Posted by The Captain | Filed under The Week at FTP
The last time we spoke with Howard Lederer, we covered a lot of ground. As usual, he was good enough to field a lot of questions and share his thoughts on all things poker. Of everything that we discussed, one question that came up was how - or if - other games relate to poker. As we expected, “The Professor” had an interesting take on what games best translate to poker, but also on how playing games in general helps develop critical thinking skills. Here’s what he had to say:
I think that the game that is most translatable to poker is backgammon. It’s a great game of skill with a healthy dose of luck. It’s a complicated game because you’re dealing with a lot – you have to be thinking with every single move that you make. You’re constantly trying to minimize the effectiveness of the most likely rolls of your opponent and trying to maximize the number of possible good rolls for your next turn. You’re distributing your checkers in a way that makes them flow nicely over a wide range of numbers while trying to minimize the good numbers for your opponent.
In poker, you’re trying to do that all of the time. You’re tying to maximize the chances that the chips you put in the pot are going to come back to you with a nice, healthy return. You’re also thinking about a wide range of potential cards - tying to minimize losses when the cards go poorly for you and maximize your chance of winning when they’re in your favor.
Chess is also a great game – you develop discipline and good critical thinking skills, but there’s been a poor crossover to poker, particularly with players at the highest levels. Although chess requires a great deal of skill to master, it’s a game that rewards your skill too consistently – at least compared to poker. It’s one of the reasons people don’t really gamble at chess.
It’s certainly not a lesser game, but when you reach the level of grand master in chess, one of the skills that you really haven’t learned is how to deal with the luck. I think that someone who has reached that level has a hard time making the transition to a game where they might play great for an evening and then lose. It’s hard to deal with emotionally. On the other hand, backgammon players do this all of the time. And you see that a lot of the world’s best backgammon players have successfully made the crossover. Guys like Gus Hansen and Erik Seidel, amongst others. I can’t give you a list for chess.
Something else that’s developed with or through other games that’s relevant is competitiveness – the desire to beat your opponent. We’re hardwired to compete in this world. In the real world 10,000 years ago, this competition was for food or maybe a territorial skirmish where, in both cases, life was on the line. The beauty of games is that you get to satisfy these urges and no one dies at the end (usually). It’s the idea of engaging in competition, and the fact that there is honor in winning.
I was a pretty good backgammon player, and I think that this competitive drive is what helped me. As my skill developed, I was able to be around world-class players. There was always a certain mentality, a certain approach that they took; it was an uncompromisingly self-critical ability that’s common amongst those who had become world-class. It was this mentality that I applied to poker. I really hadn’t been exposed to people like that before and, if I hadn’t, I don’t think I could have developed the critical ability necessary to become a great poker player. I believe that’s important for sure.
It might not be so much about the games themselves as much as being exposed to the players who have developed that ability. If you’re serious about poker, choose your friends wisely. Find accomplished people that are really excited about the game. That’s what will make you a better player.
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