Another week of playing with no guts

[rk92559]

Not saying that you just go out a throw chips hoping you get lucky. But there is luck involved in every hand. As long as at least 2 people are playing cards, there is an element of luck. If you have AA, and see a flop with other people, you are still lucky that they don't catch something better! You are in the best position and the odds are in your favor, but win or lose, luck is involved. If they catch 2 pair, trips, str8 etc...you are unlucky that the cards came out that way, if they have high card up, they are unlucky that you got dealt AA down..etc....Skill can be taken out of the game, look at half the retards that play online. But luck can never be taken out of it, thats why its called gambling.

 

[diabloblanco]

If there is luck involved in every hand as you suggest, how do you account for the times a more skillful player bluffs someone off of a pot, when they have the best hand? It certainly isn't luck that won him that hand, it was skill.

I have said, that in any short-run, it can certainly be mostly luck. However, over the long-run, many thousands of hands, luck plays a smaller and smaller role. I would much rather be good at poker than lucky. A good player has to rely on luck far less than a poor player. What I mean by that, is that a poor player or one who believes that any 2 cards can win, all they have to do is catch runner runner and get lucky to do so, will much more often put themselves in a situation to catch that runner, runner, than a good player will. A good player will get away from the hands that a luck player will stay in. Skill will always beat out luck in the long run.

 

[Bill_Hollorian]

I've have never witnessed luck at a poker table in my life. I have seen mathematical longshots spike, but I can always be rest assured that when I get hope I can mathematically calculate the exact odds of an event in any poker game. Now, just because your opponent is not aware that he is drawing to a huge deficit does not make him lucky, it makes him an unaware sheep, I may not get him, but he will go home broke, and he will blame it on the fact that he got so UN-lucky.
You know what I would consider lucky at the poker table? If a beautiful woman (like MicheleW) fell into my lap, with 10 million dollars, and the tax man walked in and said that due to a loophole I get to keep it all, I push the 10 million onto the table with a 7-2 offsuit, get 10 callers, plus side action from people watching, my 7-2 stands up, and I use the money to end all hunger, war and poverty on earth. That would be luck to me.
Until I got home and calculated the exact probability of such an anomolous event, and enjoy the math behind the oddity! (MicheleW, just kidding, obviously, but I felt Id better mention it just in case LOL!)

Bill

 

[rk92559]

Ok...Whatever you guys say. its all skill. If you have AA, and the other guy has 22, and he flops a 2, he is just more skillful you. If you raise with KK and someone calls and nuts a flush with his AQ, He is way more skillful than you. There is an element of luck in every hand. you use skill to play, and put yourself in the right position to win. Anyone that doesn't think luck is involved in any kind of cards, doesn't know what they are talking about. Poker is called...GAMBLING.

 

[ChuckTs]

Ok...Whatever you guys say. its all skill. If you have AA, and the other guy has 22, and he flops a 2, he is just more skillful you. If you raise with KK and someone calls and nuts a flush with his AQ, He is way more skillful than you.

??? how does this make any sense
if a guy flops a set it is skill??

are you being sarcastic?

 

[Bill_Hollorian]

Ok...Whatever you guys say. its all skill. If you have AA, and the other guy has 22, and he flops a 2, he is just more skillful you. If you raise with KK and someone calls and nuts a flush with his AQ, He is way more skillful than you. There is an element of luck in every hand. you use skill to play, and put yourself in the right position to win. Anyone that doesn't think luck is involved in any kind of cards, doesn't know what they are talking about. Poker is called...GAMBLING.

Poker is legal in many places, because it is NOT considered gambling! It is considered a skilled game. When teh deuces flop a set, and I minimize the loss, as opposed to when they hold up, and I maximize my win, it's skill.

A game of imperfect information, does not equate to luck. When a player plays his cards differently than he would if he knew what your cards were, is an edge.
Creating and exploiting edges, is what it is all about.

Bill

 

[rk92559]

OK...right. Poker for money is illegal in all states besides the ones that allow ..GAMBLING. As a poker player, I rely on my skill, but with that said, I have never won a tournament, and no major tournament has been one without someone getting lucky on more than one occasion. I do not disagree that skill will beat out luck in the long run. The better players will usually prevail, but just read the logs from this years wsop, Cindy V was on her way out after matching a post flop all in with a set of Qs that turned into a Q high flush that turned into a full house, that was beat by a runner runner str8 flush. Thats her bad luck, thats that guys blind ass luck......Just look at any wpt final table, or wsop replay, and you will find all kinds of hands people are "gambling" with, usually not the best starting hand that turns in their favor due to luck! And if Poker is not considered gambling, if you don't live in a state with legalized gaming, and have the proper liscense, try sponsoring a cash tourney and see how far you get. I did, at a Bar I owned, and the state told me that if any cash was awarded, I would be arrested and charged with illegal gambling.

