gambling or skill?

Learning what the pros think is something I need to learn. Also the turning of the cards at the right time would be a big issue. Learning all that can't hurt when trying to play and win.

If you got those fish at your table you are only screwed if you are afraid. You have to take chances sometimes in poker, but you must take them when they are in your favor. This gaurantees that you'll win more often than not.

rugby0 said:

The orginal question was gambling or skill. Can anyone provide me with a definitive test. I am very intested in a court case that would help clear this issue. To the point that I might set/up a test case for mo. courts. Any help here?

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this is ez to demonstrate IMO. ever folded the best hand to a big bet or paid off some other guy's monster with a marginal holding?

I feel like this most of the time. When I play poker I don't wanna get lucky, I just don't want to get unlucky. And it's pretty much impossible for me to get lucky because I know when i'm behind and end up folding. Even when i have people dominated and crippled they still seem to get back up and start walking. Sucking out boards left right and center like a dirt devil on carpet.

kschuster said:

I feel like this everyday. Crazy mofos going all in preflop with not a care in the world. I'm just like "buddy....you can raise without going all in". These are the kind of people that bet like this cause their luck is impregnable. They go all in with pocket 10s, you call with Ace King suited, they make a set of 10s....luck murders skill any day of the week my friend and its sucks a huge one =/

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lol

Seriously I'm amazed at the amount of superstition that exist amongst poker players. Usually people get superstitious in games of luck and it seems you are saying poker is a game of luck. Wrong!

Why would the fish be luckier than anyone else? . It's completely irrational and poker is a game that rewards the rational mind.

You will hit trip 10s just as many time as any other donkey or top player. It's unshakable mathematical certainty!!

One piece of advice. Do away with superstition of the kind present in your post.

poker is mainly skill, if it wasn't, then why do the same pros always seem to do very good. If there wasn't skill there would be no professionals. I'm not saying there is no luck involved, of course the cards you get and the community cards are luck. But it's how you play them.

TheRinser said:

Feel lik ethis every day. Always at the begining of a tourney, theres one or two guys a'ALL-IN' every hand preflop. And you know you want to call them when its right, You pick up KK or AK and call straight away and they either hit that rag A or flop a set or the runner runner straight. I Think i play good poker, i take some chances sometimes but on the whole i think i make reads and id say 75% i make the right call....However my cards hold about 20% so its not my call thats killing me its the suck outs. Makes you wonder...How do you play poker? lol

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Now seriously guys!!! I don't get it. This is rather basic poker theory.

The donkey calls your all in (or you call his) and he hits his top pair with ace rag while you're holding KK!!! You should be over the moon!! That's what every good poker player hopes for!!

Think about it. The donkey will beat you roughly 25% of the time or 1 in 4 times in that same spot. So imagine each all in is say 100 units:

You win your 1st: You +100 Donkey -100
You win the 2nd: You +200 donkey -200
Donkey wins the 3rd: You +100 donkey -100
You win the 4th: You +200 donkey -200

Now who would you rather be? The player up 200 units who had to suffer a bad beat? Or the Donkey on -200 units who managed to crack a pair of kings!!!

The problem is that players simply cannot accept that every hand is beatable. They expect AA to win every times head up whereas in fact it has to lose about 15% of the time.

But hey if you double up with more than 50% chance of winning, you are playing a favourable game.

Now donkeys are almost always behind meaning they have inbetween 25% and 40% chance of winning. They can only double up at the max. They are therefore playing an unfavourable game. It's what I like to call a "long term losing posture" where posture represents a series of losing positions and bad decisions.

Bad beats are hard to take but they are the necessary evil that's needed to be a winning player.

Don't be aggrieved by the bad beats!! Thinks about it. If you get bad beats, it's a good sign. It means you most often have the best hand going into a showdown (the sign of a good player). In other words you are likely to be on the 60%-75% side of things rather than 25%-40%! This is what long term profitability is.

So if I'm holding KK, I want the donkey to call as often as possible.

Just a side note. I'm a winning poker player but I am under no illusion as to my real ability. I'm no phil Ivey. The reason why I am a winning players is because there are donkeys out there who will call my KK with ace rag!!

So I'm all up for it!!

The game is gambling and skill.

