who I've met are hardly geniuses.

Re: IQ/Poker/David Sklansky
 

[ QUOTE ]
How competitive? I laugh every time they say Lederer was 'studying to become a master' - if he was, he never got very close. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] Although, to be fair, a 1951 rating means he is/was quite a strong player (I'm a mere 1600).

[/ QUOTE ]

It's not that far; master is 2200. 250 points is a lot but if he hadn't already stalled out, it's not undoable.

I got stuck at 1800 myself.

Re: IQ/Poker/David Sklansky
 

[ QUOTE ]
It's not that far; master is 2200. 250 points is a lot but if he hadn't already stalled out, it's not undoable.

I got stuck at 1800 myself.

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Certainly not undoable, but there's a big gap between 2000 and 2200. There are a lot more experts/A players out there than masters, obviously.

Re: IQ/Poker/David Sklansky
 

i can attest to that... i got stuck at 2000 for a couple years. when i chatted with lederer on full tilt he actually said his highest rating was around 2100, so he definitely wasn't far off.

Re: IQ/Poker/David Sklansky
 

[ QUOTE ]
i can attest to that... i got stuck at 2000 for a couple years. when i chatted with lederer on full tilt he actually said his highest rating was around 2100, so he definitely wasn't far off.

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I was just going by what I could find on the USCF website. I worked there for a while though, so I know their record keeping - especially before 1990 - isn't quite what it could be. So he definitely could have been higher, then dropped off as he started playing poker more seriously.

Re: IQ/Poker/David Sklansky
 

[ QUOTE ]
"but he is several levels below a first-rate talent such as Chris Ferguson."

Chris Ferguson wrote in a recent issue of ALL IN magazine that it was NEVER correct to bet head up on the river with a hand that can never get a worse hand to call or a better hand to fold. He got his Phd from UCLA.

If you batted 700 in Little League and a teammate batted 460 and then when on to be a major league allstar, you would be presumptious to think you could have done even better just because of your teenage stats. But if he only became a utility infielder in double A ball, that 240 batting average difference even way back when, is more than likely to mean you could still outhit him had you pursued your baseball career.

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ok...slowly guys, i'm obviously not in the mensa-strata as some of our distinguished posters here...

DS = 700 hitter
CF = 460 hitter

CF's UCLA PhD = .240 in AA-ball?

Also, if you've read this far, the only reason I can think of that you bet a hand that a worse hand will never call and a better hand will never fold, is to not give away information or to get information by reverse-engineering your opponent's betting patterns or to send out some sort of false information about which hands you showdown...?

Re: IQ/Poker/David Sklansky
 

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That's incredibly funny.

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Agreed. Hysterical.

Barron Vangor Toth
www.BarronVangorToth.com

Re: IQ/Poker/David Sklansky
 

Chess, like many games (my own included) run on the ELO ranking system. The difference between 2000 and 2200 is lightyears beyond 1800 and 2000. You can have a 2000 rating, go 10-1, and lose points, depending on your competition.

Barron Vangor Toth
www.BarronVangorToth.com

Re: IQ/Poker/David Sklansky
 

[ QUOTE ]
Also, if you've read this far, the only reason I can think of that you bet a hand that a worse hand will never call and a better hand will never fold, is to not give away information or to get information by reverse-engineering your opponent's betting patterns or to send out some sort of false information about which hands you showdown...?

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This one's been talked about before here...the reason you might bet the river (in NL) when you will never be called by a worse hand, and will never cause a better hand to fold, is if you feel your opponent and the situation is such that a check will frequently induce a bluff bet of sufficient size that you will not wish to call, BUT, you feel that a smaller bet by you, instead of a check, will drastically reduce, if not eliminate, the prospect of your opponent bluffing you (reraising you). In this scenario, you are judging that all the times you are called and lose to be better for you EV wise than all the times you check and are then bluffed from the pot.

Re: IQ/Poker/David Sklansky
 

The hardest transition for a chess player to make is that from A to master. Its possible for any player with hard work to become a master. However, if Howard Lederer's consistent rating is 1950, he's way behind.

PS My current rating is somewhere from 2300-2400 so I do know what I'm talking about.

