When I was on RGP a few years ago I ran across a poster that I respected
greatly, not only for his math and statistical skills, but also for his
generally logical posts. The following post, which I copied from the
google
archives gave me a few chuckles, but I believe that it is an honest
*****sment of the randomness of poker. This post is quite long and I
probably should have just linked to it, but I'm not sure how often people
follow the links, and this post I believe should be "revived" every once
in
a while in it's entirety here on RGP. When you get to the part about the
Zoggians and Bamphites, hopefully you'll understand why this is worth the
resurrection. I left it intact just as Tom posted it with it's minor
spelling errors in place.
This post is in no way my words. I don't pretend to have written them, I
only wish I had. Thanks go out to Tom Weideman.
[Warning! Patience is required to reach the poker content.]
Out of the primordial soup slithers the first amoeba-like creature. As
the
first life on earth, it figures it better get down to come serious
evolution
if it's gonna make the big Y2K party in a few billion years. So it tries
new things, and sees how they work out. First it tries leaving the patch
of
water in which it currently resides. As it does, its membrane starts to
dry
out in the volcanically-heated air, and the organelles in that section of
its "body" stop functioning properly. "Whoops, not a good idea," it says
to
itself, and files away the "Don't leave the water" message for future
reference. It has responded to its first external stimulus. After it
splits a few times, other cells try to leave the water, and some of them
are
not genetically disposed to react to the bad things that result from this
foolhearty action, and they perish quickly. So began the "swift reaction
to
stimulus good, slow (or non-) reaction to stimulus bad" genetic
imperative.
Skipping ahead many millennia...
Homo sapiens begin seriously employing the practice of learning by trial
and
error. They marvel at the wonder that is the sun in the sky, and wonder
if
it can grant their wishes and help them with their difficult lives. They
try asking this sun if it will help them to find a mammoth so they can
kill
it and eat it, and amazingly a short time later they find one. They try
it
again the next time they go hunting, and it works again. They conclude
that
the sun is a powerful god that they must respect and revere. Later they
find that this god will occasionally not help them, but rather than doubt
their original conclusion, they figure they must have done something to
anger the sun god, and set out on a trial-and-error quest to determine
what
pleases and what angers this deity. They dutifully take note of
everything,
and pass the information down to their offspring.
Skipping ahead still further...
Superstition runs rampant in the human condition. One of the most
im****tant
things determined by the predecessors of these humans is that their
deities
are angered by critical analyses of the
long-forgotten-stimulus/response-induced belief system. These humans
manage
to overlook the logical inconsistency inherent in this belief system: If a
critical analysis concludes that the belief system is flawed, then the
tenet
in this system which says that critical analysis is wrong must itself be
meaningless. Wars are fought over differences of opinion about whose
belief
system is correct. More superstitions are invented every single day by
people who believe there must be reasons for various (perhaps unlikely)
random events.
Moving now into poker...
"Change the deck"... "Get a set-up"... "I'd like the four seat when it
opens
up"... "I was playing my rush"... "I can't play these hands when I'm
running
bad"... Everyone has their own theories about how to sway random chance to
their favor. Where do these come from? They arise because one of the
first
times they tried one of these tricks, it "worked". They quickly forget
the
plethora of null data points, where changing decks or changing seats
didn't
help at all, or worse yet, they use one of their superstitions as an
excuse
for the failure of the other: "The deck change didn't work, so the whole
set-up must be bad - get a new set-up please", or "Okay, so it wasn't the
set-up, so I guess I'm just in an unlucky seat." With enough of these
iterations, one of them is bound to "work", that is, eventually the player
will win a hand, and his superstition will finally be confirmed, "Ah, it
was
the seat." With enough attempts, ALL of the superstitions will be
confirmed, since eventually he will HAVE to win a hand. No one who
believes
in lucky decks thinks the concept of lucky seats is silly.
Moving now to my main point...
