Is Poker Mainly Luck

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Is Poker Mostly Luck
Is Poker Mainly Lucky
Is Poker Mostly Luck Or Skill

Poker is a game which people play with a normal set (or deck) of 52 cards. Poker is a gambling game which involves some luck, but also some skill. In poker, players make bets against each other depending on the value of their poker hand. Bets are usually made with plastic or ceramic discs called chips. Bets may also be made with real money, but. Test Your Poker Skills True Poker ranked #1 for US Players After the closing of PokerStars and Full Tilt to US Players in 2011, most of us were forced to change poker rooms. I decided to start playing at a smaller poker room called True Poker in November of 2011 and I was happy to see them grow significantly throughout 2012 and 2013. Is poker a game of skill or luck? The odd mainly focused on achieving the 25 daily points for the eliminator freerolls therefore will be mass tabling the £0.28 Double or nothing games.

November 8, 2009 · Posted in Physical Supernatural

I often find myself asking, “is poker luck?” (talking strictly about No Limit Texas Hold’em here).
I mean it seems like it all depends on the cards that are turned over.

But back to the question at hand: “Is poker skill or luck?” — or what combination of each?

Let’s talk about “getting lucky” for a moment…

Having good luck in poker is not (necessarily) something you can control ( unless you believe in NLP 😉 ).

When it comes to changing your luck at poker, you could stop playing hands when you notice that you’re not getting good cards or if people keep getting lucky and “bad-beating” you.

Here are some examples from the recent (2009) World Series of Poker (WSOP) of where pocket aces were cracked.

Examples of Lucky Poker (Cracking AA)

Actually, Lon McEachern and Norman Chad (the WSOP commentators) mentioned that it takes more than pocket aces to make the final table.. and they are right!

1) Begleiter has Jack 9 of diamonds and raises to 450k. Lamb, sitting next to Begleiter, has pocket aces and raises it to 1.1 million. Begleiter is feeling lucky, so he calls.
The flop comes 5, Jack, 9 – Begleiter has Jacks up. He slow plays his two pair by checking to Lamb, who raises 1.5 million. Begleiter pushes all in and gets the call.
The turn and river are no help to Lamb, so his pocket aces were cracked!

The odds went like this (Begleiter/Lamb): Preflop (20/80) – Flop (75/25) – Turn (82/18)

So you can see, Begleiter was LUCKY enough to win when he only had 20% chance of doing so! Is poker luck? – that situation suggests it is!

2) Robbins raised with pocket aces, but didn’t raise enough because Akenhead raised all in pre-flop with K Q off suit. Robbins calls, and they flip the cards over.

Akenhead only had a 13% chance to win preflop, but when the flop came KJQ, his two pair put him at a 62% chance to win (that means Robbins still has a 38% change of winning this hand). But the next two cards that come out are blanks for Robbins and his pocket aces were cracked by two pair.

So Akenhead was having good poker luck because he turned his 13% into 62%, whereas Robbins couldn’t do anything with his 38%!

3) Robbins now doesn’t have many chips left, so when he gets pocket 10’s, he pushes all in. Cada has pocket aces, so he calls instantly.

Preflop, Robbins only has a 21% chance of winning (or splitting the pot). Flop comes 6, K, 2 rainbow – and now Robbins only has a 9% chance. The turn is a 5, and now Robbins only has a 5% chance of getting a 10 on the river to win the pot.

Is poker all luck? – Well when you go all in pre flop and are already behind in the hand, yes, poker is all luck at that point!

Guess what.. a 10 comes on the river and Robbins wins the hand to stay alive! It takes more than pocket aces to make the final table (or to win a hand in general!).

Being Good at Poker Involves Skill

These examples of where people are getting lucky and beating pocket aces are rare, I do admit that.

There are many hands played in every tournament or cash game – and some of them come down to someone getting really fortunate – but there is some skill involved too.

Raising to represent that you have a big hand can often scare your opponents away, even if they have the best hand (your raise makes them believe they are beat). Knowing when the other player is bluffing or doesn’t have the best possible hand takes skill, and practice is the only way to gain that skill.

But if someone asked “is poker luck?” – I would tend to say yes. I think it is more luck than skill, especially when you are very skilled yourself and are playing with people that are equally as skilled.

What do you think? Are you a poker player who knows something about the game? Comment below..

