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[SwitchedFromStarcraft]

Oh, and if you're upset when you lose at Dominion, don't take up poker...ever... you'll have a heart attack in no time

This.

As a former professional poker player, I can absolutely assure you that you must take this advice to heart.  Poker is cruel in that you can play a hand perfectly and still have a bad thing happen (you lose the pot), due to luck.  Despite being good enough to make a modest living at it, I quit playing when I realized that I had quantifiable evidence of how bad my luck truly was (I am 6 for 13 lifetime with four of a kind).  It is a hard way to make an easy living.

Luck will always be a factor in Dominion.  I played 5 games IRL on Sunday, and in all 5 games my T1 and T2 buys collided on Turn 5.  It's gonna happen.  If it continues to frustrate you, you may want to read The Tao of Poker by Larry Phillips.  This is a wonderful book that applies to much more than poker (the subtitle is "285 ways to transform your game and your life"). It will help you look at things from another perspective.

I would hate to see a player of your experience (and likely your level, though I've not looked you up) become soured on such a great game, but it can happen.  Do something to look at it through a different lens.  It's not what is going on around us that matters, it's what we tell ourselves about what's going on around us.

[ackack]

Re: the poker comments, I think this

The key factor is that the luck factor does not cancel out in one single game.

is a pretty big difference, especially when rematches are pretty infrequent. If a substantially worse player beats you in a couple of pots at poker, provided they don't hit and run you know you're going to get your chances against them again soon. The natural unit of play is such that, while people definitely do go on downswings, beats in individual hands are rarely as irritating. Poker definitely has the capacity to irritate but I didn't find it substantially worse than Dominion.

[WanderingWinder]

Re: the poker comments, I think this

The key factor is that the luck factor does not cancel out in one single game.

is a pretty big difference, especially when rematches are pretty infrequent. If a substantially worse player beats you in a couple of pots at poker, provided they don't hit and run you know you're going to get your chances against them again soon. The natural unit of play is such that, while people definitely do go on downswings, beats in individual hands are rarely as irritating. Poker definitely has the capacity to irritate but I didn't find it substantially worse than Dominion.

I'm actually pretty sure this problem is worse in poker, not dominion.

[SwitchedFromStarcraft]

I think certainly it can be more infuriating in poker, but that is likely because of the cultural attachment that most humans have to money.  For most people, losing money is worse than losing a game of X, because the money could have been used to procure other things, whereas losing the game of X means "only" (choose your flagellation mechanism) loss of bragging rights, or an ego hit, or lack of understanding of what went "wrong" or whatever.  This is a generalization, and is not true for everyone of course.

[timchen]

Since there are so many posts about poker, I'd like to ask, in poker what do you mean by playing a hand perfectly? In my limited understanding to the game, does the game not rely more on reading your opponents, once every player knows well about the probabilities?

Also, I would imagine the luck of draw matters less in a poker game, since the play is by nature adjusting your bets to your draw. Sure there are irritating moments when you ought to win by chance, but the opponent just drew incredibly,  but this happens in every game that involves luck.

The problem of dominion, in poker terms, is that I cannot fold when I didn't draw my chapel at turn 5, or when I see my opponent get a turn 3 Forge, or when I draw 2+P turn 3 with the only potion card being Familiar.  At least I think that is unsporty. Also, resigning early is still a loss, I cannot leverage it by "folding" early. In these games, if you are on the unlucky side, you start to fight against the odds; if you win, sure that's a good feeling; but you are going to lose the majority of them anyway if your opponent plays normally. If you lose, congrats on wasting another 10 minutes proving that a large portion of the game is determined by the initial draw.

And even if you are on the lucky side, the game becomes boring once you start to understand the luck. You will know that your opponent just lost because you were lucky or he was unlucky. Again, while winning in the end can be a better feeling, still you wasted your 10 minutes showing that you can play normally.

I may be exaggerating a bit, but I think this is the intrinsic problem of luck in dominion.

[Geronimoo]

There is only a problem if you have a problem resigning when you know you're almost certain to lose.

But it's hard to give up even when you got very unlucky in the early turns if your opponent is awful and might get a little cocky/sloppy and still give you the win.

Also, you can always use those lost games to try some weird strategy that you haven't tried before. Maybe 1 in 100 games you'll win those, but you're certainly going to learn something in the process, so your time isn't wasted.

It would also be nice if opponents would resign faster when it's hopeless. I sometimes see high level players do this, but not often enough in my opinion.

[Piemaster]

As a former professional poker player... I quit playing when I realized that I had quantifiable evidence of how bad my luck truly was (I am 6 for 13 lifetime with four of a kind). 

As a current professional poker player, I will say that's an extremely strange thing for someone who has ever played poker at a high level to say.

[SwitchedFromStarcraft]

As a former professional poker player... I quit playing when I realized that I had quantifiable evidence of how bad my luck truly was (I am 6 for 13 lifetime with four of a kind). 

As a current professional poker player, I will say that's an extremely strange thing for someone who has ever played poker at a high level to say.

