Next Big Esports Betting Game

On November 16 2015 10:21 maryn wrote: but whats the point on highest level theres almost no skill difference because the game is too easy, might as well flip a coin

.... dude people not only bet on flipping a coin but even with knowingly bad odds, people enjoy variance, people dont bet in chess matches because there is usually very clear edges, that is what makes Heartstone a good betting e-sport, not its skill

Smuft I said that I didn't argue for which one is more skill based, but here are my thoughts: The fact that neither Hearthstone nor Starcraft has been solved by computers when FL HU and NL HU to a lesser extend are, shows you that it is not an easy argument. Starcraft's APM combined with strategy and psychology opens up a WAY bigger decision tree than NLHU, as you can make a ton of moves every second of every minute of every game. How good are the best SC1 or SC2 computer programs more than 15 years after the games release? Terrible. How good are the best FL HU bots? Well they are better than the humans, at least thats what I heard. The decision tree in FLHU is arguably much smaller than in Hearthstone, especially with new cards being added and adding a lot of new strategies. Of course Hearthstone appears very simple on the outside, but so does Fixed Limit. The reality is that 17 years ago, people thought that 1 base 5 gate archon and 1 stargate scout was the way to go. Thats how they won their games and people were shocked at their strategical genius. By now the game has dramatically changed and poker has evolved a lot, too. However as someone who has followed both scenes I think SC is far more complex, yet far less solved. I wouldn't even know how to calculate a computer program that works with 5000 apm and has all the strategical / game theoretical correct answers in an almost limitless decision tree. Having that many actions per minute available ADDS to the tree, it is not a "nice to have". The fact that 200 computers were solving poker when there is not even a program's idea in SC to solve it, should make a case for which game is less easy to be solved. Your argument about being intuitive is the same as poker players were arguying about math guys 20 years ago. It is a feel game, not a math game. You see people bluff or you don't have that ability, everything else is mombojombo. By now none of these so called Pros is even around anymore. In poker there was more incentive to solve the game and it is easier to work out a decision tree and program an application for it. Remember how in SC1 the computer would basically only sit around after 10 minutes, not knowing what to do. Well that was a shitty program to begin with but I wouldn't even know how to build a system that plays out every possible action in every second combined by all strategies that are available while still being competitive vs the maximal exploitive player strategy.

The fact that in poker you have many programs doesn't mean it is more complex, it just means there are more programs to solve it (which arguably means it is easier to solve because one knows how to go about it). I love both games so I didn't really want to argue which one is tougher to master, as I wouldn't know how to prove the point mathematically and it is a feel based discussion anyhow. All I am saying is:
Poker is shrinking, Gaming is on the rise. Poker is a game as is SC, but with a gambling element. As poker is a subset of gaming, it cannot be bigger than the whole industry longterm, especially when the industry is exploding. So will poker make you richer as a world class player than the top games can in 20 years? I would bet a lot of money that it is not the case anymore. Do I think gaming is more lucrative than poker right now? Not yet, unless you consider money invested/risked as an element, then gaming always wins. Will gaming be the next thing and investing now in brand creation and fan following is a good move? Yes, I absolutely believe that there will be plenty of gamers making a million plus in the next years to come, even without winning big tournaments. There are already 1.6 billion gamers worldwide (when I played competitive there were mabye 5 Million). It is already the biggest spectator sport outside of traditional media, and it is not artifically created but a grass roots movement.

here comes fisheye with the corsairs ~_~

As long as some game is unsolved and has interesting competition it will be popular and possibly there will be money around it.

E-sports are on the rise (again), but it is hard to predict where they will be in 5, 10 or 15 years from now. The future of poker on the other side is quite easy to predict.

As for HS, with 4+ expansions per year, game just rocks. There is a lot of luck involved atm, but this will change in the future as the meta will slowly move in the anti-aggro direction - more control, meaning longer games, more decisions, more skill involved with building and executing your decks etc... Will HS become popular for betting on? Definitely.

I can see a future for poker where the game explodes again, unfortunately you need brash entrepreneurs with long staminas and a dream. I don't see Pokerstars being that company (anymore), neither is the industry full of good people behind the scenes. It was created and is run by porn industry/criminal/greedy people. Blizzard would have never been able to release games like SC, HS, WoW etc. if they were those kind of people and thats why I am so bullish on gaming, tons of great people behind and in front of the scene. Poker needs a reboot, very smart people would need to invent new versions of poker that are innovative with a lot of depth but also very enjoyable. Unless that shift happens I can only see the road of quarterly company gross revenue increasement, no matter how. With that approach you can make a ton of money short-term but destroy a industry long-term.

