how good can you be at tournament poker?

[Paul Phillips]

I don't feel like point-by-point addressing the problems with many of the statements in this thread and it'll be clearer this way anyway.

Almost everyone believes there is more skill in tournament poker than there actually is. One of the reasons is that it's so easy to buy into the seductive fallacy that if someone achieves multiple impressive results over a period of time, it must be because of skill. When more than one person wins multiple bracelets at the 2004 WSOP, we think, wow! Those guys must be playing great, and it's nice to have confirmation that skill wins out in the end.

This line of thinking illustrates a lack of understanding regarding the manifestations of variance and the certainty of clumping among chance results. If a guy wins one tournament we have no problem chalking it up to variance. After all, somebody had to win, maybe he was just the luckiest guy that day. But somehow the minute somebody has a few good results in quick succession, it's because of skill. The fact is that out of a large population of tournament players, it is absolutely inevitable that some will turn out to be much, much luckier at critical moments than others: not just in single tournaments, but over the course of a month, a year, and even a lifetime.

When someone has a great year, people conclude that those results illustrate how good it is possible to be. BUT NOBODY IS ANYWHERE NEAR AS "GOOD" AS YOU WOULD CONCLUDE FROM THOSE RESULTS. And this is where people go off the beam.

Since I know most people still won't believe any of this, here's how we settle things gambler-style. QUANTIFY your beliefs about how good players are. Decide who you think the very best tournament players are and make specific predictions about their results. Now bet on it. It's so easy to reach the end of the WSOP, find a lot of well-known players have won bracelets, and then say "yep, it's skill!" But were those the specific well-known players you predicted, or are you fitting the data to the hypothesis? There are many more poker players you've heard of than you may realize until you attempt to make forward-looking predictions.

Here are some ideas for possible proposition bets involving verifiable predictions. There is nothing that encourages clarity of thought quite so much as having to put your money where your mouth is. Post your ideas on these subjects in this thread, I imagine it'll be revealing.

* dan harrington made the final table of the two largest fields in big buyin tournament history, on top of having won the wsop a decade prior. What are his chances of making the final table in 2005, assuming a field of 5000? Say final 10 to simplify the math. The exactly average player's chances are 1/500. What are dan's?

* I'll let you pick some number of players. If a single one of those players wins a bracelet at the 2005 WSOP, you win the bet. How many players do you need to list before you are a favorite in this bet?

* How much positive equity does the very best player have in whichever currently existing $5K+ tournament you believe has the weakest field? Ignore juice. The exactly average player gets paid back his $X buyin on average. How good is the best? 3X? 5X? 10X? 20X? More?

* Two tournament players each play 100 large field tournaments. In the end, player A has averaged a profit of 0.5 buyins/tournament and player B has averaged 1.5 buyins/tournament. With what percentage confidence can you say that player B was actually playing with higher EV than player A? Alternately: what line would you place on player B winning more than A over the next 100 tournaments as well? What if B had averaged 3 buyins per tournament?

Here is one of the great articles ever written about tournament variance, almost five years old but as relevant as ever: Question Authority by Tom Weideman. If you have a serious interest in the subject this is required reading.

There is a risk-free fortune to be made for the industrious proposition bet seeker by exploiting the gap between perceptions and reality. Go forth and wager!

[Easy E]

Flame away!

* dan harrington - What are his chances of making the final table in 2005, assuming a field of 5000? Say final 10 to simplify the math. The exactly average player's chances are 1/500. What are dan's?

<font color="blue"> 1/600, based on regression to the mean. Based on pure skill (meaning, talent, experience, intangibles) I'd put Dan H at 1/250. I would put him higher, but I think his somewhat less aggressive style will make it less likely that he'll catch the lucky hands in big pots to give him the chips to survive.

* I'll let you pick some number of players. If a single one of those players wins a bracelet at the 2005 WSOP, you win the bet. How many players do you need to list before you are a favorite in this bet?
2000 of the players that I feel were most likely to win (i.e be above average, so with a chance between 1/250 and 1/167) based on a field of 5000.
I still don't think I'd be a "favorite" but I'll take that as close enough to bet on.... not for big money however.

* How much positive equity does the very best player have in whichever currently existing $5K+ tournament you believe has the weakest field? Ignore juice. The exactly average player gets paid back his $X buyin on average. How good is the best? 3X? 5X? 10X? 20X? More?

I'll say 1 1/3 X of the average player... and that's a gamble.

* Two tournament players each play 100 large field tournaments. In the end, player A has averaged a profit of 0.5 buyins/tournament and player B has averaged 1.5 buyins/tournament. With what percentage confidence can you say that player B was actually playing with higher EV than player A?

None. Besides needing a lot more information, it's too short-term (assuming 1 year duration here) to come up with a meaningful number in my opinion.

**Alternately: what line would you place on player B winning more than A over the next 100 tournaments as well? What if B had averaged 3 buyins per tournament?

3:1 against. 9:1 against with the buyins.

[leykis]

Wow, nice post. It is always funny to me that even players who have a complete understanding of the statistical nature of the game believe that the statistics should hold true no matter how small the sample size. Of course if it wasnt for luck I would win every tournament. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[djack]

[ QUOTE ]
* dan harrington - What are his chances of making the final table in 2005, assuming a field of 5000? Say final 10 to simplify the math. The exactly average player's chances are 1/500. What are dan's?

1/600, based on regression to the mean. Based on pure skill (meaning, talent, experience, intangibles) I'd put Dan H at 1/250.