Hi! This is an issue that can make poker seem like a paradox. I’m a professional player and my short answer is “yes and no and yes.”
In the short term, whether or not a skilled player wins or loses is determined much by luck. But in the long term, a skilled player is almost guaranteed to win (assuming he’s not only playing against players as skilled as him). The money he saves from his good folds, plus the money he earns from his well-calculated bets (and the mistakes his opponents make by calling those bets), all adds up to a steady hourly profit that reveals itself when the streaks of good and bad luck cancel each other out.
Notice the stipulation, “when the streaks cancel out.” Theoretically, it’s possible for the best player in the world to lose at every table he sits at for the rest of his life, and likewise for the worst player to beat every table! For this reason, one could take the view that poker is completely luck, and in a way he’d be right. I take a different approach. If P is the probability of a good player losing in the long term, then I say poker is (100*P)% luck in the long term. I think most pros would agree that P is astronomically low, so in the long run, poker rounds to 100% skill.
Think of it like this: the pros are the “house” and the fish are the gamblers. It’s almost as hard for a pro to lose in the long run as it is for the casino to lose in the long run (I say “almost” because the casino needs no skill, whereas a pro must keep playing well). For a bad poker player to win in the long run would be like a craps player winning in the long run.
It’s like any other event involving chance. If you flip a coin 10 times, it’s not so unlikely for it to land on Tails 10 times. But after 10^100 flips, the percentage will be pretty darn close to 50%, otherwise a miracle has happened. When a pro loses one night, he doesn’t quit poker forever. He keeps playing because he trusts that over time, the percentages will happen as math dictates they should.
Defining the skill-luck ratio for a short term is trickier. I think the ideal way to define it would be to find someone in the universe who plays absolutely perfect poker (pretend there’s a genius alien out there that happens to play poker), make it play in Earth’s casinos, and keep a log of its results. Whatever the alien’s win percentage for a given period of time, is the true percentage of skill involved in that length of poker session. So if the alien wins in every 7 out of 10 hours it plays, then an hour of poker is 70% skill. If it wins 9 out of 10 days it plays, then a day of poker is 90% skill, and so on. Since we don’t have a perfect player on Earth, we can’t know what the true short-term ratio of skill to luck is, nor the time-dependent function.
Keep in mind that I’ve mainly been talking about cash games. A tournament involves more luck because you only get one buy-in (or your rebuys are small compared to the average chipstack), the blinds increase, and the chips aren’t worth money until you place. I’m only a cash player, but I think most tournament players would agree that a single tournament is mostly luck (my own uneducated guess would be 80%). As for the long-term luck factor of tournaments, I have no clue, but I have to imagine it’s greater than that of cash games.
You also mentioned the possibility of equally skilled players playing each other. In such a game, any win (short term or long) would be purely luck, as would any loss. In the long run, they should all make nothing from each other, and will end up losing to the rake. I hope it’s a long time before this becomes the state of poker…long live the fish!
of cource poker, especially tournament is all luck. for example, in wsop 2010 the champion won four times with bad started hans such as 10svs11, jjvskk, 1qvs1k and all those hands mizrachi won
as nuguen said, in mtt poker depends on pure luck
if somone say poker is skill not luck he tells a big lie
mdk
LOL @ “long live the fish” hahah
Frank – I agree with everything you said. Well put and thanks for your thoughts.
I just want to say that the reason poker seems like it’s all luck is because when you’re watching the WSOP, there is no second chances. You mentioned something to this effect when talking about tournament play.. you only get one buy in.. so if you go bust, you’re done.
That’s why when you see a crazy hand (where the odds are defied) – you think to yourself that poker must be all luck.
I know that it’s not, and agree with your entire response regarding the skilled player will make money in the long term.
Best of luck to you 🙂 (and I actually mean that.. even if you’re sitting across the table from me)
Thanks and same to you! There are some people I don’t mind losing to and you’d be one of them, hah.
One thing I forgot to add: to play cash games in stakes higher than you can afford, is to reduce poker to a short-term game, and therefore it makes your success greatly depend on luck. It becomes more like a tournament because if you get sucked out a few times, you’re dead.
The general consensus for no-limit hold’em is that a good, tight-aggressive player should be able to afford losing 20 buy-ins of the stakes he wants to play in, and to me this seems pretty accurate. A buy-in is defined as 100 big blinds, but really this isn’t necessary because in most stakes you can get away with buying in for less. In order to play 1/2 NL, one should have $4,000 in spare cash. But if you’re not someone who has an advantage over most tables he sits at, then you should have more than that.
Those rules can be found online and there are separate rules for limit hold’em, omaha, and tournament play.
if you think poker is skill rather than luck, please watch wsop 2011, how mizrachi won

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When’s the last time you heard something about luck at the
Texas holdem table?

