Poker-related academic research study (cliffs@end)

Originally posted by 7thStreet
Not just another gambling study

Confirmed.

A couple of small objections:

1. The question about bb/100 isn't applicable to those who play games other than NLHE cash. E.g. in PLO cash, good players' winrates are about twice higher than those of similarly skillful NLHE players. And in tournaments, bb/100 winrates depend on the stack size - in hyper-turbos, they're lower than in turbos and tourneys with slow blind growth, and they don't correspond directly to ROIs / hourly winrates.

2. There are several questions about sexual activity. Whereas the absence of interest in it might be an additional symptom of anxiety or depression, it shouldn't be used as a diagnostic criterion if it doesn't cause actual distress to the person. There are plenty of asexual people who are sane and even totally happy, just have never been interested in this 'sex' thing that makes >99% of people overly obsessed.

A couple of small objections:

1. The question about bb/100 isn't applicable to those who play games other than NLHE cash. E.g. in PLO cash, good players' winrates are about twice higher than those of similarly skillful NLHE players. And in tournaments, bb/100 winrates depend on the stack size - in hyper-turbos, they're lower than in turbos and tourneys with slow blind growth, and they don't correspond directly to ROIs / hourly winrates.

2. There are several questions about sexual activity. Whereas the absence of interest in it might be an additional symptom of anxiety or depression, it shouldn't be used as a diagnostic criterion if it doesn't cause actual distress to the person. There are plenty of asexual people who are sane and even totally happy, just have never been interested in this 'sex' thing that makes >99% of people overly obsessed.

Thank you both for your participation and your comments!

1. What you mention is true. My intention was to include a generic measure of winrate that would apply to most games, and I think it does, although it does suffer from the limitations you described. That combined with some of the other variables should, hopefully, provide a rough indication of the degree to which one is successful at the game.

2.You are absolutely right. Absence of sexual desire can be just fine for some people and there's nothing to be said about that. However, when assessing for depression, anhedonia - that is the lack of pleasure from previously enjoyable activities for the specific individual - is considered a core symptom. Sex, being that it's pleasurable for most people, is included as well.
As far as the questionnaire is concerned, it is important to note that the questions you mentioned refer to the previous two weeks. That is crucial, because what is actually of interest is not whether the person has high or low (or not at all) interest in sex, but whether that constitutes a difference from a previous (that is before the last 2-week period) point in the person's life. It's the comparison that is important. So one that never had any interest in sex for a long time, will score very low in this specific question, whereas one who was very sexually active, yet finds himself/herself not intrested in sex during the last 15 days, will get a high score for this specific question/domain.
Finally, your question gives me the opportunity to mention that such questionnaires are mainly used for research purposes that require a quick screening of large numbers of people, sometimes at the expense of accuracy. As a result it does not intend to diagnose, but rather to get a rough idea of the extent to which the population in question experiences some core symptoms. Diagnosis cannot and should not be performed over the internet with the use of a single questionnaire. There are far more detailed processes for that purpose.

Originally posted by 7thStreet
1. What you mention is true. My intention was to include a generic measure of winrate that would apply to most games, and I think it does, although it does suffer from the limitations you described. That combined with some of the other variables should, hopefully, provide a rough indication of the degree to which one is successful at the game.

The easiest way to measure this is to ask how many dollars one is earning per hour on average. Even for cash games, it's a preciser measure than the combination of the questions about the stakes and the bb/100 winrate, because a player would have a higher winrate at a soft site like Unibet than at a tough site like Pokerstars, and the reason why some prefer the latter to play at is not the winrate but the availability of games (the ability to play at more tables at once) and the quality of the software, which result in a similar winrate in $ per hour despite the difference in bb/100 (that said, there are some non-monetary motives too).

Originally posted by tonypmm

Originally posted by 7thStreet
Not just another gambling study

Confirmed.

A couple of small objections:

1. The question about bb/100 isn't applicable to those who play games other than NLHE cash. E.g. in PLO cash, good players' winrates are about twice higher than those of similarly skillful NLHE players. And in tournaments, bb/100 winrates depend on the stack size - in hyper-turbos, they're lower than in turbos and tourneys with slow blind growth, and they don't correspond directly to ROIs / hourly winrates.

2. There are several questions about sexual activity. Whereas the absence of interest in it might be an additional symptom of anxiety or depression, it shouldn't be used as a diagnostic criterion if it doesn't cause actual distress to the person. There are plenty of asexual people who are sane and even totally happy, just have never been interested in this 'sex' thing that makes >99% of people overly obsessed.

@ 7thstreet
About number 1, I agree an alternative measure could have been allowed, such as ROI.
Have you done a pilot run, to spot and correct issues, before issuing out the survey?

@tonypmm
About number 2, the question is part of a validated questionnaire (beck depression inventory), he cannot change a single word of it without losing the validity, and respective replicability. It's desirable that this replicability exists, so that the results from this study can be directly compared with other scientific sources, and more conclusions withdrawn from it.

Originally posted by tonypmm

Originally posted by 7thStreet
1. What you mention is true. My intention was to include a generic measure of winrate that would apply to most games, and I think it does, although it does suffer from the limitations you described. That combined with some of the other variables should, hopefully, provide a rough indication of the degree to which one is successful at the game.

