Poker is a game that’s easy to learn but notoriously tough to master. From the most popular poker variations to niche games like razz, poker is a formidable combination of luck, skill, and mathematical complexity.
In fact, artificial intelligence still hasn’t solved poker completely, whereas it solved the supposedly elite game of chess a long time ago. But what is the most complicated form of poker, exactly? Unpacking this question will deepen your understanding of online poker and maybe even give you an edge at the table.
Why Is Poker Challenging to Master?
Before looking at specific poker forms, let’s take a closer look at the basic question: Why is poker hard to master? To answer this question, you have to ask a few other questions.
Is poker mostly luck or skill? While it’s true that luck plays a role, it takes a skilled player to exploit a lucky break. And when luck isn’t on your side, it takes skill to protect your stack and not lose money.
So how quickly can you learn poker? The basics of the game are very quick to grasp, but it can take years to gain the insights that separate casual players from pros. While it’s true that some players seem to have a natural gift, almost as if they were born with the essential skills for poker success, it takes a great deal of dedication and commitment from most players for them to really up their game.
Is Poker Harder to Master Than Chess? A Comparison
To understand the complexity of poker in general, it’s useful to compare it with chess.
Poker and chess are similar in some respects, and completely different in others. So how are poker and chess similar? Both games are mathematically complex, although in different ways. In chess, there are more than 9 million variations after players make just three moves each. After four moves, there are 288 billion ways to play, and 318,000,000,000 different possible positions just after that. In poker, players have to rapidly calculate their hand strength, think about what range of hands they or their opponent would play in a specific situation, and the overall equity of their hand and the play they want to make.
So which is more challenging between chess and poker? For chess players, poker can be very challenging for one simple reason – the element of chance. That’s because there’s zero chance in chess. As a game of complete information, it’s skill all the way, which is why there’s never been a Chris Moneymaker upset in chess (he being the rank outsider who took the 2003 WSOP Main Event). In poker, because you only have limited information (your hand and the board), you have to use your imagination and read other players. It’s a totally different style of play.
Do chess players excel at poker? Not always, but they can. The powers of analysis that high-level chess players develop sure do come in handy when calculating outs, pot odds, and equity.
Calling Out the Most Complicated Poker Variant
Pot Limit Omaha Hi-Lo has to be the trickiest poker variant out there right now. Each player is dealt four hole cards (as opposed to two in Texas Hold’em), and they have to include exactly two of those hole cards in their final hand. Imagine holding 2, 3, 4, and 5, with an ace on the board.
In Hold’em, you’d have yourself a made hand, but in Omaha poker, you can only use two cards in that run. This makes for entirely different calculations. In addition, the Hi-Lo variant offers multiple to win – by forming the best low hand, the best high hand, or both. The betting structure in a pot limit game is also complicated, as the most you can bet or raise is the size of the pot after you’ve called the previous bet.
Here’s an example. There’s $10 in the pot, one player bets $3, and another player raises to $10. What’s the most you can bet? If you call the last bet ($10), the pot contains $33 (10 + 3 + 10 + 10). As a result, your pot raise is $33, which makes for a total bet of $43.
This complexity may put some players off, but for those who get the bit between their teeth, Pot Limit Omaha is the most exciting poker variant of all.
Poker or Trading: Which Demands Greater Skill?
An important difference between chess and poker is that poker, unlike chess, can actually help you succeed in real life activities. Take, for example, the similarities between poker and trading. To succeed in either of these activities, you need to understand risk and reward, and be able to make decisions based on incomplete information while under pressure. Just as poker players have to weigh up the equity of specific plays, investors must think about how much an investment will potentially gain or lose, and act accordingly.
Is poker harder than trading? It’s comparing apples with oranges. Poker is a game, while trading is a business. However, the fact that successful investment managers such as David Einhorn, Greg Jensen, Carl Icahn, and Steve Cohen are also successful poker players shows how the skills often overlap.
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