What percent of poker is luck?

BigCountryAA

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sam1chips said:
...people talk about poker like it is the only game that has a little luck involved. I would argue that every game has a little bit of luck to it.

Imagine if you were playing a game of (American) football. 1st and 10, you do a run up the middle for 4 yards. One of your offensive lineman kind of held the opponent (which is supposed to be a penalty) but the ref missed it. If the penalty was called it would be 1st and 20, but now it's 2nd and 6. What is that? It certainly wasn't skill, it's a little lucky.

How about if the quarterback makes a terrible throw, right to the defender, and he drops it. After your skill (or lack of skill) on that play, you should probably have turned the ball over, but got a little lucky and get to keep it.

The difference in poker is that everything is very defined. By that I mean, if you get your money in bad, you can calculate just how bad of a spot you're in. If you call an all-in bet post-flop with a 15% chance to win, and you end up winning, that was extremely lucky. And you can tell just how lucky that was by looking at how bad of shape you were in when you called the all-in.

And the whole "luck-factor" isn't as concretely defined in football, basketball, etc as it is in poker, but I believe that it is still there. But those games are obviously skill-based, as the team that is the better skilled (or favorite) should win more often than not. Isn't that the same for poker?

I don't know, that's just my weird abstract opinion
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Nice comparison. And I totally agree.
 
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crdcounter

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luck vs skill

I havn't had a losing month since 2003. You must be right. Its all luck. LOL Jackie
 
sam1chips

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EvertonGirl said:
I folded JJ post flop when this guy raised with a K on board.

The guy after him just called, when they both got to showdown, I was glad I folded as the guy who called the raise had KK.

That was a good lay down, I knew I was beaten there. I used to be stupid before I studied the game, I would of played that hand wanting to see a J on the next card lol
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That's a great example of skill in this game...a lot of people might go allin with JJ preflop and then say "wow, that was so unlucky that the other play had KK!"

After a bet and a raise post-flop, you decide your JJ wasn't any good, and you folded. There was no luck that went into that decision, that was all skill! And you probably lost the minimum.
 
sam1chips

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There is a quote from an interview of Esfandiari somewhere saying "in any given session, poker is 55% luck and 45% skill, but in the long run, poker is 100% skill." He goes on to support it by saying "the cards you get is all luck, but how you decide to play the cards is skill."
 
sam1chips

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I'd also like to add...nobody forces you to put your money in the pot in this game. (Outside of the blinds and antes) you can choose to bet/invest your money whenever you want, and how much of it you want. So how do you decide when it is a good time to bet/invest your chips? That's the skill part of the game, as you have complete control over that part, right?
 
jhonihgrass

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For me the luck comes when the hability goes, will always be so!
Patience to make the best moves also makes part of the skill, and believe me, most people do not have! All things involved in the best move is skill!
 
Aleksei

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muckaveli said:
If a poker tournament is 90% luck over one instance...how than can it be 100% skill over ANY sample?
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Because that 90% is the chance that the cards might go one way and not another -- so what that determines ultimately is how wide your up/down swings are. Your skill on the other hand determines how much your decisions cause you to win over the LONG TERM, once those swings are normalized/accounted for.

Basically, chance evens out in the end, leaves just skill.
 
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Poker is game of skill, not chance, New York judge rules, upping Internet ante

Poker, they argued, is primarily a game of skill and therefore isn't covered by the federal law. On Tuesday, Federal District Court Judge Jack Weinstein agreed.
"In poker," he wrote, "increased proficiency boosts a player's chance of winning and affects the outcome of individual hands as well as a series of hands. Expert poker players draw on an array of talents, including facility with numbers, knowledge of human psychology, and powers of observation and deception."

Now, we have poker players, only to be called poker players because they play poker, telling us on here that poker is luck.
Nock it off!
 
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alienlogic

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Luck/skill whats the diff. If u hav the BIG STACK it's all good. But as the saying goes - The bigger they come, the harder they fall
 
thwizzofoz

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I think poker is 100% luck and 100% skill. You are probably saying that doesn't make sense, but unless you bet all in on every hand, you rely equally, yet completely, on skill and luck at some portion of every hand.

Every hand requires the skill of chip management, analysis of opponent, and determining the odds. At the same time even after all the number crunching and study, the cards cannot be controlled. Luck takes over.

If skill outweighed luck even slightly, Selbst, Hellmuth, or Ivy would find a way to milk a stack to the end of every tournament. And they don't.
 
FlushDraww

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The professional poker player Chris "Jesus" Ferguson said it best I think. This may not be the exact quote, but it's close enough.
"Whenever you sit down to play a game of poker your looking at 90% luck and 10% skill, but when you have been doing so and earning money at it for 6 months or a year or more, now your looking at 90% skill and 10% luck."
 
JohnnyF

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Poker is about 30% luck and 70% skill.If you play 100K hands the better player won more money.
If you play 10 hands 90% luck 10% skill.
 
gotace503

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true...but luck only applies to big stacks..always catches no matter what or just another way for sites to eliminate players...lol
 
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fordman427

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sometimes id say poker is 100% and then about 40 or 50 it just depends
 
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chiangmaijim

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Luck eventually evens out. you will hit the one outer just as often as anyone else. Bad players will give back all their lucky winnings, just keep telling them how lucky they are.
 
loafes

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chiangmaijim said:
Luck eventually evens out. you will hit the one outer just as often as anyone else. Bad players will give back all their lucky winnings, just keep telling them how lucky they are.
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I actually think you shouldn't be telling them how lucky they are, I think you should be telling them how they are so skilled.
 
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vatopkr

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HI.
I have been reading a little, and for some people the luck doesnt exist in poker, for others is 75 % your skills and 25 % the "lucky" .
I advice to you, you must believe in yourself.
 
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vatopkr

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By the way, the lucky last only a short time , but your skills will profit you in the long term.
 
Thinker_145

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Even a dominated hand is still going to win 1 out of 4 times. An ace rag beats KK 3 out of 10 times. That tells you right there just how much luck poker is in an individual scenario. And overall it is still alot of luck you are never gonna "balance" out the odds you will always be in a state of variance.
 
xtrigemino

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Luck is the same for all of us in time. I hope so =)
 
RajDev1979

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I don't believe in luck. Its 100% skills.
 
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baudib1

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Thinker_145 said:
Even a dominated hand is still going to win 1 out of 4 times. An ace rag beats KK 3 out of 10 times. That tells you right there just how much luck poker is in an individual scenario. And overall it is still alot of luck you are never gonna "balance" out the odds you will always be in a state of variance.
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This statement has nothing to do with luck. A-rag has equity vs. KK. It's going to win a certain % of pots. That's not luck, it's reality.
 
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