Re: IQ/Poker/David Sklansky
 

perfect explanation...thank you!

Re: IQ/Poker/David Sklansky
 

[ QUOTE ]
ok...slowly guys, i'm obviously not in the mensa-strata as some of our distinguished posters here...

DS = 700 hitter
CF = 460 hitter

CF's UCLA PhD = .240 in AA-ball?

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Yeah, heheh, I gotta believe that's what he means by that analogy. (Course he probably meant to have said high school, rather than little league - I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that the difference between hitting .700 and .460 in little league isn't a real meaningful predictor of success in AA ball, but I digress.) Except, to be precise, he didn't say he was a .240 hitter, the .240 was the difference in their little league batting averages (although .240 is probably about what you'd expect a utility infielder to hit - I digress) But I also got to wonder - what do the .700 and .460 little league averages equate to? Not SAT scores again? Does David know what "Chris hit in little league"??

Did David essentially just say, "If brains were baseball, Chris Ferguson would be a utility infielder for a AA team."?? Not that it's not tough to even make it that far, by the way, but still.

Course this doesn't exactly make sense, since David just named him #5 on his Ten Smartest Poker Players list.

I don't know why the original poster felt compelled to tell David that in terms of smarts, "he is several levels below a first-rate talent such as Chris Ferguson", or if he even believes it, but David, do you really need to try and debate who is "smarter"? We KNOW you're a smart S.O.B., and we probably know Chris Ferguson is too. I would think you'd just laugh off a comment like that.

By the way, it's just my opinion, but regarding that quote from ALL IN magazine - I would be willing to bet that Chris Ferguson intuitively recognizes situations in practice where a bet might be proper to stop a bluff, even when it's only going to be called by a hand that beats it, and when it's not going to cause a better hand to fold. And still mistakenly make such a quote to a magazine. I would think you would agree....I just don't think being wrong about that in a statement to a magazine (in this particular instance) means much....

Finally, there's an interesting short story I'd like to recommend, if you haven't read it: it's called Desertion, by Clifford D. Simak.

Re: IQ/Poker/David Sklansky
 

Now this is sort of silly.

He was Kleinrock's student at UCLA. Kleinrock is a very smart guy. (If you don't believe it, he went to MIT [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]) I think that saying a degree from UCLA is equivalent to .240 in AA ball is going a bit too far. UCLA has Nobel Laureates, and MIT has slouchy professors. I can accept that, on average, MIT has better people. Don't tar all people with the same brush, for good or for ill. You just can't extrapolate that to an individual.

Ridiculous.




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"but he is several levels below a first-rate talent such as Chris Ferguson."

Chris Ferguson wrote in a recent issue of ALL IN magazine that it was NEVER correct to bet head up on the river with a hand that can never get a worse hand to call or a better hand to fold. He got his Phd from UCLA.

If you batted 700 in Little League and a teammate batted 460 and then when on to be a major league allstar, you would be presumptious to think you could have done even better just because of your teenage stats. But if he only became a utility infielder in double A ball, that 240 batting average difference even way back when, is more than likely to mean you could still outhit him had you pursued your baseball career.

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ok...slowly guys, i'm obviously not in the mensa-strata as some of our distinguished posters here...

DS = 700 hitter
CF = 460 hitter

CF's UCLA PhD = .240 in AA-ball?



[/ QUOTE ]

Re: IQ/Poker/David Sklansky
 

"Course he probably meant to have said high school, rather than little league - I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that the difference between hitting .700 and .460 in little league isn't a real meaningful predictor of success in AA ball, but I digress.)"

Actually in between. About ninth grade. By high school that much difference would almost certainly carry through indefinitely.

"But I also got to wonder - what do the .700 and .460 little league averages equate to? Not SAT scores again? Does David know what "Chris hit in little league"

A perfect math SAT does not equate to 700 batting average. More like .450 The knowledge and ability at age 13 to get A's in a freshman collegec math course and winning statewide junior high math events is more like it. Chris's batting average is just a guess on my part based on UCLA and a few other things.If he was at the top of his class at UCLA, he is about as smart as the average Harvard Phd, or conceivably even smarter and I underestimated him.

