It really is just a game (WAY too long)

[QTip]

I don’t know if anyone will even care to read this or not, but it’s something that I just thought was interesting to me. This is so simple, really, but I’ve not been thinking this way. So…take the time to read it or not.

I’m not sure what I thought Poker was all this time I’ve been playing it, but I’ve not been thinking about it correctly. It’s just a game. It’s a game like Tiddlywinks, Stratego, Spades, Monopoly, Chutes and Ladders….whatever, it’s just a game.

I had a dream last night that made me think about this. I was playing Monopoly for money. What if I said “I play Monopoly for a living”? That would seem weird, but I’m sure somewhere out there, people are playing Monopoly for money.

When I woke up, I thought about this, and it did make some sense. Mason talks about in his Poker Essays, how LH is a game where there is an interesting balance of luck and skill in limit holdem. This makes is so that there’s enough luck involved in the game so that a novice can win often enough by getting lucky in order to keep him coming back even though he’ll lose more in the long run. Yet there’s enough skill involved in the game so that an informed player can consistently win enough to have the upper hand. He also talks about the fact that NL holdem is a game where the skill is shifted more in the direction of the informed player.

I guess I’ve always just thought about poker as not just a game since it’s generally played with real money, and that sets it apart in my mind. However, any game could be the same way if there were huge #s of people willing to play the particular game for money. For example, tiddlywinks could be played with gold coins. Everyone puts the same number of gold coins out there. If you make one in the bowl, you keep it.

This got me thinking about other games, and where there are in relation to the skill/luck balance and where poker (specifically LH) falls in that balance. If we think about a line that would represent an edge that an informed player could have over a novice, there could be 2 extremes. One side would represent no edge to the informed player where there is no edge possible, luck dominates the game and skill is almost non-existent. The other side would represent a gigantic edge where the novice has almost no chance of winning, skill dominates the game and luck is almost non-existent.

Perhaps a game where luck would dominate would be a simple dice game. You roll 3 dice, sum the dice values and keep score. Each player alternately takes a turn until the first player to reach 100 points wins. You would roll a dice to determine who goes first. There’s no edge here unless one player doesn’t know how to add. Luck dominates this game.

Perhaps a game where skill dominates is chess. I know a bit about chess and have won some tournaments in the past. However, if I were to play a world champion 1000 times. I’m probably going to lose all 1000 of those games. The informed player (expert) has a gigantic edge. Obviously, the world champion would like to play this game for money as often as possible.

So, perhaps a graph could be illustrated in this way. These spots aren’t set in stone, but just for visual purposes.



The greater the leveled of “being informed” or developing the skill(s) involved in becoming an expert, the greater the edge, or advantaged the player has in that game. So, each game could be represented in such a fashion to show the amount of edge a player could have over another, and also how much space is involved for someone to have intermediate skills. I think it could also be said that the greater the edge available in a game, the more difficult it is to reach the higher levels a great amount of effort and study would be required. For example:



This helps me look at the game in proper perspective. Imagine someone making the following posts in a monopoly forum:

“They always land on Free Parking! What can I do?”

“I have my hotels set up, but they keep landing on the utilities instead of my property! What can I do?”

“I keep going to jail! What can I do?”

“They get all the good chance cards! What can I do?”

What can I do? Nothing is the answer. That’s the luck side of the game. Now, would it make sense to get upset about that in the game of monopoly and start mortgaging all your hotels and making stupid trades? Of course not! Monopoly tilt! Yet, we do that very thing in holdem when we get upset and starting playing loosing starters or going to far when we’re beaten. People are going to suck out! That’s the luck side of the game.

Perhaps if I were to take the analogy a bit further with Monopoly. It would be like this:

Imagine a version of Monopoly that goes like this. Each time you play, you randomly distribute the properties to the players (some people do this anyway to make the game go faster). Then, you look at your properties and decide if you want to play or not. Some people make play no matter what properties they have – loose Monopoly players. Some would wait until they had a couple Monopolies already, and then decide to play – tight Monopoly players. Of course, with some Monopolies already in hand, you have a better chance to win. However, how you play the game after you get started is going to have a large impact on whether or not you win – postflop Monopoly. This is the meat of the game. Making trades, deciding what and when to build, etc. However, there will be times when you start with 4 monopolies (including Park Place and Boardwalk), but your opponent just gets lucky rolls and so forth, and you lose anyway – Monopoly suckouts. They level of your opponents will also determine how likely you are to win. If they start with any cards, that’s great. If they make stupid decisions in the game like making any trade you offer, never building houses, etc., you’re going to have an edge. The worse they are compared to the better you are, the greater chance you have of winning.

I’m not sure where Monopoly and Limit Holdem actually compare in the luck/skill ratio, but it’s helping me think about our game in the right perspective.

So…whatever that was worth. It was good for me to think about the GAME this way, so I thought I would share it with whomever else might care to read this.

[crunchy1]

Brilliant - AWESOME POST!!

...There should be a poker version of Monopoly where Broadway and Park Place cards are stamped with the A [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] A [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] respectively!!

[McGahee]

I disagree...they were overrated.

I almost always won when I got the orange property across form the jail. The orange was the best.

[QTip]

I have a buddy that's a Monopoly freak. He always said the orange were the best. I asked him why. He said that a study was done and those are the spaces that people land on the most. That doesn't make sense to me, though. But...whatever.

[meep_42]

[ QUOTE ]
I have a buddy that's a Monopoly freak. He always said the orange were the best. I asked him why. He said that a study was done and those are the spaces that people land on the most. That doesn't make sense to me, though. But...whatever.

[/ QUOTE ]

The orange ones get landed on more because they're quite likely to get hit by any player exiting the jail.

-d

[QTip]

Ah! Now, THAT makes sense!

2+2 private Monopoly table, $100 stakes! Who's in?

[CallMeIshmael]

[ QUOTE ]
He always said the orange were the best. I asked him why. He said that a study was done and those are the spaces that people land on the most. That doesn't make sense to me, though.

[/ QUOTE ]

He is correct.

Long story short, look where the orange is:

6, 8 and 9 places after jail.

There are 4 ways to land on the jail square:

- Land there
- Land on the go to jail square
- Get a card that says go to jail
- Roll doubles three times

Orange is greater than than pink, because pink is 1,3 and 4 places after jail.

1,3 and 4 are worse than 6, 8, and 9 for 2 reasons:

1. (obvious) 6,8 are tied for the second most combinations (next to 7). With 9,5 being next. 1 is imposible, and 3 and 4 are less likely.

2. (not obvious) Late in the game, an oft used strategy is GET TO JAIL! When the match is heads up, and half the board could sink you, the best place in the world you can be is jail, right? I mean, you still get paid. Plus, you cant land on his/her squares.

When this is the case... you are forced to see if you can roll doubles. The orange squares have more options for doubles (3,3 and 4,4) than the pink (2,2).


FWIW, the book "1000 ways to win Monopoly games," is perhaps the book your friend mentioned, and was actually written by the current president of Cornell.

[QTip]

Man Jordan! Do you ever quit with your great analsyis of stuff!!! Gee wiz!

Perhaps we could all send you our Monopoly stats....

[meep_42]

You spent all that time writing that just so I could beat you to the punch.

Thanks, man. I'll never forget what you've given me. [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]

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

-d

[McGahee]

What else are Cornell guys going to do in their spare time? The ladies there certainly aren't anything to write home about.