Is poker a game of luck most of it?!

REI53 · Nov 30, 2010

For those who don't know how to play it yes, it's a game of luck.
For those (us) who play, we all know that is much more then just luck.

skywalker606 · Nov 30, 2010

20% luck 90% math

Worak · Nov 30, 2010

skywalker606 said:
20% luck 90% math

20%+90% = 110% FWIW

[x] I won't mention that you failed

Dreams of Tragedy · Nov 30, 2010

grafkarow said:
20%+90% = 110% FWIW

[x] I won't mention that you failed

Nice!!

jackdonkey1717 · Nov 30, 2010

It's half & half in my opinion.

noW · Nov 30, 2010

norriscjn said:
eah it is luck"

I like this post the best. At first i did want to say, "yeah it is luck"! But then after reading this post it did make alot of sense. Nice post!

I support my started theory.
Taking hand by hand think about it. . can you really do something wrong / good in less or more way...
From this point of view playing it its wrong to velieve you can't win anything against anyone..

tenbob · Nov 30, 2010

100% luck over 1 hand. The more hands you play the more it becomes skill.

So over an infinite amount of hands its 100% skill.

dj11 · Nov 30, 2010

-----bryce said:
alan cunningham said it best "poker is 100 percent luck and 100 percent skill"

Eureka!

FINALLY!

A valid answer to this age old question......:santaclau

mrmonkey · Nov 30, 2010

noW said:
I support my started theory.
Taking hand by hand think about it. . can you really do something wrong / good in less or more way...
From this point of view playing it its wrong to velieve you can't win anything against anyone..

Hand by hand? This makes no sense. There is no mathematical reasoning behind your theory. As hands accumulate, and if you make correct decisions to give you +ev play every hand, over 100,000+ hands you WILL see a profit. This is fact. Over the course of 100,000+ hands, you will definitely lose many times when you are ahead, but since you have the edge in most situations the sum of it all will be big gains.

Think about it like a casino. A casino would not stake its entire reserves on a single hand of blackjack, because it knows the odds are very close to 50/50 to win the hand. However, casinos are VERY happy to see hundreds and millions of hands of blackjack being played because they actually do have a small mathematical edge -- about .5% against perfectly played perfect strategy and closer to 2% against usual average play. A 2% edge in any single hand of poker means nothing -- it is a coin toss. But over millions of hands a 2% edge can make you a millionaire, just like a casino can make millions due to the large volume of hands it sees.

alaskabill · Dec 1, 2010

mrmonkey said:
Think about it like a casino. A casino would not stake its entire reserves on a single hand of blackjack, because it knows the odds are very close to 50/50 to win the hand. However, casinos are VERY happy to see hundreds and millions of hands of blackjack being played because they actually do have a small mathematical edge -- about .5% against perfectly played perfect strategy and closer to 2% against usual average play. A 2% edge in any single hand of poker means nothing -- it is a coin toss. But over millions of hands a 2% edge can make you a millionaire, just like a casino can make millions due to the large volume of hands it sees.

That is a perfect analogy.

To the OP: It is pointless to focus on individual hands. The reason that you play poker (assuming that you want to make money) is to take advantage of long term advantages.

noW · Dec 1, 2010

dj11 said:
Eureka!

FINALLY!

A valid answer to this age old question......:santaclau

Well your just saying my theory along the others are correct...100% skill 100% luck.

johntwodoe · Dec 6, 2010

What are talking about, people?))

Orcusan · Dec 6, 2010

johntwodoe said:
What are talking about, people?))

Start with the first post of this thread, i am confident you will figure it out by the time you reach the last one, and then i am sure you will ask yourself "why was i asking something like this , it's so obvious".

Stu_Ungar · Dec 6, 2010

tenbob said:
100% luck over 1 hand. The more hands you play the more it becomes skill.

Over 1 hand, the outcome is down to luck, but the way its played requires skill.

At any point you have 3 choices, fold, call or raise.