The odds are the last time you played you heard someone talk
about luck. If you’re honest you probably either talked about
luck or at least thought about it the last time you played.

Here’s a list of common things about luck heard around the
Texas holdem table:

That sure was a lucky break.
Talk about bad luck. She hit a four outer on the river to beat me.
I just need to hit a lucky streak to get back to even.
I’m the unluckiest poker player in the world.
It’s lucky you hit your flush because I had the straight.

If you believe luck has anything to do with the results at
the Texas holdem table it’s time you learned the truth.

The truth is luck has nothing to do with anything that
happens at the Texas holdem table.

It doesn’t matter what you think or what you’ve heard or
seen, everything that happens is a matter of mathematical
probabilities and short term variance. Once you finish this page
you’ll realize this is true and you’ll learn how to use this
information against your opponents.

The best thing about learning the truth about luck and poker
is it instantly makes you a better player. When you understand
why luck has nothing to do with your results and how short term
variance works you’ll start looking at everything that happens
while you’re playing in a different way.

Once you learn about Texas holdem luck and variance you can
see how they’re directly related to odds, pot odds, and expected
value. If you haven’t read the pages covering those topics in
this section yet make sure to check them out after reading this
page.

How Short Term Variance Works

The reason luck doesn’t have anything to do with Texas holdem
is because you’re using a deck of playing cards within a strict
framework of rules. The deck of cards has a set number of cards,
52, and only a certain number of outcomes are possible in any
situation.

Imagine the following scenario:

Before the river is dealt you have two pair and your opponent
has a gut shot straight draw. When your opponent gets one of the
four cards she needs to complete her straight it seems like good
luck for her and bad luck for you.

Let’s look at every possible outcome for this hand to see if
luck has anything to do with it.

The board has four cards, your opponent has two cards, and
you have two cards, for a total of eight known cards. This
leaves a total of 44 unseen cards. Four of the cards complete a
straight for your opponent and 40 of them don’t. So every 44
times you’re in this situation you’ll win 40 and lose four.

While the percentages or odds are in your favor, the more
times you’re in this situation the closer the results will come
to the correct percentages.

For example, if you’re in this situation 1,000 times you’ll
win roughly 909 times and lose roughly 91 times.

The important number to consider is you have to lose roughly
one out of every 11 times you’re in this situation. It has
nothing to do with luck and everything to do with simple
mathematics.

You should actually rejoice when your opponent draws out on
you in this situation because the average must come back to
normal eventually and you’ve just put one on the negative side.
This means in the long run you’re one closer to the dominating
numbers this situation requires.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking you’ll automatically win
the next 10 times if you just lost a hand in this situation.
While over the long term the averages always work out, the short
term isn’t guaranteed. You’re not even guaranteed to win the
next identical situation.

It’s possible to lose two, three, or even more hands in a row
in this situation, even as a huge favorite. It’s not likely to
happen, but it can.

If you simply put yourself in a positive situation like this
over and over, the numbers take care of themselves and force
profit to you.

This outcome shows why what really happens is normal and if a
result presents itself that isn’t favored to happen it’s simply
short term variance.

In this example we assumed you knew the values of your hole
cards as well as your opponents because of the way we set up the
hand. In most hands you won’t know the exact value of your
opponent’s cards but often you can generate a good guess. This
doesn’t change the lesson, simply the number of seen and unseen
cards.

Here are a couple more examples. The example we just covered
showed a hand where you were a huge favorite. Many players make
the mistake of thinking they’re a bigger favorite than they
actually are in some hands. The next example covers one of these
situations.

If you have a made hand after the turn and your opponent has
four to a flush, you’re a favorite to win the hand. But do you
know how many times you’ll win and lose on average? How big of a
favorite do you think you are?

