IQ/Poker/David Sklansky

[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.

[rerazor]

Man can he throw them cards though!

[parachute]

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.

[MMMMMM]

[ 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.

[/ QUOTE ]

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.

[TransientR]

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

[BarronVangorToth]

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

[eamato]

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.

[David Sklansky]

"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.

[stinkypete]

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

[/ QUOTE ]

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.

[jakuda]

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.