The easiest way to measure this is to ask how many dollars one is earning per hour on average. Even for cash games, it's a preciser measure than the combination of the questions about the stakes and the bb/100 winrate, because a player would have a higher winrate at a soft site like Unibet than at a tough site like Pokerstars, and the reason why some prefer the latter to play at is not the winrate but the availability of games (the ability to play at more tables at once) and the quality of the software, which result in a similar winrate in $ per hour despite the difference in bb/100 (that said, there are some non-monetary motives too).

The problem with hourly winrate is that it is very dependent on the stakes played. Although in truth, the stakes were asked in a previous question, so perhaps it is possible to connect those two.

EDIT: you could also ask about lifetime winnings, although I suspect maybe you are looking for a more immediate panorama.

I do think that the introduction text in each page should be at least the same size as the font in the questions, as it's very easy to skip over it - I myself almost didn't notice it at first and went straight to the answers (take into account that most people who do volunteer to reply to these surveys still want to make it as quick as possible).

At the very least, maybe make some key instructions more obvious with, say, bold or underlined. That would be pertinent for the 2-week period in the beck depression inventory for example.

Hah, this question is a pain in the ass for me to answer:
6. To what extent do you feel your life to be meaningful?

Philosophically, my answer would be "meaningless, I am a puny grain of nothing in the Universe as a whole"
From a utilitarian perspective, my answer would be "absolutely. be the change you want to see in the world"

How should I grade it then? Hahaha, I'm in a real dilemma!

7thStreet, I hope you don't mind me discussing the following quote of yours:

It has been suggested that acquiring poker experience can potentially act as a learning ground where the individual comes to terms with the nature of variance and is consequently more likely to adopt a more mature attitude in the face of adversities (e.g a large downswing). This acquired emotional maturity can potentially generalize to the way one deals with a variety of unpleasant life events and stressors, thus acting in a protective fashion against mental health problems.

I've never thought that poker can help solve mental issues, not exacerbate them.

I started playing poker full-time as an escape from the mental health issues that were making it hard for me to get a 'real' office job, as a way to earn money without the pain of being subordinate to someone else. Until now, I was sure that, in the hindsight, the decision to start a poker career had been detrimental to my real-life progress.

That quote, though, has reminded me about the fact that I've indeed acquired some emotional maturity (acceptance in particular) while playing poker. That said, I thought my excessive stoicism (that developed as a coping mechanism for poker-related adversity) was a rather undesirable (or at least odd) trait in the Western society - its downside is the lack of empathy (which is a response to other players' complaints about bad beats that I've had to stop listening to).

I'd imagine the greater challenge would be to figure out what's a cause and what's an effect (even if a correlation is found):
- Did players with better coping mechanisms get them from playing poker and thus became happier, or did happier players have better coping mechanisms which then got applied to poker?

I am quite convinced poker is a great way to train coping skills for some people, but also a great way to get even more lost in paranoia and compulsive behaviour for others: I'd bet previous personality / overall coping plays a very important part in how you adapt to poker and what you get from it. Anyway, you can train coping skills in a lot of contexts, some of them professional in a wide range of different jobs, some of them in leisure-related activities, etc... Poker is just another one, one that has lots of well documented strategy and advice written being shared by an active community. However, a certain profile of player never bothers with studying or getting more informed, and I wonder if any of those will answer in the survey?

Yeah, I think your study is prone to a HUGE selection bias if you're preferentially promoting it in strategy forums
Not really sure how this could be overcome

I forgot to mention that being a poker pro can contribute a lot to the feeling of worthlessness even if the person isn't depressed - that's because poker play doesn't add nearly as much value to the society as the 'noble' occupations of a teacher or a doctor or even an entrepreneur whose company makes a tangible product.

Many of the poker pros view their current 'occupation' as merely a small step in their life plans that will last merely for several years and allow them to earn an initial capital that they can then use to start a meaningful business, to get meaningful education or just to ensure that they don't remain hungry while doing a low-paid volunteer job.

Thanks a lot for the feedback guys!

Your comments on the winrate measure are all valid. I, myself, put a lot of thought into it when I was building the survey. My initial approach was to allow for both bb/100, BB/100 and ROI, but I ended up including bb/100 alone for simplicity purposes, despite its limitations, mainly pertaining to tournament/sng games. However, what most of the poker-related questions, some of which are part of the validated Poker Experience Scale (developed by Palomaki and colleagues in 2012) aim to measure is mainly poker experience which may or may not be accompanied by success at the game.

Originally posted by Nhoca
I do think that the introduction text in each page should be at least the same size as the font in the questions, as it's very easy to skip over it - I myself almost didn't notice it at first and went straight to the answers (take into account that most people who do volunteer to reply to these surveys still want to make it as quick as possible).

At the very least, maybe make some key instructions more obvious with, say, bold or underlined. That would be pertinent for the 2-week period in the beck depression inventory for example.

That is an issue indeed. Unfortunately google forms does not allow for any sort of formatting of any piece of text included.