The crux of the matter is that humans are notoriously inept at drawing
conclusions intuitively from the results of events. We have invented a
method of drawing appropriate conclusions (the field of statistics), but
without the painstaking training associated with learning this subject, we
are left with the poor judgement we inherited of basing broad conclusions
on
too few data points. For some strange reason, this annoys me. I get
annoyed by all the playing time at the table that I lose because of new
set-up requests. I get angry when I see an irate player throw his cards
at
a dealer who I like but who is apparently "unlucky" for this player. Most
of all I get irritated when I see people make snap judgements about the
playing ability (good or bad) of certain players because of those players'
short-term results. This brings me to my main topic: high-profile
tournament players. To demonstrate my point, I'm going to take you far
from
the confines of our little planet and the egos contained herein, light
years
away to the planet Zog...
---
Poker was introduced on Zog several years ago, and it was an instant hit.
Unlike earth, Zog's intelligent inhabitants are not so widely-varied in
their talents. In fact, when poker tournaments were first introduced,
every
tournament saw the same 300 players show up every time, and every one of
these players played with EXACTLY the same ability!
Much to the surprise of Zoggians everywhere, there was one player who had
actually won more than one tournament of the mere 15 that were played in
the
entire history of poker on that planet. Everyone thought, "Wow, the odds
against a single player winning more than 1 tournament out of only 15 when
there are so many participants must be astronomical! This player really
must know more about the game than anyone else!"
[Math note: The probability that some player will win more than once out
of
15 tries with a 1/300 shot of winning each tournament is actually better
than 1/3, so it's not such an amazing event after all. Unfortunately, the
Zoggians evolved to be no better at intuitively understanding the
mathematics of seemingly unsual events than humans.]
The Zoggian who achieved this feat of course also believed that he must be
a
great player, so he wrote a book that everyone immediately bought. Now
because of the tournament success and the book, this player became a
celebrity among poker players, and immediately commanded respect at poker
tables everywhere. The plays that he made at the table that worked out
well
were heralded as more signs of his genius, while his failures were soon
forgotten, or more likely, were deemed to have been "too deep" for mere
mortals to understand. The selective memory syndrome built him into a
legend. In addition to this, the confidence he acquired from his early
success (and his opponents' concomitant collective fear) served to
actually
(for the first time) cause him to play slightly better than his opponents,
making him slightly more likely to win events than his counterparts.
As the fame of the Zoggian poker author continued to grow unchecked,
another
player won multiple tournaments in a short time, and it was not long
before
he was proclaimed the newest Zoggian poker genius. Like his predecessor,
this fellow wrote a book, and he also began collecting financial backers
for
future events. His backing allowed him to play more fearlessly than
before,
and this, along with his notoriety, helped him to gain a slight edge on
his
opponents.
This same story played over and over, with new "heroes" emerging every so
often by winning multiple tournaments in a short time. Before long, there
was a whole pantheon of "superstar" players, that everyone on Zog agreed
were the elite. These superstars were just as susceptible to selective
memory as the rest of the planet, so they believed that their fellow
superstars really were "the players to beat". Many of them split action
with each other in tournaments, figuring that their group was a shoo-in to
get most of the money at every event they played. Every once in awhile,
an
"outsider" won a tournament who, for whatever reason, was quickly praised
by
one of the established elite. The effect of this was to effectively
extend
the period of time allowed (from 15 tournaments to 30) for that person to
win a second tournament such that he would be admitted into the elite.
This
had the effect of greatly improving the probability of these connected
newcomers hitting it big, AND it served to make the uppercrust even an
more
tightly-knit group.
All this happened without a single player having any greater understanding
of the game of poker than anyone else. Many of the superstars played
marginally better because they played aggressively thanks to their
misplaced
confidence, but this adjustment was by no means a deliberate conscious
decision based on a strategic understanding of the value of aggression.
After their original hot streaks, any occasional win (however rare it
might
actually be) by a superstar player only served to reinforce his stardom.
Typically this person credited his win with some adjustment he made that
"put him back on track". When a superstar failed to win a tournament, no
one took the slightest note, possibly because there was almost always some
other big name player to watch at the time. When a player fell on hard
times and lost a backer, he simply shopped around until another came
along.
