Is poker a game of luck most of it?!

Stu_Ungar said:

What you dont seem to be grasping is that poker is a game which is played in the long run and not individual hands.

Poker is essentially a war between ranges. Since at any given time you and your opponent have only 1 hand within their overall range, observing it in the short term dosent make all that much sense.

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PS: Much sense? Does it make sense or not?

mrmonkey said:

To think that luck doesn't play a significant part of the game is to deny that variance exists.

In the short term, luck has a huge influence on the game unless the skill levels are so disparate as to make it so that skilled players are almost always guaranteed to win. Over the long haul and thousands upon hundreds of thousands of hands, having a skill advantage manifests itself in showing you are better than your opponents. This is where the game becomes more about skill than luck.

This is why having appropriate bankroll management is essential to being a poker player vs. a pure gambler. If you do not practice appropriate bankroll management, you are simply gambling, plain and simple. There's nothing wrong with this if you can accept the fact that you are just gambling and looking for a thrill. You can even be gambling with a pretty decent edge... let's say you are a good player and are almost always getting it in ahead and taking away pots in good spots. However, even getting it in ahead in really good situations like being a 3:1 favorite you still have a 1/4 chance of getting beat. String a couple of those 1/4 beats together in a row and you can go bankrupt pretty quickly playing higher than what your bankroll allows for -- even if you are playing perfectly and should be "beating the game".

I like to think of poker as winning a war, and the little battles along the way are only a small part of the bigger picture. You will undoubtedly lose a few battles a long the way, but if you have a solid gameplan and strategy to win the war you will do well in the long run.

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noW said:

Who says that?
Is it just because it works for you?

PS: Much sense? Does it make sense or not?

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Stu_Ungar said:

Look

When you play poker, the key to winning is to assess how your range performs against your opponents range. If its stronger you are ahead, if its weaker you are behind.

At any point in a hand you and your opponent each have a range for folding, calling and raising.

However in any given hand you have only one hand. Therefore sometimes your will hold the top of your range can your opponent holds the bottom of his and sometimes you hold the bottom of your range and he holds the top.

So sometimes you play a hand well and win, other times you play a hand well and lose.

However if your range is stronger than your opponents, then in the longrun you will always profit and if its weaker you will always lose.

Its because of that reason that poker skill cant be measured by playing a single hand, it can only be measured when you play a significant number of hands.

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josephs333 said:

90% is luck
10% is knowing how to play the cards that your delt.

Watching how someone bets is also very important.

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