Ability to Predict a Players Skill based on Intelligence.

[PostalService]

First off I would like to state that my SAT score is 1290: 690 Math 600 Verbal, thus we can say I am of average intelligence.

SpiderMnke had made a previous post called: Intelligence Assessment vs Poker Skill in which he tried to determine a few different concepts, of which got replies from many people that basically muddled his original goals. So with this thread I would like to lay down the goals and the constraints, which if followed may possibly lead to either interesting discussion or some profound insights into poker itself.

Goals:
1. Can we predict the POTENTIAL of a poker player using some sort of test such as the SAT I: reasoning test or College GPA/College Attended. I would like to define potential as the max stakes a player will reach and still be a "winning player" (aka profitable) before they embark on their poker career.
2. Poker is profitable because one player has a higher ability than the other players at the table. Their ability is previously unknown to the other players and thus gives them an advantage. There is however a phenomena which Spidermnke spoke of, whereby a player knowing the ability of the other player/players will still believe that they are superior when in fact they are not. I believe this phenomena is what makes poker extremely profitable. I can recount this in many aspects of life other than poker, which SpiderMnKe already made 1 reference to:

"Also at what level does a person become aware of their own competence. I've talked to < 1000 [SAT] people that really can't seem to evaluate their own skill at anything accurately. One guy believes he is good at WarCraft and is a big time loser online. He doesn't feel the need to study the game whatsoever.. then will tell me that he isn't great at any one thing.. but is "VERY good" at a lot of things. I haven't seen any evidence of very good anything."

So Goal #2 is the determine at what level are people unaware of their own incompetence, thus making poker profitable.

I would like to institute with these goals some constraints:
1. We are strictly discussing online poker, this is in an attempt to throw out the notion of social skill, which I am assuming to be vastly limited in comparison to B&M play.

2. Intelligence will be defined by Robert J. Sternberg of Yale as:

"The theory suggests that successfully intelligent people are those who have the ability to achieve success according to their own definition of success, within their sociocultural context. They do so by identifying and capitalizing on their strengths, and identifying and correcting or compensating for their weaknesses in order to adapt to, shape, and select environments. Such attunement to the environment uses a balance of analytical, creative, and practical skills."

3. The SAT I measures:
"The SAT I was designed with question types that reflect or show your reasoning abilities, not just the amount of information you've accumulated during school. As an example, many math items can be answered by using complex equations, but they can also be answered correctly if you can reason through the problem. Reading passages don't just test that you can read but require extended reasoning in order to answer the questions related to the passage. This means that you have to be able to make inferences, assumptions, and interpretations based on the passage provided, in order to understand what the author is trying to say." -The College Board

After reading this I believe that the SAT does measure intelligence and reasoning which would be vital to the ability to play poker. You may refute this if you wish. One of the reasons I would like to use the SAT is that it is something that many people have taken and thus we can compare across the board. For all of those who wish to say that it doesn't provide a good way to measure intelligence please include your SAT score in your post.

3. We will assume that everyone person who we would like to predict their eventual peak of poker ability will start with the same drive and determination for the game. We will assume that they all would like to become online pros. Where Pro means the ability to survive off poker alone. This constraint is to get rid of posts saying that a dumb person may have more drive than a smart person, or something of that sort. Lets assume we don't care about the ultra smart people, who are just casual players. We want to find the potential that someone will have based on their intelligence if they are highly motivated to become a winning player.

Conclusion:

I am looking to see if we can somehow determine that, if someone has the drive and want to become a pro poker player, where they will eventually max out at. I am already convinced it is directly related to your intelligence in general. One particular way to measure this is the SAT test, because many people have taken it. Is there a lower bound at which some people will never even become a winning player at even the smallest of stakes? If you reply to this post, please include your SAT score or college GPA, and what stakes/game of poker you play, and tell us if you are a winning player or not. I believe one of the things we will find is that people who post that intelligence is not important to the game, will either have lower SAT scores, or lower poker profitability.

Discuss.