Poker Psychology?

I'm sure this topic has probably been discussed many a time before over the years, but I'm interested in peoples opinions on how their perceive poker as a game in general.

I see people continuously posting about bad beats, coolers etc throughout threads like my AA got cracked by QTo or my KK against 89s, claiming they should have won that hand against the biggest calling station in town.

From the sounds of things, it sounds like those people posting are possibly forgetting that poker is essentially gambling, a game of, dare I say it, luck.

Now I havent been playing online poker for long (<month) however one thing I try hard to keep instilled in my head is that just because I have AA or KK and go all-in, its inevitable that its not a given winner and that 'suckouts' are part of the game. Sure poker comes down to skill for certain aspects, but the end game comes down to the flop of the cards if the pot isnt taken down prior. These cards are flopped at random, thus you take a gamble that you flop a set, flush, straight or what not.

So this begs the question about poker psychology...do most of you who play believe that poker is really a game of skill, such that because you play AA all-in pre-flop and some donkey calls 78s and ends up with a flush that you have in fact just received a bad beat? or do you look at it as a game of luck? such as I have the same probability of pairing or flopping a set as anybody else at the table, thus its all in the fate of the cards the flop? or in fact a bit of both (which I believe poker is)

I like to think of poker as like trading/investing in the stockmarket...nothing is a given, no matter how good a stock sounds (hands odd's are), you always need a little bit of luck if your going to make it big.

Yeah, there is a little similarity of poker to trading/investing, but not too much. In poker, you can fold your cards without having to invest anything and in poker there is only 1 winner each hand, where in trading, we can all be winners (or losers). For me, poker is a game where you need to be able to think, use strategy and definitely have some luck.

sometimes appears to name cards and you throw them on the flop turn or river! the truth as it is not luck nor any ability, but that is what draws of this game! something besides there are professionals who are in the final table and there are others who never fail! lucky if I do not always reach them or be spoken of these poker professionals

Poker is just like investing.

You calculate your risk over return with probability and you find information about the company by reading your opponent.