Is Poker a Game of Skill or Chance?

22meandu · May 9, 2018

If your not skillful enough to know AA beats KK and so on and so forth then poker is entirely luck . :withstupi

proud2Bwhack · May 9, 2018

I think variance confuses a lot of people, you read things like "I always lose with AA" that kind of stuff. Everyone gets the same cards and opportunities over a long enough time line. When I would play several thousand hands a day, it was easy to see. You would run real well and make an obscene profit, and then the bad beats would come and even things out more. How you played during the whole, what skills you had completely determined the profit margin, luck had nothing to do with it, UNLESS you were doing things like playing microstakes one day, and much higher levels the next, then luck can enter in, if you get all your good hands at one level and all your bad hands at another, then your profit will be skewed by luck. Also, MTTs can be effected by luck, you need your best hands at the final table, if that happens it can feel like luck, BUT the more MTTs you play the more it evens out, and luck falls away. The one cure for variance in quantity of hands. On a long enough timeline luck plays 0% in poker.

proud2Bwhack · May 9, 2018

The one cure for variance is quantity of hands. *

Eric Salvador · May 9, 2018

The luck they're talking about is referred to as variance. Without variance there would be no possibility of playing professionally. The variance allows unskilled players to have a lucky nigh and return for more just like table games or slots at a casino. Due to math and human error you can be largely successful. It's no easy task but it is achievable. Just like counting cards at a blackjack table. It's hard and there is variance but the math accounts for this as well. If you can't properly defend poker in these situations you haven't study the game enough..

BobbyMorton · May 9, 2018

It is skill but you need a bit of luck as well because your aa can be beat by a 72 if the cards fall a certain way.

leogetz79 · May 9, 2018

its only luck pre flop all in.

always2away · May 9, 2018

Poker is a learned skill with an element of chance.
Greater skill leads to a lessened element of chance.
Probability evaluation doesn't mean much over 10 hands, but gains in significance over 10K, 100K, 1M hands.
You can be a highly skilled, mathematically proficient player who plays perfect poker and still get outdrawn by lesser players. We all see it happen all the time.
Some "lucky" folks seem to catch what they need in squidgy situations a little more frequently than probabilies might indicate.
The best I can do is identify these people and then go play with someone who is not them.

terryk · May 9, 2018

Shooter74 said:
i think poker is 60% skill and 40% Luck....coin flip....

Which is 60%? :hmmmm: Heads?

freestocks · May 9, 2018

I see playing poker as putting yourself in a postion to get lucky.

spottedflyer · May 9, 2018

It cant be just luck and it cant be just skill, its the mix of the two that makes it interesting

Pickat · May 9, 2018

I think there is more skill than luck . Poker is all about numbers and odds . A good player can keep the odds in his favor and in the end he will prevail over luck .

dj11 · May 9, 2018

You've all got it wrong, Poker is 60% skill, and 70% luck. Approximately...

MattRyder · May 9, 2018

vov4ik said:
Poker for me is more for the skills of the game but luck is also present, I think that somewhere 70% of skill and 30% of luck in the game, but many think for themselves in different ways!

That may be true for a table of all pros or really solid amateurs. But for the rest of us (95%+) it's the reverse. For those of us who routinely attract bad luck (me) it's more like 10% skill & 90% luck.

damgold · May 9, 2018

I think that those who have more skills outweigh the luck ones, a player who does not understand the game but is luck will not be a winner because nobody is luck every day,but the player who studies the game and understand the game even that no have luck will be a winner because he knows that poker is a game of the mind and not a game of chance.

VivicvrMga · May 9, 2018

I am sure that poker is not just luck but skill and study if it were just luck there would be no need for bets on the turn and river, everyone would give all in preflop and expect the outcome the luckiest player was.
And it takes skill to manipulate the post flop and still lead with the worst hand forcing your opponent to drop the winning hand.

Empress · May 9, 2018

It's both! I would say it's more skill than luck (overall) since you have to have the skills to know how to keep what you win, but luck definitely comes into play -- need to skills to know how to follow through with it.

Badbunny · May 9, 2018

I believe that the factors influence 50%

Mootizit · May 9, 2018

Its about sample size,winrate,patience,brm,hardwork and a positive mind

Slmmccartney · May 9, 2018

Mostly skill

Perceval · May 9, 2018

In my opinion, on the PokerStars site, it is a matter of luck: I have never seen so much crazy stuff on real tables.

Eric Salvador · May 10, 2018

It's completely a skill game with a necessary variance involved. This allows the poker community to be funded by players with a low amount of skill level. The have a few lucky sessions but eventually they give it all back plus they usually go into the negative. To have success there are so many things you have to be great at in poker and some find so overwhelming they just try to be successful without a sound plan. Study, study, study and when you're done studying look at situations that you have trouble with and find solutions to overcome these areas. I've played poker for 15 years I haven't put full effort in and have experience mild success. Had I properly studied I may have reach my goals earlier in life. I don't have regrets but I would like to share that I underestimated what the studying away from the table could do for my game. In just the last month I've learned so much that I was unaware of and have a much better grasp on the the game. Luck is variance and that can only hold up for so long before skill holds up and gets the upper hand.

vovqa93 · May 10, 2018

With experience i can say luck very matters. Because you can be the skilled player, but your assumptions during the hand can be wrong and that is already a luck factor. Skill helps in big distance, but even there you can be just unlucky beign the best player in the world etc. I don't think skill/luck is 60/40 etc. examples that people suggest, that's not right.(Imo ofc)

bbennie1 · May 10, 2018

There's luck in many sports but people don't even think about it. For example in most big tennis tournaments there are 128 people. Usually 32 players are ranked and the rest get drawn. There's luck in that. Or when there's suddenly a huge wind and the ball basically flies out. Talking about wind, think about the wind in the semi-finals of 100m dash. One semi-finals can have more than the other and it could cost someone from entering the finals. The difference with poker is that luck is more of a deciding factor in the short-term. But at the end of the day, good players get drawn out more than bad players.

Comdemn · May 10, 2018

ovanilton said:
In your opinion, is poker a game of skill or chance?

I think the whole thing is in a combination of factors: it's luck, skill, experience, intuition, mood for the game and so on .. But without the skills and experience you will not have everything else. I think this is the most important thing! The better will be your basic knowledge and the more your experience is, the more often you will win even if you will not be lucky for a long time ..)

Ivan Zaruba · May 10, 2018

I believe that poker is more the game of skill but not the game of the chance, because it's not uncommon for you to win the game without chance.

Is Poker a Game of Skill or Chance?

22meandu

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