"Did David essentially just say, "If brains were baseball, Chris Ferguson would be a utility infielder for a AA team."?? Not that it's not tough to even make it that far, by the way, but still."

Unless Chris is a lot smarter than the average UCLA Phd, there are many thousands smarter than him. About the same number that play baseball better than routine AA ballplayers. On the other hand maybe only 100 kids batted .700 in junior high ball. A lot of them would remain in the top 1000 if they pursued it.

"Course this doesn't exactly make sense, since David just named him #5 on his Ten Smartest Poker Players list"

It makes perfect sense. Only William Chen is possibly in the major leagues. Don't know enough about that. (Unless, Chris is one of the best ever at UCLA). Mark Weitzman was in the middle of his high energy physics Phd class at Cal Tech. Thus there are over a thousand guys smarter than him. Triple A ball.

"By the way, it's just my opinion, but regarding that quote from ALL IN magazine - I would be willing to bet that Chris Ferguson intuitively recognizes situations in practice where a bet might be proper to stop a bluff, even when it's only going to be called by a hand that beats it, and when it's not going to cause a better hand to fold. And still mistakenly make such a quote to a magazine. I would think you would agree....I just don't think being wrong about that in a statement to a magazine (in this particular instance) means much...."

Except that I actually asked him if he was aware that there was an exception and he wasn't. One mistake of course does not prove anything. Still the fact is that his statement INSTANTLY jumped out to me as wrong and I feel that super smart people would rarely screw up this way. But I am a harsh critic. I can't believe that Leibniz would think that a 12 and 11 have the same probabilty, that Von Neumann would sum the series in the fly problem, and that Euler wouldn't realize that probalistic reasoning would almost guarantee a counter example to his conjecture about three fourth powers not ever summing to a fourth one. I can't be as much smarter than them than these mistakes imply so maybe the same is true of Chris.

Re: IQ/Poker/David Sklansky
 

Man can he throw them cards though!

Re: IQ/Poker/David Sklansky
 

Statistically, the difference between 2000 and 2200 is exactly the same as the difference between 1800 and 2000. That is, a 2200 player is expected to beat a 2000 player exactly as often as a 2000 player is expected to beat an 1800 player.

Of course, that doesn't mean that it's just as easy to improve from 2000 to 2200 as it is to improve from 1800 to 2000.

Re: IQ/Poker/David Sklansky
 

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Statistically, the difference between 2000 and 2200 is exactly the same as the difference between 1800 and 2000. That is, a 2200 player is expected to beat a 2000 player exactly as often as a 2000 player is expected to beat an 1800 player.

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What is your source for this?

I have read somewhere that the skill gap increases at higher ratings relative to the ratings themselves. In other words a 2400 player is "more stronger" compared to a 2200 player, than a 2200 player is compared to a 2000 player...and a 2400 will beat a 2200 more often than a 2200 will beat a 2000. A 2750 will beat a 2550 more consistently than an 1850 will beat an 1650. According to this, a difference of 200 points between grandmasters is actually huge, and means more the higher you go. In fact this effect can be seen easily if you just look at the bottom of the scale compared to the top of the scale: a 1000 player will probably not have highly consistent wins over an 800 player, but Kasparov will beat someone 200 points lower with fine consistency.

Re: IQ/Poker/David Sklansky
 

Geez,

IMO people talking about their I.Q./SAT scores, especially in middle age, is a bit pathetic. But what do I know, I'm just a verbal guy, and since math ability, according to David, is equivalent to "ability to think," I shouldn't be playing either poker or backgammon, or even expressing an opinion about anything at all...)

Frank

Re: IQ/Poker/David Sklansky
 

The progression in numbers is VERY drastic...

http://www.comicimages.com/rawdeal/comp/rank1.htm

That is the link to the page to our Top 500 ranked players in the game I design for WWE (yeah, yeah, random plug, whatever).

This is in a 1500-base system (i.e. everyone starts at 1500 points). See how it progresses from the top guy (2000+) down.

You will see similiar results in many games that utilize ELO for its amazing system.