I completely agree, though we may define "high level" in various ways.  But first and foremost I'm a scientist, and I reached the point where I had collected an overwhelming amount of data (not just the example I gave) suggesting that I would not be able to fade the luck factor over the long haul.  The other alternative was to conclude that the laws of probability didn't apply to me, and that's just silly.

[Geronimoo]

From what you're saying it seems like you forgot that poker = gambling...

[Fabian]

As a former professional poker player... I quit playing when I realized that I had quantifiable evidence of how bad my luck truly was (I am 6 for 13 lifetime with four of a kind). 

As a current professional poker player, I will say that's an extremely strange thing for someone who has ever played poker at a high level to say.

I completely agree, though we may define "high level" in various ways.  But first and foremost I'm a scientist, and I reached the point where I had collected an overwhelming amount of data (not just the example I gave) suggesting that I would not be able to fade the luck factor over the long haul.  The other alternative was to conclude that the laws of probability didn't apply to me, and that's just silly.

Unless I'm misunderstanding, this is nonsensical. You might have collected data suggesting you were doing worse than to be expected up to that point, but using that in any sort of predictive way is just silly.

[igelkott]

After posting this (and watching the thread drift away...) I think now I understand why the luck factor in dominion is so frustrating.

The key factor is that the luck factor does not cancel out in one single game. And different from bridge, one has to play on, sometimes for a long time, after the deciding luck factor. After the initial bad draw, a good player would want to play on to overcome the bad luck; but facing a reasonable opponent, very often one can only watch the initial bad luck snowball.

Probably, one variant to mitigate this aspect of the game is to allow a once-per-game opportunity for a player to re draw his hand from the deck (ie, put his hand in the deck, reshuffle and draw the same number of cards?)

This is close. I think the frustration with longtime play of dominion is rooted in it's appeal. The game rules are different with every game. With bridge, you play dozens of time with the same rules to determine a winner. Luck is typically averaged out. Same with magic if you keep your decks the same, or most other games.

With Dominion, the rules change with every game. The framework is the same of course, but really the game is different every time. You lay out 10 cards, start playing and get some bad luck draws, the game is over and you lose. You then pack up the 10 cards and draw a different combo. You don't go back and try it again to see if your strategy can really win.

Try this to average out the luck factor. Keep the same 10 card layout and play 25 times in a row. The winner is the person who wins the most games. Most people won't do this of course, but one of the nice things about dominion is that you can play with this style if you want to reduce luck.

Chris

[ftl]

Playing that way also reduces the effect of skill, though, because a large part of the skill is figuring out what the strategy is just by looking at the cards. On many/most boards, if you play 25 times, after the first one or two, even the player who's worse at the game will know the optimal strategy (by looking at what the better player does) and the remaining 23 games will come down to shuffle luck.

No, you can't really take the luck out of Dominion. It's an intrinsic part of the game, the game wouldn't be the same without it.

[rrenaud]

Playing that way also reduces the effect of skill, though, because a large part of the skill is figuring out what the strategy is just by looking at the cards. On many/most boards, if you play 25 times, after the first one or two, even the player who's worse at the game will know the optimal strategy (by looking at what the better player does) and the remaining 23 games will come down to shuffle luck.

To which the better player will respond by playing in a carefully orchestrated strategic cycle, where he plays strategy A knowing that it's decent, gets a win, and then plays strategy B, knowing that the opp will do A and that B beats A, then plays C, knowing that C beats B, and that the opp will switch to B.  He then switches back to A, and the opponent agrees to concede.

Okay, maybe this is just some kind of strategic fantasy land (the probability that this happens in a random Dominion kingdom set is basically 0), but you have to admit, it would be awesome .

[Epoch]

Since there are so many posts about poker, I'd like to ask, in poker what do you mean by playing a hand perfectly? In my limited understanding to the game, does the game not rely more on reading your opponents, once every player knows well about the probabilities?

They mean that even if you perfectly read your opponent, perfectly sucker them, so that they play a MUCH worse hand against your MUCH better hand, they'll get lucky cards that will put them over you after you're both all-in.  Or whatever.  I think it's called a "bad beat" in Poker -- where you do the "wrong" thing according to the odds, but win anyway through luck.

The Dominion equivalent would be, like, ignoring Masquerade and getting Treasure Map in your opening, only to connect your TMs on turn 5.

[theory]

AFAIK, the point of "correct" poker play is that you would have made the same play even if you knew everyone's cards, NOT that you win the hand.  So it's very possible (and happens more often than you'd like) that you make the correct play, only to end up losing.

I do think that poker manages to balance out this luck quite a bit with betting, since no one forces you to participate in the hand with 72o, and good players milk  AA for much more than a bad player.

[Piemaster]

There are two different definitions of 'perfect play' in poker.  The first is the play that will give you highest expected value (EV) given your cards and your opponents' cards.  The second is the play that will give you the highest EV given your opponents' range (the hands they could hold, given their actions up until the decision point).  This is more difficult to calculate and more prone to post-hoc rationalisation, but it is ultimately a more useful way of assessing your play.