[/ QUOTE ] I think you're wrong here. Each main event is more or less an independent event, so there is no regression to the mean.

[Dominic]

Crap. I have no idea what "regression to the mean" even means!

[BobboFitos]

[ QUOTE ]
Since I know most people still won't believe any of this, here's how we settle things gambler-style. QUANTIFY your beliefs about how good players are. Decide who you think the very best tournament players are and make specific predictions about their results. Now bet on it. It's so easy to reach the end of the WSOP, find a lot of well-known players have won bracelets, and then say "yep, it's skill!" But were those the specific well-known players you predicted, or are you fitting the data to the hypothesis? There are many more poker players you've heard of than you may realize until you attempt to make forward-looking predictions.

[/ QUOTE ]

I made a bet with a friend concerning this World Series. Here's what happened: We both got to draft a "team," akin to fantasy football, of 12 players. (I drafted Dan Harrington in the later rounds, actually) If any player on the either team won the event, the bet was over, and that person won. In the likely event that no one won, we simply had total cash payout to each team, and the best cash team won the bet.
He had Chris Ferguson, so in the end it came down to a pretty exciting bet. (When we followed it while it happened through pokerpages and other sites)
I suggest to readers that a fantasy football style draft is the way to go. It was fun.
Phil Hellmuth was the 3rd overall pick, I believe, but I'm sure his stock has slipped. I picked Daniel Negreanu first, he picked Phil Ivey second. We both believe those two players are the two best in the world, but hey, what do we know!

[ QUOTE ]
* How much positive equity does the very best player have in whichever currently existing $5K+ tournament you believe has the weakest field? Ignore juice. The exactly average player gets paid back his $X buyin on average. How good is the best? 3X? 5X? 10X? 20X? More?

[/ QUOTE ]

In a weak field, where blinds increase very slowly, (the structure most accomodating to players, such as the Championship at the Plaza) I believe the best player has a "5x" buyin on average. This is pretty much just picking a number without using math, but I see no reason why in a low blind, weak field, a player (such as Negreanu) to cash more than 10% of the time, and when cashing, finishing much higher than an average finish.



All in all, I think your post was very thought provoking... And of your mentioned bets, I think they all would seem like fun. Wanna bet on 2005? [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[BobboFitos]

[ QUOTE ]
* I'll let you pick some number of players. If a single one of those players wins a bracelet at the 2005 WSOP, you win the bet. How many players do you need to list before you are a favorite in this bet?
2000 of the players that I feel were most likely to win (i.e be above average, so with a chance between 1/250 and 1/167) based on a field of 5000.
I still don't think I'd be a "favorite" but I'll take that as close enough to bet on.... not for big money however.


[/ QUOTE ]

I may be misreading what Paul wrote, but I belief when he said "winning a bracelet in 2005," he meant from any event, not just the championship event.

In that regard, 2000 would be an insanely high number, as some events (i.e. no limit 2-7 lowball) still draw just 47ish players. (And ace to five only drew slightly more than 100 I think)

However, the numbers increased heavily from 2003 to 2004, and I do not see why this trend will not continue, but if Paul did in fact mean "from any event," I would take this bet if I could pick 12 players. I would feel great about my chances if I could pick 15. If I could pick 20, I would feel foolish to lose.

I could be waaaaay wrong here though.

[rjc199]

Was Tradesports.com offering bets for this year's WSOP?

Dan Harrington to make the final table at next year's WSOP - 50:1.


I need 7 players to get me even money to win a bracelet (Daniel N. is about 2:1 himself to win a bracelet next year). As a matter of fact I'm making my list right now. Daniel N., Men the Master, Ted Forrest, Phil Ivey, Scott Fishman, Barry Greenstein, Howard Lederer.

2+2 should have an unoffical pool for tournaments. You get to pick 5 guys and get points for highest combined finish. The winner gets something.

The rest of the stuff I don't care about.

[Nate tha' Great]

Is there anywhere to get a complete lists of players and placements for both the 2003 and 2004 WSOP main event? If so, it seems to me that you could get somewhere toward answering this question by taking a simple correlation of placements in each of the two years. I guess that it would be somewhere in the neighborhood of .2, or perhaps a little lower.

[Tosh]

[ QUOTE ]
Almost everyone believes there is more skill in tournament poker than there actually is.

[/ QUOTE ]

Remove the word 'tournament', and add 'in the short term' at the end of the sentence. Anyone can lose in any given short term period; cash games or tournaments. It is not till we begin to see a long term trend that we get an idea. There are daily posts on the strategy forums of this board along the lines of 'I am losing over 10k hands, I don't know what to do'. The answer is generally play more hands if you believe you should be beating the game, until your sample size is relevant.

Getting long term results in cash games, whilst playing multiple tables online, is hard enough but IMO long term tournament results don't even exist; with the size of WPT events these days you would surely need to play many 1000s before getting a sample size of any relevance at all. Noone is ever going to play enough, so how can we ever know who the best players are from results alone?

[ QUOTE ]
When someone has a great year, people conclude that those results illustrate how good it is possible to be. BUT NOBODY IS ANYWHERE NEAR AS "GOOD" AS YOU WOULD CONCLUDE FROM THOSE RESULTS. And this is where people go off the beam.

[/ QUOTE ]

Couldn't agree more. I also think its a bad idea for any poker pro to just play tournaments as a means of support, without a very large cushion for variance.