The point isn't necessarily that 2200's beat 2000's as often as 2000's beat 1800's, it's that it is INSANELY difficult to reach the higher numbers due to ELO and how it punishes ANY loss as you progress.

In another game, Magic: The Gathering, I was around 1980 points, went 8-1 at an event, and lost 1 point. And there are people in that game in the 2000's and 2100's ... it's nuts as you get higher and higher.

Too bad ELO can't work for poker.


Barron Vangor Toth
www.BarronVangorToth.com

arrogance can be ignorance
 

My understanding with a very adequate sat score and only a masters degree could be way off but to devalue a person's intelligence based on the institution he or she went to is absolutely absurd.

many factors go into why a person attends one university over another money, family, location, and admissions.

the main point of the orginal post is to state the insecurities that many intellectuals (as well as others) deal with and can be justified in their own heads by playing poker.

Re: arrogance can be ignorance
 

"many factors go into why a person attends one university over another money, family, location, and admissions."

That's just nonsense. Its true for mediocre undergraduates. But if you have a chance to be one of the best in the country with a prestigious Phd under your belt your not going to blow that by considering graduate schools below a certain threshold. Perhaps UCLA meets that threshold in certain fields.

Re: IQ/Poker/David Sklansky
 

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The knowledge and ability at age 13 to get A's in a freshman collegec math course... is more like it.

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that's not particularly impressive unless those math courses happened to be at MIT.

nor is the SAT score... everyone that is even "good" at math knows that a perfect SAT math score doesn't even require the "ability to think". SAT math is ridiculously basic.

Re: arrogance can be ignorance
 

I'm a UCLA alumnus so I may be a little biased but I'll admit that in the Computer Science and Electrical Engineering majors we are not as prestigious as the stalwart Berkeley. Usually top 5 in CS or EE are (in no order): MIT/Berkeley/UIUC/Stanford/Caltech.
UCLA is near the top of the tier below them, but they're no slouch considering how many PhD engineering applicants there are worldwide and how many get accepted into the "top" schools and UCLA.
In the silicon valley a PhD from Berkeley, Stanford, and UCLA are a dime a dozen in any case, and the hiring managers who are also PhDs care more about your research or past experience.

Re: IQ/Poker/David Sklansky
 

"Like Howard Lederer, I am a competitive chess player turned poker player. When I'm honest with myself, I know that one of the reasons I made this switch is intellectual insecurity"

I didn't quit math science studies for the same reason you and Howard quit chess. I quit chess for that reason. (Actually it wasn't because I was positive I couldn't become a champion at it, but rather because I realized that you can't get there on pure talent but must also devote thousands of laborious hours to studying. I was nine at the time. )

The reason I quit math was certainly not because I thought I couldn't become a major leaguer in the subject. Besides laziness and a desire to get laid, there was the fact that unlike baseball, even being tenth best was pretty irrelevant. Also at this point in history even the very best can only be appreciated by a tiny segment of the population unless they happen to solve one of the few problems that the general public can understand.

I will be the first to admit that just like in athletics, superstars in junior high school may be surpassed by, thousands as years go by, even if they pursue their endeavors. So it is possible that as many as five or ten thousand people in this country would have been better at math-logic-science even if I had pursued my studies. But more than that? No way. I know that both because of my history and because when I have conversations with second rate Phds it is extremely obvious that they can't think like I once could.

The point that I am trying to make is that I didn't quit math and take up poker because I could now say to myself "if I pursued it I would have been one of the best in the world". It's possible but more likey that that I wouldn't have measured up to some of the mega minds out there like Ron Graham. But the guys on my poker list? Only one of them is actually very smart.

Re: IQ/Poker/David Sklansky
 

All this talk about IQ's and poker is interesting, but do you need a really high IQ to be successful, especially at NL or limit hold em? After all, the math involved in figuring odds is not that hard, and even I understood the section on game theory in TOP. I certainly acknowledge that someone with an IQ of 140 has an advantage over me with my measly 120, all else being equal, but wouldn't someone with an IQ of 160 have much less of an advantage over the 140 IQ than the the 140 has over me, assuming IQ is linear? I guess what I'm asking is how much brain power can actually be applied to NLHE in a meaningful way? At some point the luck of the draw is going to be the deciding factor, isn't it?

