From the beginning of my poker playing I had a lot of mistakes of which I understood that luck is a factor or as it is technically called it is chance that affects the results, but even so there are good players who rely on mathematics to make an assessment of the hands and to be able to take advantage of them.

Mathematics is the ability to calculate your chances of winning, and luck is the outcome of mathematical calculations.

Well, of course, math, but luck is also important
To constantly get into tournaments in money, you need math, to take the first place in the tournament, you need luck.
To win in cash games, you need mathematics, all auxiliary online poker programs work on mathematical calculations.


If there was no luck in poker, I would win all the tournaments - Phil Helmut (c)

I believe NLHE is about 75% skill and 25 % luck. I am sure a lot of players will think I have luck too high but very good hands are beaten quite often by poor starting hands. It is still a shock when it happens to this day, but it is part of the game you have to get used to.

Skill only appears in the "long run", which means after you've played thousands or even millions of poker hands.

All poker is played in the "short run", where luck has more influence than skill does. We all understand that you can be the most skillful poker player at the table and get all your chips in the middle with AA but still lose the hand to someone holding 2 random cards... that's the luck factor which governs this game in the short run.

But over the long run, an interesting thing happens... all your bad luck cancels out with all your good luck... the two sides of the luck coin even out after you've played millions of poker hands... and at that point, once the "luck factor" goes to zero... you are only left with the relative skill levels between the players to determine who will be a long-term winner at the game, and who will be a long-term loser.

Just remember, all poker is played in the "short run". The "long run" only shows up when we look at our database of hands played, and when we look at our overall profit or loss calculation. If we have more skill than the average player, we should be a winning player over the long run... but in the short run, we might lose over and over again!! That is the luck factor, and that is what we call "statistical variance from the normal", or just "variance" for short... and that variance will play the largest role in any single poker game or poker session.

Just keep your mind on the big picture. This will help you deal with tilt, deal with the anger of losing in the short term even though you believe you are a good skillful poker player who should be winning!! It's just variance when these bad-luck streaks happen, and if you understand these concepts I have discussed, you should never let it bother you, and you should always have the faith that it will turn around. Always remember that all your bad luck will eventually be balanced by good luck, always believe that. But also realize, sometimes its not just bad luck, sometimes we might be over-estimating our poker ability. Not everyone is a winning poker player with a high skill level!! But if you are, then you should never be bothered by a downswing.

success is determined by the stars and astrology, so be able to use.

I do rely on math when I play. I also will use it to my advantage. When we use the math to determan the odd we are getting vs the odds of making our hand, we want to have the correct odds overall for a winning success over all. We may lose this time and the next several but long term make the correct mathematical play is the best.


Take something as simple as flipping a coin. Its a 50/50 proposition. If I said If I win you give me $1.00 but if you win i give you $1.10 on average you will profit $0.10 every 2 flips. You may lose 2 in a row, 20 in a row or even more but after 1,000,000 flips you should have a profit about $50.000.00 plus or minis.

In freerolls luck beats math I think, but math helps.

Not math or luck, but skill. By itself, mathematics of course plays a significant role, but you still need to apply this mathematics correctly, and this is a special talent, and not to mention that you can not make all the necessary calculations, even being a mathematical genius. And most importantly, poker is a game with incomplete information, you will never have enough information that you can correctly and accurately make calculations. In the calculation of EV (mathematical expectation), it is necessary to take into account such factors as the probability of the opponent discarding cards and the probability that he is bluffing, these parameters can only be assumed, just like possible cards, you put the opponent a range of hands and not always the estimate of this range will be correct, especially since strong players deliberately dilute their ranges with unexpected draws, and weak ones can simply behave logically. Well, of course, hold'em is also a psychology, and your own psychology is very important, falling into a gambling rush, tilt, making a mistake due to fatigue or inattention, you can ruin the result of several hours of competent play in seconds.

And as for the degree of influence of luck, there is a fairly accurate quote:

"1 day of playing poker is 90% luck and 10% skill, 1 year of playing poker is 90% skill and 10% luck."

Luck ＞Math...

