Is Poker a Game of Skill or Chance?

more skill as luck. 70-30

"... you will have to fold, very good hands ..."

In poker, experience and intuition are important, relying on luck is a strong risk

lady luck

the one aspect of your game that you have no control over is ...lady luck. ever pull a one-outer on someone? did they deserve it? no. and it goes both ways..today it's them, tomorrow it's you. fate is a cruel mistress, or you get to **** the prom queen.

You can't put a figure on the luck involved. But the way i like to think of it is this:

2.70% is the house-edge on a roulette wheel. That's due to the green zero. You get 50/50 odds when you bet red/black, odd/even or high/low. But the ball lands on that zero 2.70% of the time and the house collects everyones money.

That is 270 times in every 1000 spins.

Over a sample size of 100 spins it could land on zero 1 time and cost the house money. Or it could hit 20 times and the house cleans up. That's short term variance.

But over 10000000+ spins its going to be very close to 2.7% of times.

2.7% edge doesn't seem like much... but just how much profit do you think roulette wheels make casinos each month?

The deck in a hand of poker is like the ball of a roullette wheel - it's entirely random and you have no control over it. But you do have control over you're own decisions and strategy in poker, dictated by logic, psychology and math... you can gain reads from your opponents and grab excellent pot-odds for nut-draws etc. Those circumstances give you the chance to gain an edge over your opponents - and a 2.7% edge will make you as much money as a roulette wheel makes a casino.

I used to believe while I was studying that poker is strategy ... but it will be that my bad day today I realized that it is true that luck has to be on our side if we want to have a good day ... I think that if ... % is luck

sometimes yes, but not always

For me it is only 10% luck and 90% tactics, strategy and style of play

Of course, luck in poker is very important, like any card game, and especially in online poker where the dependence of the size of the stack and good hands is very noticeable, but what seems to distinguish poker from other card games is that , that this is very important using psychology, which allows you to use a bluff, and this is a powerful leverage

Have you ever heard about pot stealing? As that guy said in Rounders movie: If poker is just game of luck, why there is always same guys in money stakes in wsop???

Poker is truly a game of skill and strategy but if the cards are falling for your opponent then luck may play a bigger deciding factor, for instance, I was in a hand when someone pushed all in and I have KK. I call and my opponent flips 7 3 off suit and two 7's and a 3 hits the board. Full house after going all in pre-flop with a 7 3, skill or luck?

I believe that in a game of 50% and above is solely and only luck!

but the poker never is only a game!

or playing tournaments or playing cash!

the whole of the game to be played within a month there the percentage of Fortune falls more very important is how manage your bankroll!

at some point the player falls in a period downswings !
At that time you can not control the game even have a master!


the most good is to download the quantitative level that will play until I returned to the face side of the Players!


I have heard about players who even keep time this situation!


I had read about damage to many great players on!layingba

In my opnion the will luck will be less in according to the capacity of the player. A bad player can count with the luck some times, but a tournament there's a lot of hands, there's no way to one player have luck during all the tournament. If luck was so important, there would be more weak players in the final positions of big tournaments like WSOP, and will be almost impossible to one to have 2 victorys.


How Phil Hellmuth said: "If there weren't luck involved, I would win every time."


with the passage of time luck will increasingly be less representative, and only the skill will prevail.

if you would play all the cards every time, then poker is pure a luck game. But it's up to you to diside what hands to play and when to play them (position at the table). And in the end, if it comes to an all inn; well it's luck or chance (probabilety) that will tell if you win ore lose, if you have the best hands preflop, doesn't give you the best chance to win. All depence on how you play, agressefly, slow ore a mix.
So in the longrun: Poker is a luck-based-game that in the right hands turns in to a non-luck-game.

Mare10 said:

Big turnament, we canot win if we dont use card like: 5d 2d like 7s 8s and like theat...We canot win, just with strong starting hand so i think theat is lucky 50%...We can use all strategy, the best study and learning but"FLOP TURN AND RIVER IS JUST LUCKY " And for my ideology, poker is gambling game 50% jes it is and 50% is not

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Your example is based on a short game distance. Perhaps the share of luck in this case is much more than 50 percent. Your example does not characterize poker as a game in general, just as the life of one person does not characterize all of humanity. At a long distance, the proportion of luck is reduced to a very small percentage, so, in fact, poker is a game of skill and is officially recognized as a sport.

50% sounds like the card game war. Flip over cards and the high card wins. You need some luck too win a tournament. Getting their often has little to do with luck.

In my opinion: 60% Skill and 40% Lucky

50 percent is way too high....it is most likely between 15 to 20 percent luck with respect to long term success

My opinion is that poker is 80% skill and 20% luck.

I read some of the posts above and realized that some say luck is 50% others say 30% are other even more radical and said 5%.I understand that the luck factor is one of the components that make up a poker player.
Imagine a player with luck and no skill, no hand reading or even a very aggressive player who is strong sound one hand without expression, he can win one, two or maybe six or seven hands, but is unlikely to be a great champion.
A skilled player with good reading, but at a time of pressure, which has lost several hands in a row without emotional control, this will never be a champion.
could still tell of a skilled player, emotionally controlled, with a dose of luck and by an intuition that can be disastrous, it will not be a champion.
I would like to draw attention to the "luck" is one of the factors that can contribute or not to a good hand.
It's a game, a game of strategy, skill and psychological pressure because it does not speak well "untrue".
Gather all the factors will help you enough to be a champion.


Meets the victory!

As Phil Hellmuth points out: "if luck did not influence Poker, I would always win".

Im not sure where the OP get 50% luck but i believe its less than that and it can be lesser if you play your games right... well, if your a whale, then you must be relying a lot on LUCK.

Well in the long run luck is not that importmant,but in the single tournament luck is really importmant

The % luck mostly depends on your playing ability. It isn't the same percentage for everyone. If the rake is around 10% then we must be at least a 55/45 favorite to win. Yes you can get unlucky if you the percentages dont fall your way and you can be lucky if you are behind and win, but you can't ask for much more except to be ahead most of the time.



I feel like the only "gambling" activity worth taking part in is poker. I try my best to stay away from the table games, although blackjack can be beaten, but then again counting cards is illegal. Look at Stu Ungar- his biggest downfall was sports/dog betting. If he only played poker he would be a big winner, but like most gamblers he chased his money away doing stupid -ev gambling. Right now I am a losing player. I have confidence I can become a winning player, but I think I will take bad beats to go broke just like most people because my edge will never be that big. It is too easy to burnout in this "sport" especially if you play poker for a living. I would think the only way to be a winning player is to final talbe or win a big $10k buy in event like the main event. Even then it would be hard not to go broke playing high stakes cash games after the big score. Isn't that the outcome of most gambling, that we always want more? How did we get going in the first place??

I don't think I will ever make much playing tournaments because the buy-ins are so high. However, if I satty into a big event and cash that would humble me. I would be star-struck to ever see one of the tv pros and in the end I am a recreational player so I would be more than happy to get back to even. As a rec player my goal is still to win, but I am not just grinding to make a living. This site has shown me than poker is beatable even for a amateur, and that is pretty much the story of poker since 2003(moneymaker).

If I am going to seriously play winning poker, at some point or another I see going on a hot streak online to be a necessity. I love both online and live play, as well as home games and the occasional prop bet. I am a golfer and certainly see myself continuing to gamble on the course. There is nothing smarter than betting on oneself.

To close, luck is what keeps the fish coming back. There is obviously a little luck needed to win, but in the end, the best players are going to win more and lose less than the average player. If you can't handle the swings than maybe poker isn't for you.