Re: IQ/Poker/David Sklansky
 

Math is interesting in that respect, because, as the film "Good Will Hunting" shows, the only people who can tell the difference between #1 and #10 are #1-10.

Nice that you bailed out of hardcore chess at 9 -- it took me into my teens for chess and early University for math (I still cringe that if not for a random road sign that said "U-Turn," that I'd be invariably some type of actuary today).

Granted, I went into game design -- more math -- yay!

Moving on.

Barron Vangor Toth
www.BarronVangorToth.com

Re: IQ/Poker/David Sklansky
 

It's not all math ... it's everything that goes along with being good at math: thinking clearly and analytically, etc etc.

Granted, you can go too far and pretty soon you melt down (see: John Nash).

Barron Vangor Toth
www.BarronVangorToth.com

Re: arrogance can be ignorance
 

I know someone that recently turned down a top university because his wife didn't like the area.

Life isn't so binary and one-dimensional. Think probabilities and distributions, and more than one axis.

Re: IQ/Poker/David Sklansky
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Statistically, the difference between 2000 and 2200 is exactly the same as the difference between 1800 and 2000. That is, a 2200 player is expected to beat a 2000 player exactly as often as a 2000 player is expected to beat an 1800 player.

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What is your source for this?



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Arpad Elo, The rating of chessplayers, past and present. Elo is, as you might guess, the guy who invented the Elo rating system. His "Percentage Expectancy Table" mapping rating difference to expected value is on page 19, section 2.11.

Let me see if I can find an online reference... here's the Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELO_rating_system . Scroll down to "Mathematical details": Elo suggested scaling ratings so that a difference of 200 rating points in chess would mean that the stronger player has an expected score of approximately 0.75. Note that it is only the delta, and not the absolute ratings, that matters.

A 1000 player facing an 800 player will have the same expected value of (wins + draws/2) per 100 games (76) as a 2750 player facing a 2550 player. (The 1000 player will have more wins, more losses, and fewer draws than the 2750 player does, but the expected value of the total score (W + D/2) will be the same.)

Of course it is much harder to improve from 2550 to 2750 than from 800 to 1000, but that's a different issue.

Re: IQ/Poker/David Sklansky
 

[ QUOTE ]
In fact this effect can be seen easily if you just look at the bottom of the scale compared to the top of the scale: a 1000 player will probably not have highly consistent wins over an 800 player, but Kasparov will beat someone 200 points lower with fine consistency.

[/ QUOTE ]

Since I was just agreeing with this point in my last post, let me throw out some sample numbers in which the expected value is .76 in each case:

A 1000 player playing a hundred games against an 800 player would probably win 74, draw 4, and lose 22. (Even the 4 draws might be a little high.)

A 2750 player playing a hundred games against a 2550 player would probably do something more like win 60, draw 32, and lose 8.

So the 2750 player is more consistent in some sense because his W/L ratio is 60:8 (7.5:1), not 74:22 (3.4:1). But his expected value is the same.

Re: IQ/Poker/David Sklansky
 

First, IQ is not linear. Second, you should know that swings and luck are non existant long term. Poker requires many, many different skill sets in order to master. Someone explain T.J. Cloutier's success. I would guess his IQ is far from genius status. Think of it like a blind person who compensates for their lack of sight by relying, and effectively sharpening their other senses. I love your delivery, David. This thread delicately points to importance of game selection. Some guy named Darwin wrote a book around the turn of the century that applies.

Re: IQ/Poker/David Sklansky
 

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Besides laziness and a desire to get laid

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Go David!

[ QUOTE ]
But the guys on my poker list? Only one of them is actually very smart.

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Thanks!

Re: arrogance can be ignorance
 

[ QUOTE ]
I know someone that recently turned down a top university because his wife didn't like the area.


[/ QUOTE ]


At some point, a wrong decision was made there:

a) either going to that top university WASN'T a big deal and a comparable was found locally

or

b) his wife wasn't the best choice

or

c) listening to his wife was -EV

Barron Vangor Toth
www.BarronVangorToth.com
Oh, Yeah, Ladies, I Am Single