closest game to poker, skill v. luck

[Sooga]

if this has been posted before, i didn't see it, and i didn't find it in search, so here goes. What game (any game/sport/etc) is the closest to poker in terms of the short-term luck effects vs. the long-term skill effects? Obviously it's not something like chess, because I will never be able to beat a grandmaster, even in the short-term. I have an idea in mind, but I'd like to hear some other opinions.

I'd say closest traditional game would be bridge, but there's this collectible card game called Magic: The Gathering which I think is pretty close to poker when looking at short time luck vs playing skill for any longer perioid of time.

[TexArcher]

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I'd say closest traditional game would be bridge, but there's this collectible card game called Magic: The Gathering which I think is pretty close to poker when looking at short time luck vs playing skill for any longer perioid of time.

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Jesus tapdancing Christ...

[Rasputin]

Baseball

[OrangeKing]

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Baseball

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This is actually not a horrible answer, except that teams of hugely different skill wouldn't have much variance in their results. But teams on the same level - say, almost all major-league teams - do have a lot of variance.

An even better example would be a single batter's batting average. There is a ton of variance there that commentators go nuts trying to explain...strangely enough, you very rarely hear them mention sample size. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[Mempho]

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Baseball

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This is actually not a horrible answer, except that teams of hugely different skill wouldn't have much variance in their results. But teams on the same level - say, almost all major-league teams - do have a lot of variance.

An even better example would be a single batter's batting average. There is a ton of variance there that commentators go nuts trying to explain...strangely enough, you very rarely hear them mention sample size. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

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If you set up deep stacks and low blinds, a vastly superior player will almost always win, too (if he plays without regard to time).

[Rasputin]

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Baseball

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This is actually not a horrible answer, except that teams of hugely different skill wouldn't have much variance in their results. But teams on the same level - say, almost all major-league teams - do have a lot of variance.

An even better example would be a single batter's batting average. There is a ton of variance there that commentators go nuts trying to explain...strangely enough, you very rarely hear them mention sample size. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

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It wasn't intended to be a horrible answer, it was serious. I see any number of similarities between the games.

Of course you have to limit it to a relatively small range of participants. If you have a better than average team against a high school team the variance won’t be enough.

As a matter of fact, the Red Sox have faced the Boston College team every spring for as long as I can remember. It used to be the first game for both teams and BC usually didn’t score and never won.

Lately they have changed it so that BC has some games first and BC has managed to score and actually had a lead once. They still haven’t won.

But if you compare baseball and football you’ll see that the best NFL team usually has something like 12-14 wins and there’s usually a team with only one or two. Meanwhile there is almost never a major league baseball team that has fewer than fifty or so wins or more than about 105.

If you think about it, winning poker is based on four things, 1) Patience, 2) Aggression, 3) Unpredictability, 4) Luck. If you look at baseball, you’ll see the same things. The best offensive performers are the ones who are both patient and aggressive. They listen to Ted Williams, wait for their pitch and beat the ever loving snot out of it. On the pitching side, you can’t afford to be predictable unless you have a 101 MPH fastball. Still, a pitching staff will throw 100-150 pitches per game and there will be mistakes. If that mistake is with the bases empty you give up one run and if it comes with them loaded, you give up four. Only luck is the difference. And the bunching of hits is pretty much luck unless the pitcher can’t pitch from the stretch.

And luck is luck. The difference between a line drive and a popup is about a quarter of an inch.

A lot of folks are under the impression that the good teams are good because they win close games but the reality is that the good teams are good because they avoid close games. Much like in a poker tournament if you avoid getting all your chips in, you’ll never get busted.

[Skipbidder]

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I'd say closest traditional game would be bridge

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There are many forms of poker. They have different skill/luck ratios.

There are also different versions of bridge. Cut-around money rubber (or Chicago) bridge is probably closest to poker in terms of luck/skill ratio, but I still think that there is quite a bit more luck in poker. In long knockout bridge matches, relatively weaker teams are going to finish well much less frequently than relatively weaker players are going to finish well in poker tournaments. My gut tells me that backgammon would be a better answer. However, this may well be because I'm a much better bridge player than backgammon player.

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There are also different versions of bridge. Cut-around money rubber (or Chicago) bridge is probably closest to poker in terms of luck/skill ratio, but I still think that there is quite a bit more luck in poker. In long knockout bridge matches, relatively weaker teams are going to finish well much less frequently than relatively weaker players are going to finish well in poker tournaments. My gut tells me that backgammon would be a better answer. However, this may well be because I'm a much better bridge player than backgammon player.

[/ QUOTE ]A short matchpoint event might be very close. I'm not a bridge expert, but I've got a few regional wins. And, in national championships, I have finished ahead of players who are much better than I am. Even in short team matches, I have come out ahead of world champions.

I'm not sure what comparable event in tournament poker there would be for a national knock out team championship in bridge, however. The WPT and World Series of Poker events are not the same, otherwise you'd have final tables made up of all known players.

[JoshuaD]

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I'd say closest traditional game would be bridge, but there's this collectible card game called Magic: The Gathering which I think is pretty close to poker when looking at short time luck vs playing skill for any longer perioid of time.

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A weak deck really doesn't have much of a chance vs a strong deck in magic. Strong decks are just tweaked too perfectly.