Many players complain about the bad beats, but you know that you are going to hand out some beats also. Players typically remember the bad beats they lose to and start believing the game is all gambling and luck.

987439 said:

I'm not saying there is no luck involved.

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You should!!

In the long run, there is no luck involved. Luck does not exist in the long run, it's a short run phenomenon.

For many people "luck" is some kind of mystical force. Well I'll let the 90% of people on this planet believe in this mumbo jumbo (after all 1 in 5 person on Earth believe the Virgin Mary never had sex with Joseph!!!) and let them pay the consequences for their irrational thinking.

For me luck is a lot more tangible. It's what I like to call "a statistically unusual distribution of events". This only exist in the short run and the longer the timeframe, the less it exist.

Given the fact that we play thousands, or even tens of thousands of hands every year, luck is not a factor anymore. We'll all be dealt AA the same amount of time, we'll lose with a straight to a full house in the same proportion and we hit the flop just as often as anyone else!

But let's face it we wanna believe in luck because we want to justify our failures and that's the easy way to blind ourselves from reality for the sake of our own comfort or our own pride:

- "Of course I was unlucky!!"
- "I didn't do anything wrong"!!
- "I was fine, but I got struck by this mystical force called luck!!"
- "I feel better already, I managed to blame someone or something for my misfortune!!"

Perhaps some of you would like to think that way. Well without me!!

well if you go all in preflop with the worst hand and end up winning, that is luck not skill. Because there is nothing you can do to change the outcome of the community cards

rugby0 said:

The orginal question was gambling or skill. Can anyone provide me with a definitive test. I am very intested in a court case that would help clear this issue. To the point that I might set/up a test case for mo. courts. Any help here?

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Yes Rugby, there have been several court rulings on the subject in several countries and all the rulings I've heard of classified poker as primarily a "game of chance".

But since judges don't know anthing about poker, it's rather difficult to see where they're coming from!

Here is the situation in the UK (where I live). This came about when a player set up a poker club and argued he did not need a gaming licence because he believed that poker should be considered a game of skill such as Chess or Bridge:

Digest: Court says no skill in poker - Yahoo! Eurosport UK

Note that I agree with the court's decison but for different reasons. I believe places where money is wagered should be subject to regulation (for the good and the integrity of the game) and such clubs should therefore acquire a gambling licence.

Here is another one from the North Carolina Court Of Appeal. This decision is a lot harder to understand:

andybloch.com - NC Court of Appeals rules that poker is not a game of skill

Hope this helps.

JoeShowdown said:

So good luck at the tables and hopefully you have enough skill to not go bankrupt in the above situations.

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You do not go bankrupt because there is a KK vs AA situation. At worse you should simply lose what you brought at the table or get knocked out of your tournament. If that is a problem, your are playing at levels that are too high and it's your mistake.

So you go bankrupt because you have poor bankroll management.

No KK vs AA situation should ever lead to bankruptcy if your bankroll management is sound!

Again sound bankroll management is one of the many skills required to be a winning player.

ruth99 said:

I think we all have our days. At times, I can play the fish all the way through the game and the cards just keep coming. I run that streak of luck when I see it starting. Otherwise, I am a tight player.

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Isn't that fun when those lucky streaks come. I guess we all get them at times. I was playing last night against a lucky streak. Not fun when you have the best hand going in and they draw out and win.

if there was no luck involved, Phil Hellmuth would win every event.
if no skill was involved, there would be rare repeating winners.

both are involved, equally? maybe.

Seems like I have been in the same boat. But I think that its both. It takes skill to play poker, but at the same time you take a gamble every time you enter a pot simply because of the types of players out there. People suck out on you no matter your skill level.

You guys just don't get it do you?

There is no such thing as luck!!! It's a concept that only exist in the mind of the mathematically illiterate!

If you lose with AA against 33, it's not bad luck, it's just that one time in six where you will lose!!!

Luck is not something that really exists, not any more than Santa Claus!!!

To describe the ups and down of poker, I prefer the word "randomness" which better encapsulate what people think they mean by luck.

In the long run, luck runs even.

However, the better skill player will luck out less than a worse player, as the better player will often not need to get lucky to win.

In the end, skill prevails.