When Will You Reach Your Peak?

Mathematicians peak in their early 20s; golfers in their mid-30s; gymnasts in their early teens; and novelists perhaps in their 50s. Although these are overgeneralizations, they have an element of truth. The age at which you should expect to reach your peak depends on a complicated interplay of factors, the specifics of which vary from skill to skill. So, what about poker?

A couple of years ago, Mike Caro posted one of his infamous challenges to the internet newsgroup rec.gambling.poker (RGP) that I particularly liked: Identify the age at which professional poker players should reach their peak. Caro's 150-word limitation kept replies concise, and fairly entertaining. The breadth of replies suggested lots of interesting angles and approaches. I'd like to elaborate on just one of these - and although I can't claim that it has any special relationship to the "right" answer, I think it's a useful perspective when thinking about how your ability ought to progress throughout your lifetime.

Of course, while the question was posed in the context of professional players, the answers we come up with should be relevant to serious nonpros, or to players who take the game up later in life. One thing that's important to understand immediately is that everyone is different. Everyone learns at his own pace, and not everyone reaches the same peak. Circumstances may dictate when you peak more than nature. Professional golfers may tend to peak in their early to mid-30s, but if you take up the game at age 60, your peak will probably be in your 60s. Your peak will certainly come a lot sooner if for whatever reason you stop trying to improve your game. There are no guarantees, but we can make some general observations about the nature of poker skill and how it's liable to change due to some combination of practice, study, development, and aging over the course of your lifetime.

There are really two ends to this question: One is the improvement end, as you start learning the game and, with some level of diligence, work to improve. The other end is the end of aging. We can tackle these one at a time.

The process of learning almost universally observes what's described as a power law - you learn rapidly at first, but the curve flattens out after a while. Some form of this is almost a logical necessity. It's easy to improve in your first few years of play, if you're motivated enough, because you have so much to learn. But after you've read 100 books and put in 10,000 hours, improvement is going to take some substantially more concerted effort. However, poker throws a few wrenches into the works of this pretty picture. First, poker isn't just a single skill. It's a collection of skills, some of which you may not even begin to practice until you've been playing for several years. Second, different games may require (or emphasize) different skills. The games you play when you start off may require very different skills from the games you play after you've reached a certain level of competence. Third, poker enforces an artificial barrier to learning: money. Even if you're ready to learn to play shorthanded against the best in the world, you may not have the cash to put your readiness to the test. Fourth, it could be argued that learning poker beyond a certain point is more a matter of sudden insights than of gradual refinement, in which case we'd expect to see less of a smooth pattern.

It's hard to say if these provisos do much to alter the expected smooth curve of the power law, but they probably extend the time course of learning somewhat. A long time course for learning is probably good for poker. It ensures a wider range of skill levels in the cardroom, which means that players at most levels can find both good earning games and good learning games.

So, how long should all of this take? Researchers in expertise sometimes claim that achieving "genius" level performance takes 10 years of concentrated practice, where concentrated practice means averaging three hours a day. We may not be shooting for genius level here, but that does suggest that some individuals can continue to improve steadily for as long as 10 years. Typical players probably pick up the game (in a serious way) between the ages of 25 and 35, and don't quite get in three hours a day. So, they'll be longer to peak, and due to predisposition and a lack of adequate training, won't reach genius level performance. Still, if they're motivated to keep improving, they will, up to a point. Due to the reasons noted above, my guess is that these players will reach their peak about 15 years after taking up the game, after which they will improve only slightly, if at all. This puts the peak for poker skill at no earlier than 40.

Clearly, this ignores some seriously important factors, some of which favor youth. Physical stamina is certainly important, especially in tournament poker. For a slew of reasons, younger players may be less concerned about risking the rent money, which may make it easier to play better (if not smarter). And it tends to be easier to devote all of your waking hours to one pursuit at 25 than at 35. Still, it's hard to imagine a talented player at 25 who wouldn't feel, deep in his heart, that he should expect to improve for at least a solid 10 years.

What about the other side, decline from the peak? A distinction that I think is particularly relevant here is one sometimes made by intelligence researchers (the brain kind, not the military kind), between fluid intelligence and crystallized intelligence. Loosely speaking, fluid intelligence is mental agility or cleverness, while crystallized intelligence is knowledge. There's good news and bad news here. The good news is that notwithstanding the likelihood that your memory will deteriorate someday, crystallized intelligence tends to stay with you as you get older. Barring pathology, the knowledge you had when you were younger will still be with you, and your store of knowledge should continue to increase throughout your lifetime. The bad news is that fluid intelligence is much more sensitive to aging, and probably starts to decline when you hit 40 (ballpark). Although the decline is slow, and many people remain mentally agile much later in life, once you reach 40, there are no guarantees that you'll be as fast on your feet as you were when you were younger. (If it makes anyone feel better, I'm pretty sure I started my decline at around 32.)

In the context of aging, cognitive speed may be the most important component of fluid intelligence. In research settings, speed is the most immediately and consistently observable consequence of aging. Unfortunately, speed is also critical in poker. Poker isn't just about making the right decisions - it's about making them quickly. In some cases, a decision can only be made quickly: You can't think for 10 seconds and then decide that a quick bet will be the most likely to mislead your opponent.

So, at least from this perspective, the lifetime development of poker skill pits the monotonically forward march of crystallized knowledge against the decline of fluid intelligence with age. When does learning leave off and aging begin to take over? Players who manage to reach their peak before 40 are liable to enjoy quite a few years at the top (assuming they didn't reach that peak early just by setting a low standard). Even after the age of 40, conscientious players should be able to improve enough to offset the effects of aging, for at least 10 years, with many good (if not peak) years beyond that. If I've underestimated the amount you can continue to learn after years of dedicated study, the news may be even better. As I said before, there are no guarantees, and every individual's abilities and circumstances are different. But, I suspect I'm not alone in hoping I can make use of whatever poker skill I have for a long time.