You know the value of eight cards, leaving 44 unseen cards.
The deck has nine cards that complete your opponent’s flush, so
35 cards make you the winner. Your opponent will hit their flush
over 20% of the time. This means slightly over one out of every
five times you’re in this situation you lose.

This still makes you a big favorite, but you aren’t so big of
a favorite that you should expect to win on any single hand.

What if your opponent has an open end straight draw and a
flush draw? This means she has 15 outs out of 44 unseen cards.
This means she’ll win roughly 34% of the time, or 34 out of
every 100 times you play the situation.

Even in a hand with two starting hands close to the same
value, luck doesn’t come into play.

If you have a suited ace and king and your opponent has a
pair of fives, the pair of fives will win just under 52% of the
time heads up and the suited ace king will win 48% of the time.
You’ll actually tie a very small percentage of the time, which
is covered in the slightly fewer than 52% of the time the pocket
fives win. For ease of calculation we’re using 52% and 48%.

When you play this situation 100 times the pocket fives hand
wins 52 times and the suite ace king wins 48 times. This is
close to a coin flip so you shouldn’t be surprised at either
outcome, no matter which side of the hand you’re on.

How Understanding Variance Helps with Tilt

It’s easy to get upset when an opponent does something stupid
but wins anyway or when you trick your opponent and have a
dominant hand only to get drawn out on. But now that you
understand it doesn’t have anything to do with luck you can use
this information to avoid tilt.

When you go on tilt you start making plays based on your
emotions, usually anger, instead of on sound playing decisions.
Any time you make a play at the Texas holdem table that isn’t
based on the decision that makes the most money in the long run
you’re costing yourself long term profit. Tilt clearly falls
into the category of playing decisions that aren’t based on the
correct decisions for long term profit.

Top Tip

The next time you lose in a situation where you’re
the heavy favorite remember what you learned in the last
section. Simply understanding how the math works can be enough
to help you remain calm and approach the next hand with a level
head and clear thinking.

You can also consider commenting about how lucky your
opponent was to try to get them to buy into how everything is
based on luck. You can learn more about this in the next
section.

Saying the Word Luck at the Table

As long as you never start believing that luck has anything
to do with the results at the Texas holdem table you should
spread the word around as much as possible.

You want as many of your opponents as possible to believe in
luck and keep striving to turn their luck around. If your
opponents believe everything that happens is based on luck
they’ll never learn how to improve their game. This helps you
win more in the long run.

Developing your skills and abilities to become a winning
Texas holdem player has a great deal to do with psychology. When
you fall into the trap of thinking that luck plays a role you
not only cost yourself money by basing your playing decisions on
luck and feelings instead of math, percentages, and odds, you
also run the risk of damaging the psychological way you play and
view the game.

When you start believing luck helps or hurts players at the
table instead of recognizing short term variance when you see it,
you stop making the correct plays.

You’re making an excuse for poor play instead of taking
responsibility for your mistakes and striving to correct them
and increase your profits.

If you can help other players fall into the believing in luck
trap you can help them damage their poker psychology. This in
turn helps you in the long run.

Don’t be afraid to tell everyone at the table how lucky you
are when you win a hand or get a nice starting hand. Everyone
gets dealt a pair of pocket aces or kings the same percentage of
times in the long run, but it can seem lucky when you get them.

Some players can get irritated if you comment on how lucky
they are on a hand, so you have to decide if you want to run the
risk of irritating your opponents when they win a hand. Some
players don’t have a problem being confrontational, but if you
do you might want to avoid starting the luck conversation. But
if one of your opponents mentions it feel free to jump in.

Pros Do It Too

You don’t even have to be an amateur poker player to fall
into the luck trap. Recently a televised poker game was on with
Mike Matusow. He was in a hand as a favorite and was considering
making an offer to run the hand twice but didn’t.

Is Poker Mostly Luck

He ended up losing the hand and started whining about how no
one knew how bad he ran at poker. This is another way of saying
he always has bad luck. And he’s been a pro long enough to know
better.

If you’re not familiar with running a hand twice, in big cash
games sometimes the players agree to run a situation twice. If
they get all in pre flop with an ace and a king against a pair
of sevens they could run it twice, dealing the flop, turn, and
river and then dealing it again.

It’s a way to average out situations when playing for high
stakes. The only place you generally see it is at the highest
level tables.

Summary