Measuring fold rate (preparing to raise ante)

jasonrohrer · 2015-01-11 22:46:59

There's been a lot of discussion here about how there's too little penalty for early folding. There's been a lot of back-and-forth about skill in the game, and how changing the ante-to-stakes ratio affects the skill depth of the game.

However, I believe there are two skills in the game:

1. The skill of picking columns and reading your opponent to anticipate their picks. I.e., the skill of controlling the score you and your opponent get.

2. The skill of betting (knowing when to call, raise, fold, etc.). This also involves reading your opponent.

If you can easily fold after picking without losing much, it seems like the importance of the first skill is reduced. You don't have to anticipate your opponent much. You can just pick randomly and fold any time you don't get good numbers. Similarly, if you are really good at the first skill, your opponent can simply fold until you make a mistake.

You can imagine a player who is so good at the first skill that they can completely control the game. I.e., give themselves a 105 and give their opponent a promising 93. Yes, this player could then make the first skill really count regardless of ante, but such a level of skill at this part of the game is only hypothetical.

Raising the ante relative to the stake DOES reduce the second skill in the game. You can say less with your bet, and make less meaningful betting decisions. In the limit, where the ante is equal to the stake and we only play one round, there are no betting decisions at all. In the sub-limit, where the ante is one chip and the stake is two chips, we have only two, very coarse betting options: check or all-in.

But, unlike Poker, the betting skill is not the only skill in the game. In poker, raising the ante relative to the stake simply shrinks the betting space and increases the role of luck in the game.

Here, it shrinks the betting space and---instead of increasing the role of luck---increases the role of the picking skill.

Thus, whereas the ante in Poker is used to balance skill vs. luck, here it can be used to balance skill 1 vs. skill 2.

But what should we raise it to? First step is to measure where we are now.

.
+------------+-------+--------+-------+----------------+---------+
| Date       | Games | Rounds | Folds | One Ante Folds | Reveals |
+------------+-------+--------+-------+----------------+---------+
| 2015-01-09 |   201 |    752 |   440 |            183 |     230 |
| 2015-01-10 |   587 |   2310 |  1406 |            666 |     724 |
| 2015-01-11 |   321 |   1404 |   817 |            431 |     494 |
+------------+-------+--------+-------+----------------+---------+

So, we can see that one player folds in more than half the rounds (Folds and Reveals don't add up to Rounds because they don't include the rounds that end with one player leaving). Roughly half of those folds are single-ante folds.

28% of rounds have a player fold with only one coin in the pot.
32% of rounds make it to reveal.

This isn't as bad as I thought it would be, but it's probably not evenly distributed. Beginners are probably pushing more games to reveal, while experts are probably one-ante folding more than 28% of the time. If you get stuck with a partner who folds constantly, it can be a very slow grind indeed.

At the GMT day change-over today, I'm going to raise the ante to 3 coins as a starting point. Then we'll start gathering data over the next few days about how this change affects the fold rate.

cullman · 2015-01-11 22:52:26

Excellent!

AnoHito · 2015-01-12 02:00:35

Looking forward to it.

.. · 2015-01-12 12:33:42

Interesting.

Could you provide stats over the last couple of months? I'd be curious to plot it and see whether there are any trends as new players join. Obviously it will need some smoothing. The problem is that if you simply did nothing, I would expect to see a significant shift in the next few days anyway.

jasonrohrer · 2015-01-12 15:30:15

Yeah, I wasn't measuring these stats until a few days ago. That's all the data that I have about folding.

CORDIAL MINUET ENSEMBLE

#1 2015-01-11 22:46:59

Measuring fold rate (preparing to raise ante)

#2 2015-01-11 22:52:26

Re: Measuring fold rate (preparing to raise ante)

#3 2015-01-12 02:00:35

Re: Measuring fold rate (preparing to raise ante)

#4 2015-01-12 12:33:42

Re: Measuring fold rate (preparing to raise ante)

#5 2015-01-12 15:30:15

Re: Measuring fold rate (preparing to raise ante)

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