One of my hobbies is playing poker and following poker news. At Cardplayer's website is a section featuring analysis of a famous hand from the World Series of Poker. This time it was a hand from the 2005 WSOP $2000 buy-in event between Morgan Machina and Cyndy Violette. The featured hands were Machina's Kh10h vs. Violette's 10d8d. In the analysis the author referred to Violette's hand as "dominated." S/he then went on to define 'dominated' as "a hand not likely to win because another hand dominates it."
While correct, it sheds no conceptual illumination on what it is to have a hold 'em poker hand dominated. If only everyone were required to read just the introduction to a philosophy of language anthology, the world'd be a better place.
My definition, you ask? Attempt #1: In a heads up situation, a hold 'em poker hand is dominated just in case the other hand is over a 2 to 1 favorite preflop to win the pot. This would clearly include the hand above (where Machina was about 2.4 to 1 to win) as well as those times when a player's pair faces a bigger pair preflop (when the odds in favor of the bigger pair are about 4 to 1).
Beyond just stating odds at the risk of extreme precisification, I'm not sure how to do it.
