Chess vs. Poker

Chess and poker make good allegories for types of government.  All of the information is available to all viewers in chess and the outcome is from raw ability.  This tends to be more like a democracy where the populace is presumably well informed and decisions are made by open analysis.  In contrast, none of the information is openly available in poker and the outcome is from trickery.  This tends to be more like an autocracy where decisions are made by a limited number of people in secret.

Chess relies more on memory and analytical ability.  The memory part includes memorizing openings and recognizing patterns.  The analytical part includes understanding the complexity of how the pieces interact together and seeing how many moves a player can look ahead in order to determine possible outcomes.  These skills benefit academic, scientific, and technical endeavors, again, a society with a well-informed populace making open decisions.

Poker relies more on secrecy, bluffing, and cheating. The secrecy part includes holding your cards so that no one else can see them.  The bluffing includes misdirection so that your opponents think that you have something besides what is there.  Poker provides many opportunities for cheating, such as bystanders giving signals and players ganging up on each other, not to mention card tricks.  These types of skills benefit limited numbers of people making decisions in private.

 

 The components of a superior move in a chess game are publicized and used to benefit future games by players in general.  The components of a superior move in poker are kept secret and used only to the benefit of the involved player.

Poker is a black box.  You see the chips go in, and the chips come out, but you may not see the machinations of the cards influencing the movement of the chips.

Chess is a white box.  Everything that needs to be seen is visible, but it is so complex that an observer can see only so far into the depths of the possible outcomes.  This depth of understanding is called the event horizon and is easier to understand in terms of computer chess.  If a computer program only looks three moves ahead, then the event horizon is three moves.  There might be a checkmate on the fourth move, but the program cannot see the checkmate because the program is only looking three moves ahead—the checkmate is just beyond what the program can see, just beyond the event horizon.  Humans also have event horizons in chess.  A human’s event horizon might not be as distinct as the three-move count that a program might be able to look ahead, but there is still a limit as to how far ahead in moves and complexity a human can see in chess.  The differences in the event horizons between people are why some people can consistently beat others in chess:  Their event horizons are farther out.

Chess event horizons tie in with intelligence being invisible.  A top chess player can show a lesser player a good chess move, but the lesser player cannot see it for herself because the lesser player cannot see as far.  This is more obvious in chess by mail, because the lesser player can study the chess board literally for days and still not see the strategy of the other player, because it is beyond her complexity event horizon.

Political (and other) issues also have complexity event horizons.  The long-term consequences of using fossil fuels appears to be beyond the event horizon of huge numbers of people.  Like showing them the long term effects of a complex chess move, they just can’t see that far.  Complexity event horizons tie in with the one-off concept discussed in relation to conflict avoidance—it appears that most people can see about one off and that’s it.

How do you compensate if you have limited memory and reasoning skills and can’t see that far to the horizon?  One possibility is that you change the game and play poker, instead.  You try to limit what other people can see rather than try to expand what everybody can see.

Conclusion

Chess and poker make good allegories for types of government.  Chess is more representative of a democracy where the populace is presumably well informed and decisions are made by open analysis.  Poker in contrast is about secrecy and the outcome is from trickery, traits more like an autocracy where decisions are made by a limited number of people in private.

               Chess is open skill,

               Poker secret trickery,

               Governments follow.

Suggested Comments:

Is it possible for someone to feel absolutely right when they cannot see beyond the event horizon?