Home / Poker News April 2009 / Studies say poker IS a game of skill part 2
Studies say poker IS a game of skill part 2
Posted by: James Carter. - Thu, 2009-04-09 13:13
Although research undertaken by Jan-Philipp Rock and Ingo Fiedler of the University of Hamburg has yielded relevant and mathematically correct results towards proving once and for all that poker was a game of skill, some experts still consider that the intricate nature of the study makes it unlikely that these results could ever be used efficiently in pursuing a judge or a jury to legalize online poker based on them.
Any scientific proof that could be used in such scope would have to be simple and easy to understand. This is where Sean McCulloch of the Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware comes into the picture. A computer scientist, McCulloch ran a study of his own based on real poker hands played at PokerStars – the world biggest and most popular online poker room.
Having teamed up with Paco Hope of Cigital, McCulloch adopted a completely different approach to the problem. He analyzed 130 million Texas Holdem hand histories, and looked at how big a percentage of hands were won as a result of a showdown, and how many pots went down without one. Obviously, the luck factor can only influence the outcome of hands which do go on to see a showdown, where one player’s cards best another guy’s cards. In hands which do not go to showdown, luck can never be a factor at all.
The conclusions of the study were quite stunning: 76% of the 130 million hands played (a sample-size more than large enough to be relevant) never saw a showdown. That makes the answer to this controversial and often debated issue as straight and easy to understand as possible: in 76% of the cases, the luck factor doesn’t even get a chance to kick in.
The PPA welcomed both studies and expressed hope that they could be used to fight possible appeals to recent court rulings which came to the conclusion that poker was indeed a game of skill.
Despite the scientific proof, law experts are not convinced that such studies will be enough to overturn anti-poker legislation, as the issue is not just a mathematical one but a moral, political and social one as well
