United States Online Poker indictment.

[Matthew]

Grammar time

Edits in bold
comments in bold pink

Wrong, 649/3= 200-ish fully evolved pokemon. And only 70 of them are actually decent, so it doesn't take a whole lot to memorize them. The pokemon are nicely colored so you can guess the typing simply by looking at the color. An example of this is: "Hey! he is red so he must be a fire type!" and, "hey that pokemon made it rain so it must be a water type!" Most of the time pokemon is just trial and error, while Poker* requires more instant memorization and calculation. "What did the player in second position do this turn that is different from last turn?" and, "What are the odds of me winning heads up when i have QQ and he has KK?" Math is harder, in my opinion, to memorize than colors. I'm not bashing the game, it's just that pokemon is not hard at all compared to poker. You would never see thousands of 12-14 year olds do well in poker. They don't know how to process 100's of calculations in a match. They do know how to match simple types in a roshambo** way. It's not just mental, it's physical too. In pokemon all you're looking at is a screen all day. In poker you have to watch the simplest movements to make an accurate prediction. In pokemon all you have to do is set up spikes. Bring out X when his spinner comes in etc. Pokemon is no comparison.

Poker isn't just memorizing 52 cards. Its about making the right decisions and calculating and memorizing the things that the opponents do all match.

* so poker is only capitalized if you're speaking about a specific type of poker, in this paragraph I honestly couldn't tell what you were talking about

** roshambo, in my experience, is usually one word, but it can also be hyphenated to be ro-sham-bo. Rock-paper-scissors would probably be better so people don't think of that South Park episode where they kick each other in the balls and call that roshambo.

 

[Curtains]

times tables

urr.... no its alot more complicated than that.

@ Gen emp : You cant change the voice of my post. Didn't they teach you that in middle school? Thats the first thing you learned when editing papers.

 

[Matthew]

but you sound retarded :c

 

[Curtains]

but you sound retarded :c

but math is harder. Thats factual evidence. not my opinion. They have calculus 2 not colors 2.

 

[Requiem[9]]

If pokemon takes as much skill as poker then why isnt it played for millions of dollars? If you take a random smogon tour and a random world poker tour you will always notice that there are always the best players at the final table and maybe one or two amatures. In the last 16 in a tour you will have 10 elete battler1900's and a few noticeable names. Even though pokemon has alot more depth in terms of items/monsters and moves anyone can pick it up and do well at it without any knowledge of whats going on. If you sit at a table and try to play poker the first times your gonna get smashed by expert readers, No matter how good your hands are. Pokemon is alot more mapped out and requires in the long run less creativity to do well. Look at the fifth gen metagame. Its either rain, stall, sand, sun. You only have to prepare for four teams. Hell i use banded dragonite and allways on the first move i spam outrage. That takes as much thought as taking a shit. And if they bring in X ill bring in Y and its that easy. In poker its different. You get 2 cards ( or in other variants 5-7 cards) and you have to calculate your hand ,the board, what others may have, the pot, your stack, EVERY section of the hand. In pokemon you already see the opponents team so basically its just advanced ro sham bo.

I'm not sure if you watched durrrr lose heads-up with an amateur or Joe Cada win his bracelet, but I can assure you that luck is a pretty major factor in poker even over thousands of hands... I don't perfectly remember the situation, but last WSOP final table, when it was three handed, the eventual winner called a 5-bet shove with JJ from the second stack for most of his chips with a 15BB short stack at the table. He really deserved that win, I'm sure. (I'm pretty sure ICM says it's a bad play against Q2o, too, so it's not even a matter of "hand reading".) And, do you honestly believe Chris Moneymaker is a better player than Sammy Farha? That Jamie Gold is better than Allen Cunningham? Poker is played for as much money as it is because it's a game with an inherent betting system, not because it's fundamentally better. I enjoy poker more than pokemon because there's never an "oh shit it's Dragonite I guess I lose" sort of situation, but it's not an easier game... the best pokemon players aren't the same class as the best poker players because not that many people play pokemon, but the skills are the same and the luck is the same and the bullshit is the same. I'm pretty sure KG or Earthworm or Aeroblacktyl or Gouki beat scrubs with the same frequency Phil Ivey does.

 

[Curtains]

I'm not sure if you watched durrrr lose heads-up with an amateur or Joe Cada win his bracelet, but I can assure you that luck is a pretty major factor in poker even over thousands of hands... I don't perfectly remember the situation, but last WSOP final table, when it was three handed, the eventual winner called a 5-bet shove with JJ from the second stack for most of his chips with a 15BB short stack at the table. He really deserved that win, I'm sure. (I'm pretty sure ICM says it's a bad play against Q2o, too, so it's not even a matter of "hand reading".) And, do you honestly believe Chris Moneymaker is a better player than Sammy Farha? That Jamie Gold is better than Allen Cunningham? Poker is played for as much money as it is because it's a game with an inherent betting system, not because it's fundamentally better. I enjoy poker more than pokemon because there's never an "oh shit it's Dragonite I guess I lose" sort of situation, but it's not an easier game... the best pokemon players aren't the same class as the best poker players because not that many people play pokemon, but the skills are the same and the luck is the same and the bullshit is the same. I'm pretty sure KG or Earthworm or Aeroblacktyl or Gouki beat scrubs with the same frequency Phil Ivey does.

