RANDOM thoughts

[Irieguy]

"My major hobby is teasing people who take themselves & the quality of their knowledge too seriously & those who don’t have the guts to sometimes say: I don’t know...." (You may not be able to change the world but can at least get some entertainment & make a living out of the epistemic arrogance of the human race). -- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nassim Nicholas Taleb is the author of a book called Fooled by Randomness, which I think is a must-read for any professional or aspiring professinal poker player. I read the book several years ago, but I think about it often as I continue to struggle to wrap my mind around the role of randomness in my results.

I am frequently reminded about the concepts explained in that book when I read posts on this forum, but lately it seems that randomness has become a particularly neglected concept. I think that understanding the role of randomness in the world is a key component to a sound world view and a happy, peaceful existence. Most people disagree with me.

The majority of people on this planet believe in ghosts. They believe that aliens pilot UFOs. They believe in their God at the exculusion of all other gods and believe that disagreeing with them may have dire consequences. They believe that everything happens for a reason. They believe in fate. They believe in destiny. Believing these things brings comfort to the majority of people on this planet... as ironic as it seems.

Now, there is another point of view regarding the laws of the universe. It is a point of view governed by science and reason. It is a minority viewpoint. It may or may not be any better or worse than the majority viewpoint, but it's easier to defend in a debate (using science and reason as the primary debate tactics, of course.)

What does this have to do with SNG poker? Well; smart, scientific, reasonable people get fooled by randomness all of the time. I'll let anyone interested read the book if they want some brilliant examples (including a nice discussion of the Monte Carlo simulator which made a brief but magnificent appearance on this forum a few months back.) In any event, I submit that we could all benefit from looking a little harder at the role of randomness in our results.

Somebody (read: practically everybody) will misinterpret this post as an assertion by me that so and so isn't as good as he thinks he is. This is not my point. I don't care how good so and so is. I just think that a concept as profoundly significant as randomness should make a more frequent appearance. An ample acknowledgement of randomness keeps egotism and idolatry in check. 5 billion people on this planet earn less than $10 per day. We need to be careful not to assume that the reason why we earn $10 per SNG is because we are smarter or better than the rest of the people on this planet. We are merely better served by randomness, that is all.

That doesn't mean that there isn't a correct way to play poker. There is. That doesn't mean that you can't become a winning poker player and make a lot of money. You can. Here's what it means:

Let's say that flipping coins became the next craze. MGM-Mirage decided to pay anyone that wanted to play even money if they could flip heads.(minus a fee, of course.) People love to do this, and pretty soon everybody is wagering everything they have trying to flip heads.

Let's say that a small percentage of people actually figure out how to use certain mechanics and weather conditions to improve the chances that they can flip heads. This select group of "professional flippers" averages heads 60% of the time. Some members of this elite group average more, some less. It's quite a hard skill to master... but worth the effort. But the rest of the public simply takes their 50-50 shot and pays the vig. Still, everybody is aware of this elite group, and many fancy themselves a member of this group... many more than actually belong.

So, eventually there's a group of 500,000 donkeys flipping coins and 25,000 professionals. Legend and lore builds, and the goal of every flipper is to make a "magic 9." A "magic 9" is 9 heads in a row. Only professionals are really capable of such a feat, legend has it, because the random odds of this happening are astronomical.

So everybody starts flipping. In the first 9 flips there will be close to 1000 "magic 9ers" from the random population and only 250 or so from the professional group. Clearly, anyone who makes a magic 9 will fancy themselves a professional, so there will be 1250 self-proclaimed professionals with the title of "magic 9er," while only 250 of those people are, in fact, professionals. Oh, and by the way, those 250 professionals are on quite a heater.

So, you can tweak the analogy anyway you'd like... but the bottom line is that as long as professionals comprise a small percentage of the total population of players in an endeavor where chance plays a role, the majority of successful individuals are going to be the beneficiaries of randomness. Furthermore, the most successful of the "skilled professional" group will also be beneficiaries of randomness to a much larger degree than they would like to admit.

My opinion is that by coming to terms with the statistical truism analogized above, it becomes easier to distinguish signal from noise in discussions about what to expect from the game of poker.

Or something.

Irieguy

[Freudian]

Many pokerplayers who do well do indeed have their magic 9 start. That gives them breething room to suck while learning to play properly since they now have a bankroll. For some that is not enough (que complaints about bad luck, cheating) to get them through. Most who quit poker never have their magic 9 at any point. It is just a stupid game where you lose money. And lastly we have those that have a bad start but since the signs that this thing can be beat are there keep trying and improving. They most likely will have their magic 9 sooner or later.

[Benholio]

But don't we talk about variance every day? I think most, or many at least, of us have a good idea of the role that variance plays in our results.

[Freudian]

[ QUOTE ]
But don't we talk about variance every day? I think most, or many at least, of us have a good idea of the role that variance plays in our results.

[/ QUOTE ]

If that was true, why is invariably most new posters talking about their ROI in their first post.

And why do the posters with experience only divulge their results after running good?

[The Yugoslavian]

[ QUOTE ]
But don't we talk about variance every day? I think most, or many at least, of us have a good idea of the role that variance plays in our results.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, like maybe 5 people on this forum have any idea of the depth and profundity that is VARIANCE.

I'm serious btw. Oh and Giga is one of them I'd imagine. He's rolled like 9 magic 9s, [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img].

Yugoslav

[GrekeHaus]

[ QUOTE ]
But don't we talk about variance every day? I think most, or many at least, of us have a good idea of the role that variance plays in our results.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think that it is almost like a buzzword for a lot of people. Someone post stats saying "I have a 50% ROI after 150 tournaments". Then well all say "Just wait for variance to kick in".

Meanwhile, the same poster who just posted the above statement about variance makes a seperate post saying "Look how well I did this month". His results are more reasonable and seemingly more attainable so we all say "Way to go" and assume that we should all aspire to have a 25% ROI at the 109s, or a 33% ROI at the 11s or whatever.

Meanwhile, the poster never posts the results of how well he did the other 11 months out of the year.

[Benholio]

Well, talking about your ROI doesn't mean you have no concept of variance. If you played 50 tournaments and you had an ROI of 50%, well, you had an ROI of 50%.

However, I'm not going to speak for, or defend, the new posters who come in here thinking they are 70% ITM, etc. I'm just speaking for the majority of the people who have read the forum for more than a day.

Basically, I'm just saying, did that big long post say something besides "variance variance you are running good blah", because if so, I'd like to be enlightened.

This isn't meant as a dig, as I've gotten plenty of insight from Irie's posts before. I am just trying to make sure there isn't some new nugget of knowledge buried in this one.

[DMACM]

You dont need to roll a magic 9 if you start with play chips and work your way up to .01-.02 nl and so on. I don't understand why everyone doesn't do that.

[Freudian]

[ QUOTE ]

I think that it is almost like a buzzword for a lot of people. Someone post stats saying "I have a 50% ROI after 150 tournaments". Then well all say "Just wait for variance to kick in".

[/ QUOTE ]

Also it is used to explain away losing streaks. Drop xx buyins. "It is just variance". Which is silly. For all we know it could have zero to do with variance and everything to do with poor play.

[Freudian]

[ QUOTE ]
You dont need to roll a magic 9 if you start with play chips and work your way up to .01-.02 nl and so on. I don't understand why everyone doesn't do that.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hehe, I always get confused by those that read three 2+2 books while playing with play money and then make their first deposit.

Those freaks scare me.