Originally Posted by jesusali1

From the beginning of my poker playing I had a lot of mistakes of which I understood that luck is a factor or as it is technically called it is chance that affects the results, but even so there are good players who rely on mathematics to make an assessment of the hands and to be able to take advantage of them.

To verify if you are a lucky guy or its just math, get all coin flip hands that u have ever played and see if u win more than 50%. With 1000+ hands, I think your number of win will be very close of 50%. You can do this with other kind of hands and verify the % of it.

I think mathematics always useful after flop.
But lots of players prefer all-in preflop in tournaments.
So, what hand and what stacks u have should be more important.

Math for the long term and luck for the flips."It's what's kept us happy," Evelle Snoats.

Math, having a good read and a good strategy helps, but poker is also a lot of variance.

Both, but if I were to choose I go with luck. Math is important, you can learn it, as for luck, if you were lucky you wouldnt ask this question, would u??

Much of the success, from my opinion you need a little of everything, you have to know how to play, and you have to be lucky in certain instances.

If you play poker in the long run, math will always win over luck.

You should just use math to make luck mean as little as possible.

Hello. I believe in mathematics but I only win when I am lucky.

Originally Posted by jesusali1

From the beginning of my poker playing I had a lot of mistakes of which I understood that luck is a factor or as it is technically called it is chance that affects the results, but even so there are good players who rely on mathematics to make an assessment of the hands and to be able to take advantage of them.

Of course luck is important, if you win your 50% of coin flips when the pot is bigger its great.

The most important thing is to learn from the mistakes... For example i used to go all in with pocket Jacks or tens, this has led me to lose almost all my hard working in the tourneys, now i only go all in with pocket aces AK or pocket kings, nothing else.
Think also about all the possible features when you see the flop... Try to see how much they bet, if they play carefully or aggressively. And make a conclusion on the way your opponent play, use their mistakes and improve 😎

Originally Posted by danoscar

Hello. I believe in mathematics but I only win when I am lucky.

Depends on the hand you have... Don't suicide, don't go all in with pairs or small hands, always play carefully and calcute the options your opponent might have.

Always run the numbers. Sometimes go with your gut on draws. It takes skill but still a game of chance.

i believe in all the aspects, math to calculate your chances, nut is nut, but if it's not 100% then there's a chance someone might catch their river. Mathematics only pans out when you play a significant amount of hands to see the numbers more or less. But there's luck, if there's that one player who's always 92% before the river and has lost every showdown 10 of 10 times despite the odds, i would definitely call it bad luck.

AA is not the favorite hand of most by chance, a math takes us further, but not always.

The skill is what allows you to put yourself in a position to get the "luck".

In long term its maths, less mistakes u make, more money u make in a long run, short term is more luck because even if u play good u can still lose your roll

Luckmatics.

i dont stress TOO much on mathematics regarding starting hands when i am in position . how often do you fold Q-7s on the button to see a flop of QQ2 coming up . how often do you fold 6-5o on the cutoff to see that you would have floped the nuts (2-3-4)

for me it happened more than enough to losen up in mid to late position

but when it comes to draw chasing i am a little more careful

Originally Posted by Baldy86

i dont stress TOO much on mathematics regarding starting hands when i am in position . how often do you fold Q-7s on the button to see a flop of QQ2 coming up . how often do you fold 6-5o on the cutoff to see that you would have floped the nuts (2-3-4)

for me it happened more than enough to losen up in mid to late position

but when it comes to draw chasing i am a little more careful

Too too many times.Fold Q7 miss a full boat.Play Q7 and miss completely.

Originally Posted by JJLakes

Too too many times.Fold Q7 miss a full boat.Play Q7 and miss completely.

Hoping to learn some math and odds etc with Cards Chat Forum.I joined less than 24 hours ago and have already learned quite a lot....awesome!

Originally Posted by jesusali1

From the beginning of my poker playing I had a lot of mistakes of which I understood that luck is a factor or as it is technically called it is chance that affects the results, but even so there are good players who rely on mathematics to make an assessment of the hands and to be able to take advantage of them.

