How to Explain Variance to Layman?

how to explain the randomness of the deck to outsiders without making it look like a game of chance?

tonzinho7620 said:

how to explain the randomness of the deck to outsiders without making it look like a game of chance?

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It is difficult because variance/luck/randomness factor into play.

Rather than grapple with that concept if I ever discuss poker outside of the community I take the simple route of noting better players succeed over weaker players - they cash more regularly, they run deeper in tournaments, they win. This shows players know how to navigate the 'randomness'- they limit their losses (which are inevitable) and capitalize on the strong hands.

Luck is an undeniable factor in poker but so is skill.

Random is a word we use to define the connecting of dots that we can not see. If you know all available information you will see there is no such thing as true random but rather probability being perceived as random. Even as an 80% favorite you will/should lose 1 out of 5 times. It is better to understand the math than to chalk it up to randomness.

It is difficult to explain something to an ignorant person, you need to go too deep, a person to whom you explain in a bistro will lose the thread of arguments, so I would not waste my energy, my explanation: everything is difficult and not easy.

I would say it's difficult to explain the randomness of the deck. If it's someone totally unfamiliar with Poker you could start by explaining that only one deck is used in each hand, then explain the number of players typically in a hand and go from there.

However, I'd prefer an analogy with a game most people know well, Chess.

You can explain that Chess is a game of complete information: you can see all the pieces on the board.

Poker is a game of incomplete information: you do not know the run-out or your opponents' cards.

The game decision tree in Chess seems endless, but in fact has been solved by computers. Poker's decision tree is much larger, especially when you factor in stack sizes, multi-table tournament structures, PKO formats etc.

The huge number of permuatations are what gives the 'randomness'.

Despite this, there is skill and mathematics involved in calculating equities and this is what I would stress to a layman. Poker is often misunderstood as a game of chance simply because it's a card game and played in a casino etc.

Good luck

It IS a game of chance - all card games are.

DS3 said:

It is difficult because variance/luck/randomness factor into play.

Rather than grapple with that concept if I ever discuss poker outside of the community I take the simple route of noting better players succeed over weaker players - they cash more regularly, they run deeper in tournaments, they win. This shows players know how to navigate the 'randomness'- they limit their losses (which are inevitable) and capitalize on the strong hands.

Luck is an undeniable factor in poker but so is skill.

Click to expand...

I love that term you use of knowing how to navigate with randomness, I congratulate you, good concept, it's like knowing how to surf randomness.

tonzinho7620 said:

how to explain the randomness of the deck to outsiders without making it look like a game of chance?

Click to expand...

Randomness is a poker players enemy and must be accounted for by building a big stack early,

And why should someone explain something, there is a lot of special literature on this issue, who needs to read it himself.

No matter how I try to explain the principles of variability of card odds in the game, they do not understand me.
I even read some answers in this thread for people who do not understand poker, and everything was completely simplified.

I would start describing that poker is a game of incomplete information and the players use this information gap to make statements. A player does not play only with theyr hand alone, but with the oponents hands and the board, taking mathematical based decisions, both on bets and on theyr hand holding, and at the end, who wins is the player with either the best virtual or real combination of cards.

do not play poker, but for example, play the fool

Academical response

You should not focuse on the randomness of the game, but on the lack of.
Ill explain

Robert caillois places every game in one of the following categories (simplified)

Agon: competitive games where the player needs a set of pre aquired skills, played in a plain field where the most prepared will come out victorious

Alea: the oposite of agon, those are games that uses randomness as its main characteristics, not needing any preparation what so ever, those are called games of chance.

Theres a few more types of games described by callois, but we will focuse on these two.

And by doing so we can place poker perfectly as a Agon, much more than alea.
- poker is a competitive game
- poker players study the game and those studies reflect directly on a players success.
- all the players play with the same deck.
- the most prepared will always win in the long run. We can observe that just looking at successfull players results.
Hence agon

Lets take a game of dice for example
- a player have the exact same odds for any result, marked by the dice number
- they dont need any training what so ever, training wont affect the outcome
- there is no such thing as a regular winner of dice.
Hence alea.

Ill finish with a quote

"The game (...) oposes to work, as the wasted time oposes to time well spent ” (CAILLOIS, 1990, p.9).