But the difference is Phil Ivey is a genius and EW and gokui are not.

 

[Matthew]

I don't know if you've ever talked to gouki...

deep stuff man...

 

[Requiem[9]]

But the difference is Phil Ivey is a genius and EW and gokui are not.

What kind of argument is that.

Also, I would probably classify EW and Gouki as geniuses at pokemon. It's more that their genius makes them internet celebrities and Phil Ivey's makes him a millionaire.

 

[Curtains]

What kind of argument is that.

The truth / factual evidence

I doubt they both can reach the mental strength and guts that Ivey can . There is no such thing as a genius at pokemon. its like saying im a genius at guessing. Its meaningless. What has meaning is whether you should raise or fold when millions of dollars are on the line.

 

[Requiem[9]]

The truth / factual evidence

And what about the rest of my post?

 

[Zebstrika]

The truth / factual evidence

I doubt they both can reach the mental strength and guts that Ivey can . There is no such thing as a genius at pokemon. its like saying im a genius at guessing. Its meaningless. What has meaning is whether you should raise or fold when millions of dollars are on the line.

Yeah. With millions of dollars on the line, you have to guess if there are stronger hands out there, and whether or not the people that have them are willing to fold themselves.

And you can be a genius at teambuilding, which is probably where most of the skill at competitive Pokemon is. You also act like in Pokemon you either have to guess or there is one obvious choice. While that might be true about 95% of the time, it's also true in poker. With a really weak or really strong hand, you fold or bet high respectively. With something in the middle, you guess, based somewhat on the other players' bets, if you have the strongest hand.

 

[McGrrr]

I mean, you can legitimately still argue that Tom Dwan is a better player than Jungleman12 even after their match.

Not really?? Jungleman is +$1.25m after ~20k hands. Durrrr is getting crushed for almost 8BB/100! The sample size is not huge by any means, but nor is it small, and Jungleman's win rate is so absurdly high that it is hard to argue in favour of Durrrr. Besides, you are talking about a match between two highly skilled thinking players who both play aggressive high variance styles. This is an irrelevant example because the vast majority of professional players would not put themselves in such a situation. Table selection allows one to find clearly +EV games.

 

[Requiem[9]]

Not really?? Jungleman is +$1.25m after ~20k hands. Durrrr is getting crushed for almost 8BB/100! The sample size is not huge by any means, but Jungleman's win rate is so absurdly high that it is hard to argue in favour of Durrrr. Besides, you are talking about a match between two highly skilled thinking players who both play aggressive high variance styles. This is an irrelevant example because the vast majority of professional players would not put themselves in such a situation. Table selection allows one to find clearly +EV games.

The point is that you can argue whatever side you want because luck plays a pretty big role in poker. Isildur1 crushed Negreanu in a similar situation and lost the next week; though it was by a smaller margin, does the difference indicate that Negreanu fixed enough of his leaks to obtain an edge, or did he luck his way through Isildur's edge? Did Delta2777 win Tour because he's the better player or because he lucked his way through Eo's edge? That's my point. I'm not arguing that poker isn't a game of skill. I'm arguing the opposite, in fact. I'm just pointing out to Curtains that pokemon is a game of skill in the same way... that luck is a factor and that it's possible to lose money in +EV matchups much in the same way it's possible to lose a pokemon match to hax, and that it's only through volume that a player's edge shows. Poker is not a more skillful game than pokemon, even if it is more enjoyable.

Also,

I doubt they both can reach the mental strength and guts that Ivey can . There is no such thing as a genius at pokemon. its like saying im a genius at guessing. Its meaningless. What has meaning is whether you should raise or fold when millions of dollars are on the line.

What? Ivey is not a good player because he players with hundred of thousands of dollars, he's a good player despite that. Good poker players never see their chips as money, at which point it's just an exercise in the same way that any other game is an exercise... losing money isn't bad because it's money lost, it's because it's a sign that he's the fish at the table.

And, there are a lot of pretty smart people on this site. PttP is better than many of those people but probably not smarter than them. Gouki and Earthworm and friends are the best of the best and have been for a long time, staying one step ahead of all metagames with apparently effortless ease. This is the definition of "genius" I usually operate under.

 

[Ramblin Wreck]

 

[shipship]

I played poker for a living and this sucks.

The US Government sucks.

 

[iDunno]

If you think it sucks, then leave? It's not like you have a job you're tied down to or anything.

 

[shipship]

After reading this topic I've come to the conclusion that you are very misinformed about poker.

I've paid taxes and I enjoy living here, I just don't like our crappy government that's increasingly restricting our rights.