[rinkworks]

Probably the only way to deal with this problem is to have more cards that allow for people to aggressively come back from behind. Dominion already has cards with this capacity, but the problems with them would be:

• They are universally disliked. Whether it's due to a card's weakness or cheapness or, as the popular phrase goes, "high variance", it's often viewed as uncouth to play these cards (e.g. possession, saboteur).
• They can be readily used by an opponent who is already ahead without much issue (though possession has a higher cost-of-entry).

I'm late responding to this, but I thought I'd point out that a card that allows you to come back from behind doesn't necessarily have to be high variance.  Rabble is actually a great example of such a card:  the more victory cards in a player's deck, the more effective an attack it is against them.  There was a thread in the variants forum about concocting other such cards, and while the viability of any given proposed card there is certainly debatable, I think the OP demonstrates that there are lots of great ideas along these lines.

Then again, maybe to "aggressively" come back from behind, you need some swinginess as well.

[play2draw]

Probably the only way to deal with this problem is to have more cards that allow for people to aggressively come back from behind. Dominion already has cards with this capacity, but the problems with them would be:

• They are universally disliked. Whether it's due to a card's weakness or cheapness or, as the popular phrase goes, "high variance", it's often viewed as uncouth to play these cards (e.g. possession, saboteur).
• They can be readily used by an opponent who is already ahead without much issue (though possession has a higher cost-of-entry).

I'm late responding to this, but I thought I'd point out that a card that allows you to come back from behind doesn't necessarily have to be high variance.  Rabble is actually a great example of such a card:  the more victory cards in a player's deck, the more effective an attack it is against them.  There was a thread in the variants forum about concocting other such cards, and while the viability of any given proposed card there is certainly debatable, I think the OP demonstrates that there are lots of great ideas along these lines.

Then again, maybe to "aggressively" come back from behind, you need some swinginess as well.

Oh, I definitely agree. "High variance" is not a necessary element. It is, however, an element of many of the cards that can be used to wage a comeback. I think the bigger issue is how many of these cards can be readily used by their opponents (with the exception of, as you brought up, Rabble).

[ddubois]

(I am 6 for 13 lifetime with four of a kind)

I'm going to need to see some poker tracker evidence for this claim.

[SwitchedFromStarcraft]

(I am 6 for 13 lifetime with four of a kind)

I'm going to need to see some poker tracker evidence for this claim.

In my case, "lifetime" covers 30 years of playing, and therefore pre-dates a lot of things such as internet play, data mining software, WSOP main event fields the size of community colleges, etc.  I recognize that anyone can say anything online these days, but I assure you that the stat is accurate, though limited to "flop" games (Holdem, Omaha, Omaha split) where I flopped 4-of-a kind.

As other posters have asserted, we can debate whether I used the information appropriately in my decision to give up the game (which I dearly loved), but to me it was a pretty clear signal (one of many) that things were not going to break my way as often as the mathematics of probability would suggest.

My apologies to the OP for bringing up a topic that has apparently hijacked the thread.  My intent in the use of this (context-limited) statistic was to illustrate, in microcosm, why I am acutely familiar with the frustration that accompanies a turn of "bad luck", whether it lasts one shuffle, two games, or 30 years.

[Geronimoo]

Might it be possible that you were just not good enough at the game and rather blame your luck?

I thought I read somewhere that the luckiest poker player will eventually lose against the unluckiest but better player. It would take a certain number of hands (a few thousand?), but in the end it's always the better player who comes out on top.

[rrenaud]

As other posters have asserted, we can debate whether I used the information appropriately in my decision to give up the game (which I dearly loved), but to me it was a pretty clear signal (one of many) that things were not going to break my way as often as the mathematics of probability would suggest.

I love data, don't get me wrong.  But what is the mechanism by which you will continue to suffer from bad luck?  Where is the universe storing the "must screw SwitchedFromStarcraft in poker" bits?

[Piemaster]

Might it be possible that you were just not good enough at the game and rather blame your luck?

I thought I read somewhere that the luckiest poker player will eventually lose against the unluckiest but better player. It would take a certain number of hands (a few thousand?)

Well it's a misleading hypothetical.  A player getting unlucky could lose indefinitely to a player getting lucky, the qualifier is that the more hands they play the more likely it is that the luck would have evened itself out by then.  However, even then a few thousand hands is not nealry enough.  It's not that implausile that a marginal winner at poker could go on a losing streak lasting over 100,000 hands.

[LastFootnote]

It's not that implausile that a marginal winner at poker could go on a losing streak lasting over 100,000 hands.

Yes, it is. Do you know what the odds are of getting heads 100,000 times in a row by flipping a fair coin, even within a sample space of 1 billion flips? Astronomically small.

[WanderingWinder]

It's not that implausile that a marginal winner at poker could go on a losing streak lasting over 100,000 hands.

Yes, it is. Do you know what the odds are of getting heads 100,000 times in a row by flipping a fair coin, even within a sample space of 1 billion flips? Astronomically small.

Even if you take it to be someone who's better ends up losing overall after 100,000 hands, instead of losing every hand, and if you take a 'marginal winner' to be an advantage as small as 50.5%-49.5%... the chances of that are around 8 in 10,0000