Abstract
Reservoir characterization is in many ways like a game of poker, an estimate of a set of data from incomplete information on which money is wagered. A gambler may know a little information (his cards, certain cards turned face up for the other players, the distribution of cards in suits in a 52–card deck), and he is required to wager money based upon his reconstruction of what cards he thinks the other players hold. If the poker player is good at using this sparse hard information, and additional soft information like the size of a competing player’s bets and voice inflections, then there is a good change he will win money over the course of the game. Reservoir characterization shares many of these same elements: exceedingly little hard information from wells, additional soft information from seismic and geological concepts, the need to reconstruct information from these sources, reconstructions that contain inherent uncertainty, and the potential for winning or losing large sums of money over the life of the game (field).
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La Pointe, P.R., Barton, C.C. (1995). Creating Reservoir Simulations with Fractal Characteristics. In: Barton, C.C., La Pointe, P.R. (eds) Fractals in Petroleum Geology and Earth Processes. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-1815-0_12
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