I have worked things out so that I can play live poker more often. More about that in a future post.
In a Scientific American article, Jennifer Ouelette states that based on a study of 60 players and 300 hands of poker, poker is a game of luck, with skill having very little effect on the outcome. Here is my response:
300 players and 60 hands of poker? This is really bad science, or at least bad math.
Evidently Scientific American hasn’t heard about one of the basics of statistics, sample size. Many people know, from hearing public opinion polls discussed on TV, that a poll has to include enough people to be an accurate estimation of the opinions of larger groups. The same applies to poker.
On the twoplustwo.com poker forums, beginners will often submit some results and ask for an evaluation of their play. The answer is often quick and to the point, something like this:
“Small sample size. Come back when you’ve played at least 10,000 hands.”
60 players over 300 hands? Meaningless.
No comments:
Post a Comment