Boxing and MMA is not a great comparison, but the lack of vision/colloboration and change in boxing is what destroys the sport. Few can make a SHITLOAD, but the long-tail is fucked and it is just not the future of combat sport. MMA on the other hand has all that grass root movement and it has a ton of good people working in that industry and contributing (also UFC as bad as they are at times, they are still way better for the sport than some of the boxing promoters).

I don't see Hearthstone having an interest spike nearly as high as LoL or Dota or becoming close to a top esports game ever. Game simply doesn't deliver as much emotion to the global scene and isn't dynamic enough and will never be, simply cause its a card game. It could however still be on a fairly high esports level, just never on the top, nor will any other card game ever be.

Hmm that seems like a retarded statement to be honest. How could a card game NEVER be on top of eSports? Thats like saying a girl will NEVER be UFC's top athlete or there will never be flying cars. You cannot know that, it is unlikely tho. Hearthstone is def. a top5 eSport game at this moment in time from Twitch.tv and viewership. Nowhere near LoL and Dota2 but that is basically the first time Blizzard has done a card game like that, Warcraft 1 wasn't StarCraft, takes time to get to know a category and master it. I disagree about emotion and dynamic, tho. That is exactly why Hearthstone has become big, the drama and the emotion involved in it (plus the ability of regular players to be their own caster due to the round based game mechanics). Wasn't intended as an attack on you Spitfiree, I just think it is usually unwise to use the word never or ever in a context like that one (Anderson Silva will always be the GOAT, nobody will ever break Usain Bolts record, etc. those statements, while trying to make a point are kind of ridiciulous).

I understand your view, I also use words as strong as never when I'm 100% sure in my guts about something. It's quite surprising you think otherwise considering your past esports pro history. Games like Starcraft and Warcraft had insane dynamics, LoL and Dota are not even close compared to them and they are still much more complex. While HS is hard and complicated in depth there s not much to the eye for the normal viewer, not many objectives to go around, could possibly compare to the meta game of any other games, however viewers that care about meta game have most likely already become fans. Sorry, but speaking about dynamics there could not even be a comparison. Card games are strictly limited to the cards thats the problem. Strategies and MOBAs play around too many things that keep the viewers busy and interested. I'm not speaking about a fan base that plays the game. LoL has already gone far beyond players only viewership for example. I guess the core of my argument is that the game is just too static to keep the attention span of the average viewer for long

P.S. no offenses taken, i'd be on the same opinion about words like ever/never 99% of the time plus words like retarded are too standard for the ex gaming community to be butthurt

Well, I do believe a card game could become eSports biggest hit, albeit I think it is very unlikely. I don't agree that there is no dynamics and emotion (DEATHWING with 1 HP left, then turn games around, new cards adding new sensational moments, most streamers having best of moments and memes around their reactions to situations). I found myself laughing very hard at some of these videos and I have found myself being emersed in the streams for hours when very sophisticated pro players give their analysis. However I do believe that other games offer more in terms of what games are capable of, I believe nobody can really understand what great VR games can do for gaming longterm. Also could transcend online viewership, as you could be more "in" the game and there could be a layer of commentary/casting on top of it. A ton will happen over the next years, I see it from every angle happening simultaneously and it is amazing. I never played LoL or Dota2, so I never understood the hype but it is for sure good for gaming in general. Just very optimistic of what the future will hold for us geeks&nerds

On November 17 2015 00:32 Liquid`Drone wrote: ye if live life over again then play brood war super hard for 2-3 years right after release just to become good at games and master the multitask of multitable poker, then switch to poker in like 2001, then play poker until like 2007, be millionaire because it's been so easy, and then start gaming like crazy cuz don't have to work

1999 FL holdem at Paradise poker
2001-2008 NL holdem
2009-2013 Pot Limit Omaha
2014-x live poker high stakes + make "coaching videos 500nl zoom"

imo ^^

On November 17 2015 10:50 FiSheYe wrote: The decision tree in FLHU is arguably much smaller than in Hearthstone, especially with new cards being added and adding a lot of new strategies. Of course Hearthstone appears very simple on the outside, but so does Fixed Limit.

