Vegas & The Aftermath - Diary

[gatso]

I think Boris is difinitely my new hero

[tikay]

I think Boris is difinitely my new hero

"we invented ping-pong, but we called it wiff-waff.

Ping pongs coming home......"

Was he sober?

[tikay]

I've just finished reading the DTD £500 Update, & splendid reportage it was, too.

I don't think I know the winner, Andrew Tuxworth, but many congrats to him.

He seems to have succeeded in tilting up half the players by his style, and there was much lolling at him, & rolling of eyes, but he paid his Entry Fee, & is entitled to play any way he wants.

It begs the question, though, if you read the entire Update.

What portion of poker is luck & what portion is skill, in % terms?

He beat a very tidy field indeed - there were some well street-wise players in that Event, & he won in a canter, hard-held. Good luck to him, I say.

I've always felt - & I'm ready to dive behind the blonde sofa after this, haf anticipating howls of protest & mirth - that it's somewhere in the region of 80% luck, 20% skill.

How far adrift is my thinking?

[77dave]

I think wiff-waff is 95% skill and 5% luck


whereas poker is more of an 80% skill 20% luck over the course of a year and 50%/50% and any given day.

[tikay]

I've just about stopped watching telly, but when away from home, in a hotel, I flick it on for 10 minutes when I go to bed, just to see what's on. (I don't have a TV in my bredroom at home, so am spared that dreaded chore).

At this time of night (early hours of the morning) Channel 4 shows what I believe is "Big Brother".

Specifically, it's fixed camera shots of various individuals asleep, in bed.

Can someone tell me the fascination of this? Do viewers really like to watch someone fast asleep? Would paint drying not be more exciting?

I know I'm an old fuddy-uddy, but really, if people actually enjoy this, well, they must live some weird lives.

Takes all sorts, I suppose.

[tikay]

I think wiff-waff is 95% skill and 5% luck


whereas poker is more of an 80% skill 20% luck over the course of a year and 50%/50% and any given day.

Yes, I accept, it's the long-tern view which counts.

But by logical extension, let's suppose that the best Tourney player in the world plays 100 straight Tourneys against much lesser skilled  opposition.

Are you saying he'd win 80 out of 100 times?..............

[celtic]

im with tikay, the % of luck is greater than skill. Maybe 70-30. In NLH.

In other variations the % of luck may vary.

[Jon MW]

I saw somebody's view which seemed reasonable.

I don't remember the exact details but it was along the lines of:
To win a tournament is 80% luck
To be winning over a year is 60% luck
To be winning over a decade is 40% luck
and to be winning over a lifetime is 20% luck

[77dave]

Do you need to win the event than to do better than your edge against the field. Just because you are fav to win in a 100 strong field, doesnt mean that you should win 80% of the events but finish above your edge on ave through the 100 comps.

You said that its 20% skill does this mean Hellmuth should win 20% of the comps he enters.

Long term is one of my fav poker expressions. What exactly is it and just how long is long term. This is the main reason why I have become a 99% cash player opposed to comps. I might not get that one big win in a day that I can get in a comp, but I can control my swings and bankroll a lot better. Last month I didnt have a losing day in the cash game was this luck. Of course some luck came and went along the way both good and bad.

Poker for me is not the seeking of luck and good fortune but the aviodance of bad luck.

I lost the biggest cash pot of my life last month to a sick bad beat but I still finished in front for the day if not the session.

Sometimes we forget just how lucky we are off the tables that we dont always need luck on it.

[tikay]

I picked up "The Independent on Sunday" today - jeez, it was £1.80! Imagine, 1 pound, 16 shillings for a newspaper! My first wage was £5 a week.

Anyway, it was discussing the return of Radio's most-loved comedy quiz, "I'm sorry I haven't a Clue", previously chaired, for like 30 odd years, by the so sorely missed "Humph".

So, they were ruminating on likely replacements for Humph, & they came up with this list.....

Stephen Fry. Good choice, but is he mentally stable enough for a long-running Show? Ceretainly, an amazingly clever & funny man.

Jarvis Cocker.  Wild Card entry, said to be very "dry", as was Humph.

Angus Deayton (sp?). Seriously funny, got all the credentials. & maybe he's over those indiscretions which saw him sacked from HIGNFY.

Sue Perkins. They cannot be serious.

Pam Ayres. She's got Chompy-ism - too one dimensional.

Sandi Toksvig. Clever, & funny, but her voice grates on me. Oddly, her voice, & even to a degree, her looks & build, remind me so much of Claire Balding. I vote against her, but I really don't know quite why.

Who's your choice? John Peel would be mine, but that's a bit awkward right now. But Paul Merson might just fit the bill.

[tikay]

I saw somebody's view which seemed reasonable.

I don't remember the exact details but it was along the lines of:
To win a tournament is 80% luck
To be winning over a year is 60% luck
To be winning over a decade is 40% luck
and to be winning over a lifetime is 20% luck

That makes some kind of sense.

[77dave]

I assume you mean Paul Merton not Paul Merson the ex-arsenal footballer

[totalise]

the % of luck vs skill imo pertains to how likely you are to generate a profite that correlates to your percieved expectation... and assuming you have a 100% roi in tournaments, if you play one solitary tournament, then given that most of them pay circa the top 10%, its highly unlikely that you will cash, and therefore highly unlikely that you will generate a profit that matches your expectation, so over a minute sample like that, luck is always going to be a lot more important then skill... but the more you play, as others have mentioned, the more likely it is that your results will aggregate a profit that matches your expectation.

obviously you then have to compare live vs online, because its looking increasingly likely that you wont ever reach a sample size that is sufficient to call "the long term" if you are only playing 2/3 tournaments a week live, so I think the luck aspect is going to be higher in live because your sample size cant match the 10/20 tournaments a day you can play online.

I think the best thing to do is to spend a bit more time worrying about things that matter, like how to beat people that "turned the game into a farce", and spend a little less time worrying about things out of your control, like the turn of a card.

maybe

[tikay]

I had several Invites a while back to take a place in the "Dream Team" Promotion run by another site - only because, one imagines, they were desperate for a "body". I dodged a serious bullet there judging by what I read today on the Betfair Forum.

Oh my good God - it's the most depressing indictment of organised Online "Team Poker" I've ever seen in my entire poker life.

I shall never, never ever, accept an Invite to play in such a thing as long as there's breath in my body.

Sometimes, you know, Poker just stinks.

[tikay]

I assume you mean Paul Merton not Paul Merson the ex-arsenal footballer

Are you suggesting I'm confused?