Why SkillBet is not real poker

Last night, I had another short and sweet session. On hand 8, I won a pot worth $32,100 with four of a kind, jacks. The funny thing was, even though I flopped trip jacks, I never bet the entire hand; I simply called. An opponent who'd made a full house on the river went all in, and since I'd made quad jacks on the river, I thought I might just look him up :-)

The shortness of the session left me time to play around some more on SkillBet. I've figured out why it's not real poker; the explanation is a variation on the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. Since the SkillBet software allows you to keep track of what your human opponent is doing in real time, including how much better or worse than you he fared on each hand, your poker decisions are necessarily different than they would be if you knew nothing of how your opponent was faring. For instance, if you're slightly ahead of him, it might be a good strategy to automatically fold all marginal hands, since the odds are that they won't win; your opponent, since he's behind, will be pressured to play those hands in the hope that he can catch up with you. In effect, he'll be forced to play hands he wouldn't play normally. Conversely, when you're behind and there are only a few hands left to play, your best strategy is to play very aggressively, hoping you get some callers and catch a lucky card. The knowledge of where you stand against your opponent can therefore make you play differently from your norm in two distinct ways:

1. you muck hands you might ordinarily play
2. you play hands you would definitely muck ordinarily

So what SkillBet measures is not precisely poker skill; more accurately, what it measures is how well you play poker knowing way more than you should about your opponent's play. I find it enjoyable, but it ain't poker.

During current Hold'em session you were dealt 9 hands and saw flop:
 - 1 out of 1 times while in big blind (100%)
 - 0 out of 1 times while in small blind (0%)
 - 3 out of 7 times in other positions (42%)
 - a total of 4 out of 9 (44%)
 Pots won at showdown - 2 of 2 (100%)
 Pots won without showdown - 0

delta: $16,301
balance: $6,296,000