In Your Experience, What Percentage of Poker is Skill vs. Luck?
 

Oftentimes someone will ask me about my poker experience. Usually he/she will say something like:
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Why do you play, it's all luck anyway?

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Of course, before reading many books, many posts, and playing tens of thousands of hands, I assumed the same thing, i.e. that it was all luck.

Now, of course, I understand that skill makes a big difference, especially in the long run. So, if someone were to ask you what percentage of your poker is attributable to skill vs. luck, what would you say?

Re: In Your Experience, What Percentage of Poker is Skill vs. Luck?
 

32.859% luck

Re: In Your Experience, What Percentage of Poker is Skill vs. Luck?
 

I would probably say 60% skill 30% luck and 10% balls.

Even the best players have to allow luck into the equation. Their skills allow themselves to take calculated risks (i.e. counting outs vs. pot odds and such) and put themselves in a position to be lucky and profitable.

Re: In Your Experience, What Percentage of Poker is Skill vs. Luck?
 

I do not understand. Really.

Re: In Your Experience, What Percentage of Poker is Skill vs. Luck?
 

A single hand of poker is almost 100% luck

A single session of poker is still probably 50% + luck

But as the number of hands grows, the luck component goes down more and more.

ALA after 10 million hands the luck component of whether you are up or down is nominal.

Re: In Your Experience, What Percentage of Poker is Skill vs. Luck?
 

Neither do I.


If you have enough skill to beat the game....and you play long enough...then the answer is close to 100% skill.


"So, if someone were to ask you what percentage of your poker is attributable to skill vs. luck, what would you say?"


I generally say that there is variance and fluctuation in the short-term...but it all evens out in the long-run and long-term success is not going to happen without skill.



If you were to say '90% skill and 10% luck' would that mean that 10% of players with crappy skill can still be successful in the long-term?
I'm not sure it would mean this or not. But I don't believe that 10% of crappy players can be successful in the long-term.


however...you can obviously catch a lucky big-score in the short-term and then just hang onto your money (like a Varkoni or Moneymaker for example).

Re: In Your Experience, What Percentage of Poker is Skill vs. Luck?
 

I've actually been wondering something along these lines. Obviously if you're playing SNGs or ring games all day, over even a year your luck component is going to be minimal. But if your only game was giant MTTs, I think it would be possible to have a very lucky or [shudder] very unlucky lifetime. Scary thought.

I'd love to see some math on the variance of say 25 $10k/500ppl+ buy-in tourneys a year. Assuming you are a 100% ROI player (that's about what the very good players expect right?) or a 50% or 0% ROI player. IE - even if I am a dead-average WPT player, what are my chances of having a nice winning career?

Very curious here.

Re: In Your Experience, What Percentage of Poker is Skill vs. Luck?
 

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10% balls.

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You know what you can't outsouce? Balls.

- Colbert

Re: In Your Experience, What Percentage of Poker is Skill vs. Luck?
 

Barry Greenstein claims in 'Ace on the River' that a good player has a 3% edge in the long run if he plays in typical games. That may not seem like a lot, but remeber that house edge in blackjack is less than 1% if you play perfect strategy. There is math to support this, but me no feel like posting it.

Re: In Your Experience, What Percentage of Poker is Skill vs. Luck?
 

I can't remember where I ran into this or I'd link it. A guy took a poker simulator, ran it eight times with the identical profile player over the number of hands that simulated a life time of play. The results among the eight players varied by 2% over the course of a lifetime of full time play.

So, 98 percent skill, 2 percent luck. If we could live longer, I presume those percentages might change.

--Zetack