Hey Fisheye,

Smuft wrote an excellent write up but I wanted to point out that game tree in hearthstone is nowhere near close to HUFL. In HUFL, you have 1300 combination of hands which majority go passed the first decision tree. Tree gets smaller by each street but complexity that involves in solving this is an impossible task without a simulator. If you compare that to hearthstone, you are playing with a deck consisting of 30 cards, solving the mulligan is an easy task that only requires few minutes of lab work from a bright mind. Also, as a lot of the posters mentioned in above, a lot of the decks plays it self and there's really only two or three different options to choose on tough turns.

Closer comparison we can make of hearthstone to poker would be 30bb HU SNG.

I respect Fisheye so much but comparing Starcraft to HU NLHE doesn't seem very convincing. No way Starcraft is harder in my opinion. It might seem that way on paper but when we factor inherent human limitations in the ability of splitting attention and performing manual tasks skill ceiling becomes so much higher in HU NLHE.

Well, keep in mind we're all way above the average Joe when it comes to skills in bw. We all played tremendous hours over the year to reach the level we have now.

Either way I find it hard to compare because it's not really the same skills...

The reason why i find HearthStone betting not very interesting is because to me, its literally just flipping a coin. Pretty much every pro players will play every spots the same, and when there is a difference of play, its because the outcome is almost meaningless. I am pretty sure pros playing pros, nobody will ever have long term win rates over 55%.

If there is one sport/game i find REALLY fun to bet on, its MMA. Maybe its because of my fishy side, but i really feel like sometimes there are some really good bets you can make. For example, this weekend, i honneslty feel like Holm can at least beat ronda 60% of the time, and she was paying +1200 at one point, such a +EV bet. At the opposite, there are sometimes some bets i made which, after some thoughts, i clearly realize they were horribly stupid, for example, betting on Barao in the rematch against Dillashaw.

There will never be any such things in hearthstone obviously. I can't imagine a way to find an edge in hearthstone betting. Maybe i'm wrong, but i think bettors at least want the illusion they can be a winning player long term.

5-10 programs to analyze poker?

what the fuck?

+1 to banning hand histories, huds, all that shit then

@AndrewSong: The hard tasks in HS won't be mulligans or turn decisions in the future, rather deck building. If the tournament scene of HS gets bigger, then a very tiny change in your deck will shift the odds in different match-ups. Preparing your decks is going to be the hardest part and that will surely be not so easily solvable by AI. So, I am with Fisheye on this one (HS vs HUFL).

As for comparing an RTS game to HU NLHE, I'd say I favor poker although the two are quite different activities.

Fishy,

I agree with a lot of your points and especially that this is a "feel based" conversation it's hard to prove anything and it's probably more suited as a fun talk over some beers. The one below as the only thing that needed a response

On November 17 2015 10:50 FiSheYe wrote: Starcraft's APM combined with strategy and psychology opens up a WAY bigger decision tree than NLHU, as you can make a ton of moves every second of every minute of every game.

I see what you are saying with this and it's something I considered as well. However I don't think it opens up the "effective game tree" very much because 99% of the movements we can make in BW are horrible and not worth considering. Also IMO, if we had a super computer with 1 million APM it'd limit the number of potential strategies by a lot since slow units would be horrible, strategies that use units with the best acceleration/deceleration/attack animation would dominate all others to the point they would be unusable. There is kind of a real life example of this of koreans in zerg vs zerg, as soon as they learned how to micro mutalisks properly, hydras were never used anymore and would automatically lose vs korean mutalisk micro, as would inferior mutalisk micro from foreigners.


btw I'm interested in bo100 random vs random BW for some decent sum of $

last time i played was 2012 about 1-200 games

On November 18 2015 09:40 Expiate wrote: @AndrewSong: The hard tasks in HS won't be mulligans or turn decisions in the future, rather deck building. If the tournament scene of HS gets bigger, then a very tiny change in your deck will shift the odds in different match-ups. Preparing your decks is going to be the hardest part and that will surely be not so easily solvable by AI.

good point imo

Yes deck building is by far the most difficult thing in Hearstone, the only reason why we dont feel a huge skill gap is because we are allowed to copy decks from the internet

yeah the "incomplete information" part of HS is much less of a factor, even without being able to copy online decks, you can learn someones deck after playing them 2-3 games

the incomplete information aspect in poker is much bigger though, we have 100s of stats and 1000s of hands on a guy and still sometimes say "not big enough sample to know what he's doing..."