Originally posted by Nhoca
Hah, this question is a pain in the ass for me to answer:
6. To what extent do you feel your life to be meaningful?

Philosophically, my answer would be "meaningless, I am a puny grain of nothing in the Universe as a whole"
From a utilitarian perspective, my answer would be "absolutely. be the change you want to see in the world"

How should I grade it then? Hahaha, I'm in a real dilemma!

Trust me, if it was up to me I would have this one replaced with a simple statement along the lines of "My life is meaningless" and provide two options : "true" and "very true"

Originally posted by tonypmm
I've never thought that poker can help solve mental issues, not exacerbate them.

I started playing poker full-time as an escape from the mental health issues that were making it hard for me to get a 'real' office job, as a way to earn money without the pain of being subordinate to someone else. Until now, I was sure that, in the hindsight, the decision to start a poker career had been detrimental to my real-life progress.

That quote, though, has reminded me about the fact that I've indeed acquired some emotional maturity (acceptance in particular) while playing poker. That said, I thought my excessive stoicism (that developed as a coping mechanism for poker-related adversity) was a rather undesirable (or at least odd) trait in the Western society - its downside is the lack of empathy (which is a response to other players' complaints about bad beats that I've had to stop listening to).

What you say is very interesting! I think many of us have focused a bit too much on the negative effect that poker has had in our lives whether that was in terms of limited social life, time spent in front of a computer screen and away from other meaningful activities or the increased tendency for what you refer to as stoicism (although I can definitely see a lot of positive involved in that sort of approach, maybe more so than negative). As far as the "lack of empathy" towards people complaining about bad beats, I would not consider that to be a shortcoming of yours, but maybe an adaptive response that provides you with some distance from a rather self-destructive and irresponsible way of thinking about the game and coping with variance. On the other hand poker has provided some players with many benefits whether that is in terms of financial freedom, sense of agency, emotional maturity etc. At the end of the day, poker is neither "good" or "bad", it does neither "cause" mental health problems nor "solves" them. Poker is what each one of us makes of it. It's all a matter of finding the GTO approach and putting things in the right perspective (sure, easier said than done).

Originally posted by Nhoca
I'd imagine the greater challenge would be to figure out what's a cause and what's an effect (even if a correlation is found):
- Did players with better coping mechanisms get them from playing poker and thus became happier, or did happier players have better coping mechanisms which then got applied to poker?

I am quite convinced poker is a great way to train coping skills for some people, but also a great way to get even more lost in paranoia and compulsive behaviour for others: I'd bet previous personality / overall coping plays a very important part in how you adapt to poker and what you get from it. Anyway, you can train coping skills in a lot of contexts, some of them professional in a wide range of different jobs, some of them in leisure-related activities, etc... Poker is just another one, one that has lots of well documented strategy and advice written being shared by an active community. However, a certain profile of player never bothers with studying or getting more informed, and I wonder if any of those will answer in the survey?

Yeah, I think your study is prone to a HUGE selection bias if you're preferentially promoting it in strategy forums
Not really sure how this could be overcome

You are right! The "chicken or the egg" question cannot be answered at this point, since both this and most of the exiting research on the subject is strictly correlational. One could say that there are certain personality characteristics that create a favourable background for poker success (for instance, maybe highly conscientious individuals get a head start) and at the same time, taking the individual's personality as a constant, playing poker can act as a "training ground" for getting a first hand experience on what variance is and what it really entails.

Selection bias is also definitely a thing, but as you said I was not aware of any alternatives, at least given the limited, if not zero, resources I had available. I would guess that obtaining a truly representative sample of poker playing population would need some serious incentivizing, and probably the involvement of some poker sites/casinos as well. But that's almost outside the realm of possibility. Overall this is a very serious, yet common issue in social science research.

Originally posted by tonypmm
I forgot to mention that being a poker pro can contribute a lot to the feeling of worthlessness even if the person isn't depressed - that's because poker play doesn't add nearly as much value to the society as the 'noble' occupations of a teacher or a doctor or even an entrepreneur whose company makes a tangible product.

Many of the poker pros view their current 'occupation' as merely a small step in their life plans that will last merely for several years and allow them to earn an initial capital that they can then use to start a meaningful business, to get meaningful education or just to ensure that they don't remain hungry while doing a low-paid volunteer job.

So true! I would think that these feelings of inferiority or worthlessness stem primarily from our own interpretation of poker as a profession and it's something we have to first and foremost solve with ourselves, before addressing the wider society and tackling how they view a professional poker player.

Regarding your second point, I agree although our sample is kind of limited so far. If (online) poker does not die out soon enough maybe we get to find out whether it's true that, at least for some poker pros, nothing is more permanent than the temporary.

Survey aside, I have found this to be a very enlightening discussion! Thanks, tony and the7th!

Also,

"Trust me, if it was up to me I would have this one replaced with a simple statement along the lines of "My life is meaningless" and provide two options : "true" and "very true"

Hey guys,
I want to thank you all for participating and/or providing feedback for the project. There are still a few days left before the survey ends, for anyone who is still willing to contribute. I will be back with results which will hopefully generate more fruitful discussion.