Luck vs. Skill - Why steemit and poker have a lot in common and luck is a predictable driver.
If you talk to professional poker players, they often describe their vocation as 'a hard way to make an easy living'.
During the past months I have got a picture of steemit which is very similar to the one I had when I was playing poker.
On the blockchain and at the poker table there is no luck - just a mathematically calculable variance of average results. But that´s only one of 15 parallels I have found.
The variance in poker and the inexistence of luck
A difficult aspect of the game that professional poker players have to deal with is the inconsistency in income. Although they employ a nice skill set and their benefits of many years of experience, a lot of them still come home with less money than when they arrived at the poker table. These 'normal' ups and downs of poker playing are known as 'variance'.
From a statistical point of view, the variance shows the differences between an individual result and the so called 'average' for a complete set of results.
Even the very best poker players in the world have sessions where they win or lose that go two or more standard deviations away from the average.
An inexperienced player would attribute derivations away from the average to luck (or better said: bad luck), but in poker there is no luck.
The derivation is within the realm of possibility, and has little effect over a whole career. If the 'outlying' results continued to appear however, they could be the announcing the start of a new trend.
Parallels between steemit and poker
1. Players are driven by a certain insanity (addiction).
2. Players strive for reputation and money.
3. The chances of profit are calculable since they depend on a chain of predictable drivers*. Derivations from that average are part of the game (see above mentioned concept of 'variation').
*Examples of predictable drivers on steemit: timing, content quality, target group match.
4. The game only works if all players behave according to the rules they agreed on.
5. Success highly depends on your abilities and your timing.
6. If you limp in and don´t play tight, you´ll hardly be the last one sitting at the table. Play your good cards (quality content) or don´t play at all. All in!
7. Everybody is able to participate, but the big players benefit from the ones who still don´t know much.
8. Players are all sitting at the same table but act as lone fighters.
9. The more you invest, the more you can win.
10. You only need one good hand to surpass all the others.
11. Integrity is important.
12. Sometimes you win and sometimes you learn.
13. 'Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.' Doyle Brunson
14. That moment when you show your cards (post) and wait for its impact...
'15. You will show your poker greatness by the hands you fold, not the hands you play.' Dan Reed
Probably there are even more parallels. I guess one of the most interesting points here is the possibility to define 'luck' as a calculable variable. Conversaly, the more you learn about the system the better you know how to deal with that variable. If a derivation from your average results (success) was part of the game / your strategy, failure wouldn´t be seen so negatively anymore. From that point of view, the 'poker approach' could even help us to keep calm when things don´t work like we expected.
I would be happy to get your comments on that idea.
Cheers & 'good luck' :-)
Marly -
Picture source cover: pixabay.com
Picture source quote success: https://i.imgur.com/
Picture source quote everybody can play: http://scontent.cdninstagram.com/
Picture source quote patience: http://www.smartpokerstudy.com/
My favorite parallel:
This one made me smile. In my book, winning and learning are synonymous.... ;) Steem on, Surfer Girl! 😄😇😄
You have written a book? Where can I read that?!?
Well, in this context, "In my book" is simply a metaphor meaning "The way I think about things." :) LOL!
However, my surfing stories and musings and poetry and etc. are all part of a book that I've literally been "working on" for decades, but have never yet "formally" published... "The plan" has been to publish it on Kindle one day. I came very close - thought I had someone who would write an introduction for me - but that fell through. It has been sitting on the back burner for several years now... :(
Anyhow, I've been very glad that my surf stories have been so well received here on Steemit! :) And that I've gotten to meet some sweet surfers like you as well! :) :) :)
Ah OK, then I misunderstood - and accidentally opened a new chapter of conversation :) I have also an unfinished book sleeping in the drawer. Thanks to steemit I have found a good alternative, too. Let´s focus on the positive side: we are constantly improving our writing skills here, and when we are old and tired and not surfing anymore, we will have the time and perfectly developed skills and knowledge to finish that lifetime achievement :-D
PS: I´d always prefer to chat with hot surfers like you instead of writing a book, haha :-))
Once more, you are making me smile, Marly! Hugs! :)
I agree that poker is a game of skills, but I think you ruled out luck just a little to easy. There is still a lot of luck involved, and I have seen a lot of good players failing to win just because oh bad luck. Those bad runs also affects players confidence, so in a long run it migh hurt even more.
