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BGonline.org Forums
2006 Article on Luck and Skill in BG/don't completely agree
Posted By: phil simborg In Response To: 2006 Article on Luck and Skill in BG (Matt Cohn-Geier)
Date: Thursday, 25 February 2016, at 1:12 p.m.
I think this is a great article and I completely agree with Frank on every point but one I will discuss. One thing Frank did not mention is that if you have two players who are exactly equal in skill, luck is the determining factor 100 percent of the time. And of course, it is fair to say that the closer in skill the more luck becomes a factor. But not pointing this out does not detract from the major point of the article.
Now, his ending paragraph he states that backgammon requires more skill than poker. I have said this for years, and in the past few years I have spent some time studying and playing poker, and the more I play the more I have tended to solidify my thinking that backgammon requires more skill. Learning the odds in poker, for example, is much simpler than learning the odds, take points, and skills to make good checker plays in backgammon. So I reached the same conclusion that Frank did.
You can imagine my shock when Kit Woolsey told me that he thought it takes more skill to play poker than backgammon. And this is coming from someone who has my respect (and others) as one of the greatest game players in the world. (He has actually been named one of the top 10 in the world.) Also, everything else Kit has ever told me in the past (he was my first backgammon teacher) has turned out to be true.
When I asked Kit to elaborate, he said that the skills required to read your opponent and to make a reasonable guess at what he is holding from his betting, combined with the more complicated calculations you need to make in tournament play when you compare stacks, amount in the pot, amount bet, and the odds of your hand winning...this all makes poker a lot more complicated and difficult to play well than most people realize.
Since I do not have a lot of tournament poker experience, and my experience in cash games far from qualifies me as an expert, I do not feel qualified to make a reasonable comparison, but since Kit gave me his views, I have gained a greater respect for the skill in poker and I am no longer so sure that backgammon really does require more skill.
One thing is sure, the skills required are different, since with backgammon there are no hidden cards or bluffing. Another thing that is sure, at least to me....backgammon is a hell of a lot more fun and I never get bored when I'm playing backgammon and I am often bored playing cash games in poker where it is correct to simply fold most of the time. If they didn't let me wear headphones and listen to music and watch podcasts and do emails while I'm playing poker, I would never play the game at all.
It would be fun to take a poll of people who excel at both backgammon and poker, and there are many, and see if they agree with Kit. My guess is you would get split decisions, but I think it would be impossible to definitively prove which game requires more skill. It would always be a matter of opinion. Also, it depends on what you are comparing. We all know that match play is far more complex than money play, and the same is true for tournament poker vs. cash games. So if you compare cash poker to money backgammon, I would still tend to say backgammon requires more skill; but if you compare tournament backgammon to tournament poker, then I guess I will have to respect the opinion of Kit and other experts.
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