I agree that the careful use of math can be a great tool, however if one is playing live it becomes somewhat difficult if not impossible to apply a lot of mathematics, other than the simplistic odds of 4 or 2% on the number of outs. But to delve into EV and other deep thought math formulas at a live table is not realistic. Being old school I prefer to play on my knowledge of other players tendencies, their bankroll at the table and my position and cards.

You should call if it's more profitable
Especially when playing deep bankroll

Math in poker means probability for me.In real life the probability is really important on our choices ,in poker this probability has to be analized.

Originally Posted by jesusali1

From the beginning of my poker playing I had a lot of mistakes of which I understood that luck is a factor or as it is technically called it is chance that affects the results, but even so there are good players who rely on mathematics to make an assessment of the hands and to be able to take advantage of them.

Poker is mostly luck. Your bad luck and other people's good luck. Take a gander at the way some people play at very high stakes. I've seen Maria Ho lay down top set on the flop, and Daniel Negreanu call his opponents hands precisely. But there is so much awful, terrible play you have to wonder how they got to play for such high stakes.

Math and luck go hand in hand. Without both you won't win. But as has rightly been written here, in the long term, math will dominate luck.

Math, good reading, and good strategy help, but poker also has a lot of variation.

definitely math

our lives are just too short sometimes we catch in our poker lives the shit part of the whole mean.

Mathematics and luck. And don't forget about psychology!

You always need luck, but you can never be lucky all the time. Math is good and useful, if you're good at it.
In my case, i love math but i suck at using it in poker games. Especially online, where i always ran out of time calculating chances, my hands gets folded always.

I`d like to be mathematics more important,but it seems that the luck is number 1.

I find that when I play online I have many more bad beats than when I play in person. I'm not sure if this is just a coincidence. One of the possible reasons I have thought of as a reason for this is that hands are played much faster online. However, I still feel like the bad beats are much more frequent online making me question the integrity of certain platforms. Maybe I'm just a sore loser though.

Originally Posted by jesusali1

From the beginning of my poker playing I had a lot of mistakes of which I understood that luck is a factor or as it is technically called it is chance that affects the results, but even so there are good players who rely on mathematics to make an assessment of the hands and to be able to take advantage of them.

You can play 1000 tournaments, you need math, but if you are playing in the world Cup, you need luck

Online poker lots of luck to specially on ggpoker ��*♂️��

Originally Posted by TerryBLE

AA is not the favorite hand of most by chance, a math takes us further, but not always.

Placket Aces are the best hand Preflop

But only the seventh best hand after the flop (potentially)

That’s why it’s better to play heads up by utilizing big preflop raises to eliminate the field

Originally Posted by jesusali1

From the beginning of my poker playing I had a lot of mistakes of which I understood that luck is a factor or as it is technically called it is chance that affects the results, but even so there are good players who rely on mathematics to make an assessment of the hands and to be able to take advantage of them.

In poker, nothing will work without luck, but the most important thing I think is still mathematics! On one good luck, you can't last long! I used to think that poker is a game of luck, but over time I began to understand that not everything is so simple, in this game you need to think a lot and make difficult decisions! For this, I fell in love with this game, here you need to think you can bluff, or maybe you can just be lucky, but if you own the mathematics of poker then your chances of winning are greatly increased! Learn more, train and enjoy and you will succeed! I wish you good luck at the tables!

Luck ＞＞＞ Mathematics

The better you are at hand reading and 'math' the less the results are likely to be impacted by luck. Luck's biggest role is in marginal spots such as preflop shoves, the closer you get to the river and can narrow your opponents range the less luck will play a factor.

In high stakes games - the aggression is extremely high, and thus poker players are in marginal spots frequently and have to take small edges - resulting in high variance - which means luck plays a big role.

In 'free money' games - there is also a bit of variance when players are hyper aggressive because the money is meaningless.

In low stakes games where the money is enough that players care about winning - usually it is pretty clear when you have a strong advantage, so if you are losing at small stakes - there is probably a serious leak in your game.

Both. Think of it as a skill set game with mathematics and luck involved. Nothing is for certain but I think its also a practice makes perfect kinda thing. Good luck and have fun crushing em. 🍻