There is definitely luck involved, however, skills are more important. The difference between good and great is that great players feel when they have no luck and just don't play on that period.
Ya oh well the luck factor.
I do agree with Marly that a game is either a skill game or a luck game. I play poker very regularly and I can definitely attest to what you are describing about luck destroying players. I have had a 6 months stretch of break even results and losses recently and this is very toxic to self confidence as well as to my wallet and bankroll. However in the long run I have the same amount of positive outliers. Even this year I had a stretch of almost 20 winning sessions in a row. If I just say this is luck then I have failed as a player, because it is part of the game. It is my job to understand that such variance is part of the game and needs to be handled and managed.
But in my mind this is not luck. While every day I get lucky or not, wether I make sure I can handle the swings is a matter of strategy. If I win over the long run or the game brakes me is not about being lucky, but playing right and this includes how I let losses affect me, how I handle them and how I plan for them.
I think Marly has experienced something similar on this site. She had a very slow start, but kept working on her game and now consistently delivers post that yield rewards. There is also lots of variance in her results as well. There are still many post where she almost makes nothing. I am sure lot's of these result are governed by the quality of her work, but it seems very clear to me that a large part of it is due to variance.
Yup, totally agree on all of the above! However, I got to experience that sometimes you just know that you will lose, and on other times you are sure that you gonna win, even though, you are playing the same poker. Its like univers just has those limits set on each person on how much they can win with cards. But that's just my speculations and conspiracy theories lol.
As for Steemit part, I totally agree with you as well. One thing is clear - you can still lose when you have skills, but you will never win if you have no skills. So whatever that luck thing is, we just have to take care of being skilled and expect for the best :)
Thank you my friend @knircky! Who else could talk about playing poker? :-)
You said that it´s part of the 'job to understand that such variance is part of the game and needs to be handled and managed.' Do you think the variance on steemit could be handled and managed in a similar way?
Getting back to your example (my 'steemit career'): I guess you are right, while I have had a lot of successful publications lately, some of my articles still don´t comply with the quality demands of a certain target group and die poorly. But how could we minimize variance? There is few information we do have about circumstances like active users and their profile. If we knew better the target group it would be easier to deliver... But well it´s also part of the game to not have these details :-)
I think some of the variance just has to be accepted.
All we can do is play our cards as best we can. In steem this means all we can do is write content as best as possible and then we need to accept that sometimes the content won't get noticed.
Likewise we must be careful not to overreact to our successes, because just like our misses are often likely negative outliers the last big hit might represent a positive lucky hit.
We cannot control when big whales login and read our articles and we cannot control what they like or don't. So I think there has to be variance in how we will be rewarded.
That sounds absolutely logical to me.
I guess that a constant improvement of skills will help us to keep the variance low, but it will be always part of the game. We can learn both from failure and success, trying to not overrate extreme outliers on both extremities.
Talking so much about poker, I would love to drive to the casino RIGHT NOW! :-))
I have to play 15 more h to hit my 500h per year goal and also have a $ goal I am very close to that I want to hit.
Still have a few days :-)
Thanks for your detailed comment @writingamigo! Maybe I ruled out luck quickly just because I liked the idea of not giving it too much importance :-)
The feeling that you mentioned is also a feeling which could be developed on steemit, I guess. The more you learn, the better you know what works and what doesn´t. The problem is that we don´t have sufficient information to perfectly predict our content´s success, thus the variation is always a big part of the game.
Lucky or not - it´s exciting to be here! :)
That is true! I agree that sometimes it is better just to rule out the factors, which you cannot influence just to focus on the importnat stuff a little easier. I hope we will figure out the rest of the information in future to be even more successful!
Nontheless, steemit is for sure a superb place to be!
It definitely is!
Following you now for future posts :)
Thanks @surfermarly! Will make sure to work on my game to produce more quality with every day :)
Me too!! :))
I really enjoyed reading this great post, and I like to believe that there is no luck or bad luck. There are just choices.
Thank you @the-future!!!
Things would become much easier though :-)
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This is a great post. I've approached Steemit like a game from day one. You win some and learn some. Cut the deck and deal me in.
THAT IS BRILLIANT!!!