Each of these choices have an EV and the EVs are rarely equal.

The skill is taking the line which provides the highest EV for your hand.

A skillfull player tends to get more value the times he is ahead and pays off less often when he is behind.

How many times have you seen a fish show up with quads and create a 20bb pot? Thats an example of how to get very lucky in a hand and still play it with zero skill.

LizzyJ · Dec 7, 2010

I would break it down like this:

5% luck
25% technical skill: actually playing the cards. Math skills.
35% non-technical skill: being able to control your emotions. bankroll management.
35% self-awareness: knowing it's not your day and being able to walk away. Not chasing your losses.

-----bryce · Dec 7, 2010

yes its luck but like they say on the commercial why do ft have some many pros? because there skill is far better then the rest of us so poker does have skill

noW · Dec 7, 2010

-----bryce said:
yes its luck but like they say on the commercial why do ft have some many pros? because there skill is far better then the rest of us so poker does have skill

2 contradictions in your post.. anyways it was funny to read but pointless!

I asked is it luck MOST of it ?

You are basically saying its luck & skill.. but I asked which is the most..

dj11 · Dec 7, 2010

noW said:
2 contradictions in your post.. anyways it was funny to read but pointless!

I asked is it luck MOST of it ?

You are basically saying its luck & skill.. but I asked which is the most..

Define luck.

Is it lucky to get dealt AA, and have some fish call with 75o just to get rivered with the str8? Or is it lucky to get the 75o and look at AA and fill?

Incidentally, I have never seen a really good definition of luck. We all seem to understand what it is, but can't describe it all that well.

These are 3 of the definitions that came up when I googled 'define luck';

fortune: your overall circumstances or condition in life (including everything that happens to you); "whatever my fortune may be"; "deserved a better fate"; "has a happy lot"; "the luck of the Irish"; "a victim of circumstances"; "success that was her portion"
an unknown and unpredictable phenomenon that causes an event to result one way rather than another; "bad luck caused his downfall"; "we ran into each other by pure chance"
an unknown and unpredictable phenomenon that leads to a favorable outcome; "it was my good luck to be there"; "they say luck is a lady"; "it was as if fortune guided his hand"

davem86 · Dec 7, 2010

25-30-45

johntwodoe · Dec 9, 2010

There were some inconsequential points of view, for this reason they were misunderstood.

acky100 · Dec 9, 2010

I support my started theory.
Taking hand by hand think about it. . can you really do something wrong / good in less or more way...
From this point of view playing it its wrong to velieve you can't win anything against anyone..

There is so many things you could do wrong when playing an individual hand yes. Theres so much information to use when making each individual descision, Board texture, opponents betting patterns, any other reads you have on opponent, players in pot, stack sizes, odds..............

Tom1559 · Dec 9, 2010

Of course there is an element of luck but it is far outweighed by skill. Good players who know how to play the odds based on outs will always come out on top of a player who relies on luck over a long sequence of hands.

johntwodoe · Dec 10, 2010

Dear honorable mates!!!
Answer please, how long does it usually takes to become a player of a medium level!!?!

noW · Dec 10, 2010

Tom1559 said:
Of course there is an element of luck but it is far outweighed by skill. Good players who know how to play the odds based on outs will always come out on top of a player who relies on luck over a long sequence of hands.

First, thank you for answering to my question.
There is a problem with your argumentation that my theory its wrong : over a long sequence of hands.
Read my theory once again and you will see that I was talking about individual hands!

johntwodoe said:
Dear honorable mates!!!
Answer please, how long does it usually takes to become a player of a medium level!!?!

Please make another topic to discuss this problem.

Stu_Ungar · Dec 10, 2010

noW said:
First, thank you for answering to my question.
There is a problem with your argumentation that my theory its wrong : over a long sequence of hands.
Read my theory once again and you will see that I was talking about individual hands!

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.

Is poker a game of luck most of it?!

REI53

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