 

[Bill_Hollorian]

look at any wpt final table, or wsop replay, and you will find all kinds of hands people are "gambling" with, usually not the best starting hand that turns in their favor due to luck!

Man, so you think most folks would enjoy a tv show where one guy with AA goes all in , and wins agianst a guy with 22? If they showed all of the hands where the best starting values won in the end? Nope. it's tv dude. It's like the news when the ordinary happens they dont cover that. When AA stands up thats ordinary. Or maybe we could watch the 800 hands that were folded pre flop. That's good tv eh?

Bill

 

[rk92559]

" If it wasn't for luck, I guess I would win every hand " Phil Helmuth, 2004 WSOP. He doesn't win every hand. He has been on considerably more final tables than any of you, and me. But you have never seen luck at a poker table?? How many have you been on...one?? Once again a legititamate point has been argued so many ways, you guys forget what the hell was said in the first place. After my original response, you would think I said you have to be lucky to be a good player, never said that, but good players get lucky, often. Poker is not gambling??...LOL..thats good. Find a poker forum, and you will find dozens of people that think they are Matt Damon in Rounders. Trust me....your not. You might try to take luck out of the game, but unless you stack the deck, or mark the cards, I am confident you can't.

 

[diabloblanco]

Atta way to make friends and influence people. I will go out on a limb and say that the man you just pseudo-insulted (Bill H.) would be willing to play you live, heads-up, for just about any stakes you could muster. I would chose who I insult a bit more carefully in the future. Nobody claimed to be Matt Damon from Rounders, Bill simply stated that maximizing profit when you have the best of it, and minimizing loss when you don't, is a skill set. One can have pocket Aces and get beat by 7-2 off, that simply means that the next 5 cards he saw after he received his hole-cards didn't improve him, and hit his opponent. The skill portion of that is not losing your shirt when you're faced with that particular situation. Being able to discern what your opponent has and minimize your potential losses. Skill, not luck.

Another valid facet to this discussion is, if it is a luck based outcome, why do you bother to figure pot odds and other such nonsense? Surely that is of no use to a player if luck is as big a part of the game as some of you make it out to be. Poker thorem states that when you play your cards exactly as you would if you could see the other player's cards, you will have positive results. When your opponent fails at this task, he does not share in those positive results. Mastering (if there is such a thing) that is where a players skill is measured.

 

[rk92559]

Dude.....You are a piece of work, you are still twisting what I said around every way possible to prove some point. You don't think luck is involved at all...cool, poker is not gambling??..Ok then. As far as who Bill is, I am sure he is a very good player and probably way better than me. But, to say he has never seen luck at a poker table, or poker is not gambling is just wrong. I give a valid point that luck plays a big part in some form in poker, and you guys go off on some tangent about how I don't think pot odds, good starting hands, etc...are important. Preflop all ins are blind ass luck..PERIOD!!! You don't know whats coming on that flop. In the commentary of the recent world series of poker, the word luck, or lucky was used no less than 15 times. Guess they have a total misunderstanding of the real concept of poker. Not here to insult anyone, and sure as hell not gonna be threatened by you. Why Bill??...How bout me and you?? You are the expert shooting everyone down. I am on pokerstars and Party about 9 hrs a day, and have accounts on most of the major sites. So anytime you want to teach me a lesson, I am ready to learn.

 

[Schatzdog]

Consistency

There has to be a high skill component or else you could never account for consistency. Players who build a consistent bankroll or place well in tourneys most of the time have skill. I think in the short term it seems more like luck or more random, but playing edges over time will produce profits and this can only be done with genuine skill.

That said I do think more luck is required in tournaments because that is a fixed event that culminates in a single winner, whereas if you are a cash player you can simply play each session as an extension of your lifelong career session. This smooths out the effects of luck.

Bad beats are part of the game and complaining about them is just the ego's way of rationalising the event and making it seem unfair. It's just the odds playing out.

 

[Crippler450]

If there is luck involved in every hand as you suggest, how do you account for the times a more skillful player bluffs someone off of a pot, when they have the best hand? It certainly isn't luck that won him that hand, it was skill.

