This past week The World Series of Poker Circuit Event staff released the schedule of events, which offer 17 different tournaments (WOW!) in Atlantic City, New Jersey, from Dec. 4-20.

The tournaments will range in length from one to three days and feature buy-ins from $230 to $5,150.

But the largest buy in is for the Three-Day Deep Stack Main Event, from Dec. 13-15. Those competing  in the Main Event will receive 30,000 chips with the blinds beginning at 25/50.

Each level will last 60 minutes with a 15-minute break after every two levels and play extending to 90 minutes per level once the final table is reached.

There will also be $1,600 and $2,150 tournaments taking place after the start of the Main Event.  They will retain the same hour-long levels and blind structure of the Main Event with 20,000 and 25,000 chip starting stacks, respectively.

The Harrah’s Atlantic City cicruit event is the fourth stop on the WSOPC.

We’ll certainly tell everyone what happens at the event.

This seems to me like it will set quite a precedent. Perhaps it will have import on the constant problems facing online poker play. I’m not sure how I feel about this ruling. I had always thought that it was the monetary aspect that counted something as gambling. Chess – an undeniable game of skill – could be turned into gambling if betting became involved; or at least that’s what I thought. Ina any event, if this decisions ends up having greater ramifications, then I’m sure that poker’s status will be up for far more debate then this single case. But lets not forge the words of the legendary Tom Landry on this subject.

 ”In poker, it is often said that lucky breaks keep suckers at the table.” [A quote from Steven Lubet's book Lawyer’s Poker: 52 Lessons that Lawyers Can Learn from Card Players]

 There’s a story that Niels Bohr, the famous Physicist, had a horse shoe over his desk.  One day a student asked if he really believed that a horse shoe brought luck, and Bohr replied, “I understand that it brings you luck if you believe in it or not.”

I’m interested in the concept of luck, especially as it applies to poker.  I’ve written about this concept in previous posts (here and here), and I’m still not sure what it means.  I’ve recently read Steven Lubet’s book Lawyer’s Poker: 52 Lessons that Lawyers can Learn from Card Players (for a review of the book see here and for interview with the author see here), and he makes some points about luck with respect to Texas Hold’em. 

On the one hand, Lubet says that good poker players are never really lucky because they have calculated the odds correctly.  He gives the example of the poker player who might take a chance on a five-to-one draw, but only because he knows that the expected value of the action would be six to one or better, and that in the long run he will make a profit.  So if he hits a good card, Lubet says, his draw is not lucky.  Likewise, if he hits a worthless card, according to Lubet, his draw is not unlucky. 

On the other hand, Lubet says that luck does play a role in poker, specifically with second-best hands.  He writes, “[I]t is not really lucky to draw pocket aces in Texas Hold’em; it is just your turn, as everyone else will eventually get the same cards the same number of times.  Your result, with aces or any lesser hand, primarily depends on how well you play your cards.  But it is lucky (or luckier) if someone else at the table draws pocket kings at the same time, because that will build up the pot.  Conversely, it is relatively unlucky if everyone else at the table draws unplayable rags, because your aces will not be worth much if all of the other players fold their hands.  The stronger the second-best hand, the luckier you are.” (p. 24 Lawyer’s Poker)

What I find unclear about Lubet’s analysis of luck in poker is that if knowing the expected value of an action eliminates luck when second-best hands are not considered, why wouldn’t knowing the expected value of an action eliminate luck when they are considered?  In other words, if it is not really lucky to draw pocket aces in Hold’em, then why is it lucky to draw pocket aces when someone else draws pocket kings?  After all, eventually everyone else will find themselves in the same sort of situation. 

On July 23 and 24, the poker-playing computer named Polaris, will play against two humans, Phil Laak and Phil (aka the Unabomber) Laak and Ali Eslami.  I’ve written about this match here and here. 

One of the interesting features of this heads-up poker duel between a computer and a human is that it is designed to eliminate luck as a factor.  In one room Polaris will play Laak and in another room Polaris will play Eslami, and Polaris will get Laak’s cards when playing Eslami and Eslami’s cards when playing Laak.  

Jonathan Schaeffer, the Polaris team leader, claims that the set up will eliminate most, not all, of the luck.   This raises the question, “In what way can luck still play a factor in this match?”  And of course this question raises the more fundamental conceptual question of what luck means, a question I’ve touched upon in previous posts (here and here).

I still don’t know what it means to say that someone is lucky in Hold’em.  If there were no betting in the game, then luck would simply be a question of what cards were dealt.  And the Polaris experiment would rule this sort of luck out, for if Laak would get lucky, then Eslami would be unlucky.  However, Hold’em has betting, and this means that there is a certain amount of skill involved in the game. 

Suppose your opponent in a heads-up match gets dealt pocket aces five times in a row.  And suppose during this streak your hole cards are 2 and 7 off-suit.  Does this mean that within these five hands your opponent was lucky and you weren’t? 

I think the answer is “It depends”.  It depends on whether your opponent wins with his starting cards and how much he wins if he does win.  Of course, it is more likely that he will have the winning hand in the end than you.  But getting to the “end” of a hand is not one’s primary goal when playing hold’em.  One’s primary goal as a rational gambler is to maximize winnings, and how one does this is what makes the difference between great players and not-so great players.

Now let’s turn to the Polaris match.  Suppose in the first five hands between Polaris and Laak, Polaris gets pocket rockets for its hole cards and Laak gets dealt 2 and 7 offsuit as his hole cards.  This means that between Polaris and Eslami, Polaris will have been dealt 2 and 7 as its first five hole cards and Eslami will have been dealt pocket rockets.  Isn’t it still possible that beteween Eslami and Polaris in this first hand luck can still play a big role in who makes the most profit?  Consider the following.

Suppose in the first hand before the flop Polaris bets X amount of money and Laak folds.  Suppose that before the flop Eslami bets X amount of money but Polaris doesn’t fold.  Polaris may, of course, still win the pot against Eslami with his horrible hole cards.  He/It may eventually outdraw Eslami, which indicates that he/it got lucky or he/it may win by bluffing, which again may be a result of luck. 

So intuitively it seems to me that the Polaris experiment doesn’t eliminate as much luck as the designers of the experiment would like us to believe.   Perhaps I’m incorrect.  But I think that in order to show me why I’m incorrect, one needs to explain what “luck” means in Hold’em.  I’m waiting.