Looking for an appropriate challenge to those who say poker's all luck

[Quicksilvre]

It is legal in all the usual places (Nevada, Atlantic City, certain reservations, etc.) and illegal everywhere else.

[stripsqueez]

[ QUOTE ]
Think of it this way Player "A" greatest player in the world goes all in with Ad Ac after a Ah As Th flop. Player worst player in the world calls with Kh Qh. Is there a 0% chance that a Jh will hit the turn or river?

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i would say that player A was skillful enough to read the board and work out that he had a positive expectation of winning chips if he put them all in now - probably when player A made that decision he worked out that only the straight flush could beat him and that in addition to player B having to have the cards that make a straight flush he would require 1 or 2 specific cards to fall to complete such a hand - that the Jh might then come on the turn or river is utterly unremarkable and irrelevant to the skill exercised by player A - it probably wasnt luck that caused player A to make the choice that would result in him making the most money

roulette is luck - when i put my chips on 27 i exercise my belief that a former captain of the geelong football club was a great player - if the number 27 comes up then i know it was nothing to do with skill but in fact my special mind powers that caused me to win

there is a fundamental distinction in games - there are games of chance and there are games of skill - poker is a game of skill - if you call it skill and chance then you fail to distinguish it from other games - a whale swims in the ocean but that doesnt make it a fish

stripsqueez - chickenhawk

[Guernica4000]

Strip,

My point was the other way around. I agree with you that player "A" made a great read but what I am saying is that player "B" could by luck and luck alone win. He has a 5% chance to get his lucky card.

Let's use my same example with chess. You would agree that the best player in the world would never lose to the worst player in the world. Player “B” would have a 0% chance of winning.

So even though a whale is not a fish I still disagree with your statement: “poker is a game of skill whether it be 1 hand, 1 session, or 1 lifetime”

And I believe that anyone can win one hand, most players can win one session but only the great will post a “W” in the long run.

[RedManPlus]

For an average player...
And that means 90%+ of all players...
Including most of the traffic at 2+2...
Whose EV is near ZERO minus the rake...

Poker is very definitely almost a pure game of chance.

I'm sure that the Ohio State AG is not an idiot...
And is making laws for typical citizens of Ohio...
And not for some tiny, elitist group of poker pros.

rm+

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[subzero]

300 non-professional golfers, playing a golf tournament with Tiger Woods every day for a year, will not beat him. Tiger will win every one because he is far more skilled at golf than the other players.

If 300 non-professional poker players played a poker tournament with Phil Helmuth every day for a year. One of the non-professionals would beat Helmuth x% of the time (and what a site that would be!). Helmuth is much higher-skilled than the non-pros, but luck allows them to compete and even win against him at times.

I've always thought that poker is 40% skill and 60% luck. If you watch enough TV poker they take the chance and the win is from the luck of the cards that come out.

[Quicksilvre]

That 40/60 number is a good estimation for one tournament. For one tournament (even the longest ones) the run of cards is somewhat more important than skill. Even rank amateurs are occasionally winning big-money tournamnets.

However, year after year, the same players are posting big wins in the side games and are near the top of the myraid tournament player-of-the-year lists. The more hands that are played, the less importance luck has.

[Quicksilvre]

[ QUOTE ]
For an average player...Poker is very definitely almost a pure game of chance.

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I disagree. A strong-average player will defeat a weak-average player after years and years of play. The difference is much smaller between a fish and a pro, to be sure, but it's still there.

[ellipse_87]

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Just because one player can have a consistent edge doesn't change the nature of the game. The house has an edge in craps, roulette, and blackjack.

[/ QUOTE ]

But that doesn't mean that the business of building and running casinos is a game of chance. Casino owners' fortunes have a positive correlation with their skill at running casinos. Playing the role of "the house" in a poker game for carefully selected +EV transactions is the definition of winning poker; the winning poker player is no more involved in a game of chance than Donald Trump is.

[ellipse_87]

But of course I just realized that this means that the Ohio AG is correct. Poker, defined in its entirety, is a game of chance for the majority of its participants.