Originally Posted by
BranchDavidian
I believe you are correct. I read this thread yesterday, and later played for a couple of hours. Lost 300 points after getting outdrawn consistently. I realize I am no poker genius. But I am better than average. I will get a bye for being in the top 50 in Decembers number of cashes tourney. I made some bad plays, but more good ones. Most of the losses can be attributed to two hands where my pocket aces got outdrawn after I got my chips in with by far the best. I know I am being rather subjective here, but I believe any unbiased observer would concede that I played fairly well and made mostly good decisions. I checked my rating again after this session and it dropped about 50 points. So I have come to the conclusion that these ratings are result driven. If you sit down and get your chips in with the best and get outdrawn, your rating will drop while your opponent gets rewarded for making bad decisions but getting lucky. Well, I suppose that it is a lot more difficult for a programmer to generate these ratings based upon whether the player is making good poker decisions rather than getting lucky after making bad decisions. And, of course, the theory is that luck will even out after enough hands have been played. But I can assure you that I have gotten outdrawn many, many more times than I have outdrawn someone, but this is true for any decent player, since good players don't get themselves into the position of having to outdraw often. However, even tho I agree that these ratings are meaningless, I suppose over the long run result driven ratings should closely parallel decision based ratings. Although, I think the result driven ones will be a little worse for better players because the better players actually lose a little more due to bad luck than bad players ( since better players are seldom in the position of needing luck but often in the position of hoping for no bad luck). Sorry for the rant!