Chess vs. poker

Do you think it takes more skill and brains to become one of the world’s top 5 chess players, or one of the world’s top 5 poker players? Which game is harder to master? (If the poker variation matters to your answer, assume it’s the one you think is most difficult.)

On the one hand: chess. Chess masters have come to represent the pinnacle of human intelligence. Fischer vs. Spassky symbolized the battle between the US and USSR; Kasparov vs. Deep Blue the battle between man and machine. No secrets are kept – each player has an equal amount of information, and must therefore outthink his or her opponent.

On the other hand: poker. The element of randomness. Where chess is associated with brains, poker is associated with guts. Everyone admires someone who can bluff their way into a win. Reading your opponent is as important – or more so – than reading the board, because you don’t know every element in play.

What do I think? If aliens came to earth and said they’d eradicate the planet unless human champions could beat them in a game of our choice, I’d lean towards the poker players. In a one-off, I might go with chess. But in any kind of series play, I’d trust the future of the planet to a bunch of rough-hewn characters playing Texas Hold’em.

Poker somehow seems like a more quintessentially human game.

Thoughts?

I’m gonna feel stupid putting this in IMHO if there is actually a factual answer to this question . . .

I’d like to point out that the skill you are talking about in poker involves a good understanding of human nature, which may not mean diddly against an alien. They may not even have facial expressions or emotions.

My vote goes to chess, with no intent to demean the skill of poker players.

I’m not sure you can easily compare the two. Isn’t it like comparing apples and oranges? Or like saying “which is harder: tiddleywinks or skipping rope?”

I think playing both on the highest level is equally difficult. But while a person can learn to be a great poker player, I believe mastering chess requires the ability to think a certain way that a person either possesses or they don’t. “Practice” simply isn’t as effective in helping a person become a better chess player as it is in poker.

Oh, apples, all the way. Especially if you’re talking Braeburns or Honey Crisps. :smiley:

(If it were easy to compare the two, I’d have stuck this in GQ . . .)

Chess: The combinative factors involved make it one of the most complex games ever created. Poker is a game where random chance plays a critical role. Chess is a contest of wills where the better developed skill will usually predominate. There is no comparison. While I enjoy playing a hand of poker, it never gets my adrenaline pumping like a good end game. The forecasting and projection required to make almost every single chess move leaves poker in the dust.

Zenster’s (excellent) response reminds me: much of my curiosity comes from my relative ineptitude at both games. Both seem equally complex in different ways, although poker seems to me to be more . . . learnable, I guess. But I don’t know if that’s a matter of my temperament or of qualities inherent in the games.

Nice to hear from voices with both experiences.

Perhaps a better comparison would be between Chess and Bridge - although my vote would probably still go to chess, as you always have the same starting configuration, with no advantage to either player. Bridge, on the other hand, has the random effect of the deal to contend with, unless you set up some of Duplicate competition, with successive teams playing the same hands of cards…

Grim

“I’ve got two Rooks.”
“You’re bluffing!”

:stuck_out_tongue:

Where would you place a game like GO in this cognitive ratings game?

I have heard it said it is more complex than chess and has a many more possible variations in game play and strategy.

Thanks, Cal. After about a year-and-a-half here, I’m finally an official member of the SDMB Spewing Coffee on the Computer Monitor club.

Hey, we’re not talking about Stratego.

Hey Cal, (as one crow said to the other)

“Bred any good rooks lately?”

PS: Thanks for encapsulating this entire debacle into a precise and hilarious two liner. Job well done!
As to Go;

The uniformity of pieces (i.e., all the same rank) and the consistency of terrain (i.e., no color coded landing points) makes Go a much simpler (though very challenging) game. My experience in playing Go has led me to believe that it demands an intuitive imaging of the board as a whole in order to surmise the most critical area of activity.

This is quite different from chess where each piece’s influence can extend clear across the board instead of merely one square away. Imagine how limited the strategy of chess would be if all of the squares were the same color and all the pieces were pawns. This analogy tremendously oversimplifies the comparison and is unfair to Go, but it is a good way of picturing the difference.

LOL!

Hey Cal, I think you’re bluffing. I’ll see your two rooks and raise you a Queen. :smiley:

I really have nothing intelligent to add to this discussion because my brain became officially fried a few minutes ago, but if it helps I love playing both games because of the element of reading folks. When I play cards, I trust my instincts, and I love psyching folks out, and trying to figure out what’s in their hands. When I play chess, I just love trying to figure out which pieces they favor and then getting rid of those ASAP and then seeing where the chips fall. You’d be surprised at how rattled folks get when you take away their favorite pieces.

As far as which game to use with aliens, I’d say none of 'em. Who in their right mind would gamble the fate of Earth on a game? :confused: Since elements of psychology can be applied to either chess or poker or bridge or any other game established by humans, we can’t assume that aliens would understand or even play on a level that humans could relate to or understand. That’s part of being alien.

Otay, carry on, y’all.

All I have to say is, there is no “strip chess”.

That’s what you think.

I play chess , but badly.

Have no opportunity to play poker

but have read a fascinating book review of
the book <u>Positively Fifth Street</u>
All about the expensive World Series of Poker in Las
Vegas.

requested it at my public library but others
were ahead so I have to wait for it.

I see the HTML underlining does not work

I’m a much better poker player than I am a chess player. Chess is much more complex but to answer your question about playing against an alien race that came to our planet (and thus was probably more intellectually advanced) I would definately choose poker.

Having to play a game against an alien to save the earth - definalty choose tag, especially if the alien wears a tiger-striped bikini. :slight_smile:

Assume that the aliens remarkably like Ford Prefect, or better yet Han Solo, except for the urgent desire to destroy our planet unless we can defeat them in a game of skill.

Maybe I should have skipped the aliens…

Also, Zenster: debacle? Debacle!? Ouch.

Mayhap the crux of what I’m asking is this: is it more difficult to become a truly great player in a game that involves having perfect information (chess), or in a game where you (and every other player) have knowledge that no other player does?

I’d guess that it’s easier to become a pretty good poker player than a pretty good chess player, but that it’s similarly difficult to become one of the world’s best players of either game. But I could be wrong.