Ah, but what if you tried to bluff but got 'unlucky' and the guy you tried to bluff caught a straight flush on the flop?

If your bluff worked, you can make the argument that you were lucky that your opponent didnt catch something great

 

[diabloblanco]

First of all...tournaments, in the new way they have evolved, are a crap shoot at best. Donkeys for days. Cash games are a differnet story alltogether. If you go back and analyze what I said previously, you would find that I stated that luck was a factor in the short term success of a player. However, over time, that factor is diminished greatly when looking at ones game as a whole. If A-A does not hold up against a card-chasers rags, you were on the shitty end of the probablilities stick. However, you must consider how often A-A is going to hold up under the same conditions. A large majority of the time the Aces are going to hold up, and you will win the pot.

Two completely different ways of viewing the game have emerged here. The believers that luck is a big part of the game, and those that believe it is very small. Phil Hellmuth is a tournament player and doesn't play high-stakes poker like most pros. Of course he was bitching after the 2004 WSOP, look at the size of the field and the sheer number of donkeys that were playing and you'll have an idea as to why. Double that field and more than double the amount of donkeys there in 2004, and you'll get a decent idea about how it was this year. Look at the final table for christ's sake. If you base your view of luck on tournament poker it will be most assuredly skewed. Cash games are where all the lucky players (better known as card-chasers or donkeys or fish) are shown to be exactly what they are. Cash games seperate the wheat from the chaff. When considering that you also must exclude freerolls, and very low limit games. You will only be sucked out on by a really bad beat if you are playing with someone that has made a decision to stay in a pot that they shouldn't be in. It doesn't make you unlucky, it makes them a fish, and if you stay with them, the amount of money you win when your hand holds up (which it usually will) will far outwiegh the amount you lose on a suckout. Therein lies the time factor and how it decreases exponentially, the luck factor.

 

[rk92559]

Ok...my bad , I was referring to mostly tournament play, there is no luck involved in poker, its not a gamble at all. With your superior skills, you will win every hand, come in first in every tourney, never get your AA broken. In fact, hell ..why you haven't won the WSOP has boggled my mind! Maybe you haven't entered?? But with all the money you make off the animal kingdom, as you refer to all the fish, donkeys etc...you could raise the entry in a night of skill at the table?? I am beating a dead horse here, and its pretty comical really. If you are dealt AA and I have 77 and the flop is 79K, I didn;t catch a lucky flop?? Or did my superior skills will that 7 out of the deck?? Now before you act with either hand, does that make me a superior player because I caught a set?? Or was there luck involved?? Never mind, already know the answer...No..see I knew that seven would come out because of the odds, and my skillfullness against donkeys....etc..etc You bet money that your hand will be better than mine, I don't care if your Doyle Brunson, its gambling.

LMAO...wait need to edit this...just reread your post. Phil Helmuth doesn't play the big cash games like the pros??? Have you read any of his books? If you did , you would find out he was a cash game player long before a tourney player. And before poker was cool, and still in the back rooms....LOL...Phil Helmuth is a donkey...LOL..LOL

 

[diabloblanco]

Can you read? I never called Hellmuth anything. As a matter of fact I am one of the people on this forum that defends Hellmuth. You have no clue what you're talking about on this one. Hellmuth played in the big game after selling a house in his home state and lost almost his entire bankroll. Since then he hasn't played ultra-high stakes poker like many professionals. Do the research on it if you would like. And before you say anything, yes, I have read his books. I will repeat, I did not call Phil Hellmuth a donkey, he is without a doubt one of the best tournament NLHE players ever. Seriously, left to right, grouping letters together into words which form sentences. Its reading, try it.

 

[IrishDave]

Folks it's OK to disagree but we sure don't need personal attacks on anybody. I think you went over the line on this post RK92559 and we don't need this on this forum. I'm sure one of the moderators will be contacting you...

 

[rk92559]

Thats fine, have no beef with you or anyone else on here, nor intend to offend anyone. But not gonna take that BS from some geek hiding behind a computer. Moderator delete the post if you like, not worth posting on here and getting overrun by someone telling me I can't read etc....nice site, but someone should respect everyones opinion to a degree, intead of just hammering them and insulting everyones intelligence. Maybe they should change the name to ASK DIAB, because if he doesn't aggree with what you might say, then your a donkey. I am not always right, in fact, wrong alot!! But don't need the BS inuendos about how little I know, and how much he knows. Won't be posting on here again, whats the point?? GL all

 

[xdmanx007]

ARGH! I do wish we could have civil disagreements around here. Locking the thread.