One day, a small group of inhabitants from the nearby planet of Bamf
arrived
on Zog in a space****p, and they were amazed to discover how truly awful
the
Zoggians played the game of poker. With their superior analytical skills
and their centuries of experience, the Bamfites possessed a much deeper
understanding of the game than the Zoggians could ever imagine. After
speaking with and reading the books written by the star Zoggian players
and
after sitting at the tables with them a few times, the Bamfites concluded
that even the Zoggian "elite" were clueless about the game. For a variety
of reasons, most of the Bamfites decided that tournaments are not the
smartest or fastest way to win money, and only a few even bothered to
participate in these events. Those few that did take part only did so
occasionally, and expected to win maybe one out of every 150 or 200
tournaments. Although this was a much better probability that their
Zoggian
counterparts, these Bamfites never got admitted into the group of "elite"
players, because their limited participation made it extremely unlikely
that
they would manage to win multiple tournaments in a short time. When a
Bamfite occasionally let it slip in public that the Zoggian star players
were actually not very good, they were dismissed as "jealous", or were
told
that they simply did not understand the game well enough to see how deep
the
plays of these Zoggian superstars really were.
[All the characters in this story are fictional. Any similarities of
these
characters with real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. No
animals were harmed in the writing of this story, nor were any harmed to
produce the snack eaten by the author during the writing of this story.]
---
Now I'm not so cynical that I think that the above fiction is actually
going
on here today. But I wrote it to point out how blown out of pro****tion
tournament success can get, even in the most extreme case of players who
are
all equally matched. I do think that a great many of today's successful
tournament players are stronger players than hundreds of the numbskulls
that
participate in these events. But I'm also quite certain that many of
these
high profile players get way more credit than they deserve (eg. I think
that
players in the 75th percentile that enjoy a flash of tournament success
are
now regularly given credit for being in the 99th percentile). I'm trying
here to demonstrate that even a seemingly long run of apparent poker
success
in tournaments does not say as much about the poker understanding of a
player as most of us think it does, for two reasons: 1. Selective memory
about the results of renowned players makes their successes seem more
consistent than they really are, and 2. Even mediocre players can enjoy a
great deal more success than most people would expect.
Where this all has become abundantly clear is through the internet.
Previously, a knowledgeable poker player would not discover a tournament
player's mediocrity unless that tournament player wrote a book, discussed
poker in person, or played many hours at the same table. But now many of
these well-known players share their "insights" in the various internet
poker forums, and it doesn't take long before the chinks start to show.
Again, I'm not saying these players aren't winning players, only that
their
understanding may be less complete than they believe or that they are
given
credit for by the adoring general public.
What is interesting is the effect these players have on the dissemination
of
poker knowledge through the internet. Just as humans are capable of
quickly
developing superstitions to "answer" questions they have about their bad
fortune (as I described above), they also are predisposed to accept
successful players as authority figures. It's not just that it's
convenient
to explain a run of tournament successes by assuming extreme talent,
however. I think it goes even deeper than that. Everyone wants to win,
and
if they accept that a huge component of a player's amazing success is
attributable to luck, then they would have to discard the possibility that
following that authority's advice will lead them to similar success. In
other words, the desire to believe in the veracity of a successful
player's
advice is very similar to the desire to believe in the existence of lucky
and unlucky seats. By believing in these things (even in the face of
perfectly reasonable logic to the contrary), they feel safe in the
knowledge
that they have a yellow brick road to poker success.
While I believe this (genetic?) flaw is also what leads to people buy all
sorts of bogus diet plans and get-rich-quick schemes, it's certainly not
true these "poker authorities" are (as one infamous prolific poster would
characterize them) all "hucksters". The vast majority of them are
generous
people who share what they "know" for nothing, and the few that do sell
their knowledge firmly believe that they can help their readers. BTW, I
certainly don't want to discourage this practice, both because I still
have
much more to learn, and because in the areas that I feel I already do
understand well, I'm interested in discovering what actually goes through
the minds of these "experts" (the most obvious flaws are the shockingly
prevalent lack of logical deductive reasoning and mathematical
misconceptions, but there are other areas as well).
So now when I try to downplay the hype received by some of the more
well-known tournament players, even amidst a flood of testimonials on
their
behalf, you know where I'm coming from.
I hope to one day evolve beyond my irresistable desire to make fun of
superstition and misplaced hero wor****p when I see it, but that day has
not
yet come. Either that, or I'm just jealous.
Tom Weideman
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