Poker Vs Chess: Which One’s The Real Test of Skill? 

“Just remember that the goal is for us all to capture all we want.” — Anderson/Squire

Chess and poker—two games that are as different as night and day, yet equally brilliant at testing your mental mettle. One’s a high-stakes battle where every piece is visible, and every move is a calculated masterpiece. The other? A mix of strategy and luck, where the cards may or may not be in your favor, and bluffing is as essential as breathing.

In this post, we take a closer look at what makes poker and chess tick, comparing their complexities, their lessons for real life, and why they’ve earned their spots as ultimate mind games. Get ready to find out which one’s the real brain-bender.

Chess is to Poker as Poker is to Go Fish

Nobody loves poker more than us here at Global Poker Academy (surely!). Its depth and complexity are our jam, and while it is highly strategic, there is also an element of luck, too.

Chess, on the other hand, can be a little more complex. The level of chess discourse may be seen by some as being far more sophisticated than even the deepest poker conversation. This is a game for which entire books have been written about a handful of opening moves. Starting to get our drift?

Complete Information Changes Everything

The single biggest difference between chess and poker is that poker is a game of incomplete information—each player does not know each other’s hand. In chess, on the other hand, everything is out in the open for both players to see.

This means a chess player must set bluffs and traps (and they do both!) multiple moves ahead. A chess player may suggest to his opponent that he’s going to zig, but his true plan to zag must be hidden well enough and far enough into the future to lure the opponent into the trap.

The complete information also permits glorious verbal interchanges between two opponents. Chess players, can and will, verbally bait their opponent. 
“That was a mistake—you should have done ‘bishop c4’.” 
“Nah, had I done that, you’d have done ‘rook d5’ and forked my rook.” 
“No, because then you’d have played ‘rook b3’—had you seen it—and gotten out of that.”

Really Good Chess Players Are Amazing

The people you may see playing chess on YouTube are obviously extremely strong players, including Magnus Carlsen, who is the best chess player in the world at the time of writing this. But their ability to analyze and recall games is also something else.

For instance, take Internet chess star Andrea Botez when she took on grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura. While she’s an extremely good chess player, he’s a lot better. Unlike poker, “a lot better” in chess means, “wins 100% of the time unless he makes a silly mistake.” So he gave her a handicap—he played blindfolded.

A chess board is an 8x8 matrix—64 squares—with a practically uncountable number of possible board positions. But Nakamura played as if he could see the board, without hesitation or confusion. We won’t spoil the outcome for you pals, but you can see the match here.

Or the match where two pairs of top women players played against each other. The game ended in a draw, but the post-mortem was what attracted me. They began discussing what would have happened had one team made a different play at move 13. A spirited discussion broke out—clearly all four were able to completely visualize the board at that specific point in the game, and intuit the possible direction of the game had that alternate move been played.

Very smart people are very smart.

Do Non-Poker Players Watch Poker?

Ever wondered about people who will watch televised poker, even though they’re not sure if a flush beats a straight? Certainly the excitement and drama are part of it.  

That, coupled with the engagement, good humor, and sparkling wit of the players, makes the game eminently watchable, even if you’re not 100% sure where the pieces end up after a castle.

Is Poker a Better Model of Real Life?

Back to the “complete information” thing, which completely changes the entire dynamic of the game - as a model of real life, poker gets the nod, precisely because of this. The parallels between poker and business (and military) scenarios are famous, because the real world never offers two competing parties complete information about the opponent’s resources, intent, strengths, and weaknesses. On the other hand, the only secret a chess player can keep is the overall arc of their game plan, and even the end goal—check-mate the opponent’s king—is known by both players.

Poker also teaches you to deal with real-life variance: a successful poker player quickly learns to move past bad beats, and sees them as an unavoidable component of playing the game. This lesson, properly internalized, translates seamlessly into the real world and helps one cope with an arbitrary and capricious universe.

Chess, however, offers no such lessons. The better player always wins. Good planning and proper execution are invariably successful. It’s a world many of us would like to inhabit, but it’s definitely not the world we live in. Poker players plan; the deck laughs.

You Won’t See Me Learning Chess

You might think that after this paean to the game, I would be breaking out a chess set and learning the London opening. For better or worse, that won’t be happening. I have a plate full of wonderful interests and not enough time to pursue all the existing ones. But perhaps as importantly, my decades as a poker player have taught me that I would barely scratch the surface of chess before time and age caught up with me. One of the things I enjoy most about poker is my ability to understand the subtlety and nuance—a skill that has taken me years of study and experience. I’ll leave chess to those who have (or will) put the time and effort into it.

But with that said, I probably haven’t watched my last chess video. Over the years, I’ve gotten great joy from watching a beautiful thing—any beautiful thing—done well. Chess is no different; I was tickled to get a glimpse into the extraordinary world its players inhabit.

FAQs about Poker vs Chess

What is the biggest difference between chess and poker? 
The main difference is that chess is a game of complete information—both players can see all the pieces and moves on the board. In poker, however, players have incomplete information, as they cannot see each other’s hands. This fundamental difference shapes the strategy of both games.

How do the levels of complexity in chess and poker compare? 
Chess is often seen as more complex, with players analyzing moves far in advance. The depth of chess discourse is highly sophisticated, and strategies are carefully planned. Poker is also complex but introduces an element of luck, as the cards dealt can influence the outcome, which is less of a factor in chess.

How do the roles of skill and luck differ in chess and poker? 
In chess, skill plays the dominant role—strong players always win unless they make a mistake. In poker, luck is a significant factor because players do not have control over the cards they’re dealt. Even the best players can lose if the luck isn’t on their side.

Can poker be a good model for real-life situations? 
Yes, poker is often seen as a better model for real-life scenarios, such as business or military strategy. This is because, in real life, we rarely have complete information about our opponents, and poker mimics this uncertainty. Poker also teaches players to deal with variance and to move past bad outcomes, which mirrors challenges faced in daily life.

Why do people watch poker, even if they don’t understand all the rules? 
Poker is engaging to watch due to the drama, money involved, and the personalities of the players. Even non-players enjoy the tension, humor, and wit displayed at the table, making poker an entertaining spectator sport despite the lack of complete knowledge about the game’s rules or strategies.

Lee Jones has been in the poker industry for over 30 years. He writes at the Global Poker blog, plays poker every chance he gets, and coaches poker. You can contact him at www.leejones.com.