College Paper... Poker: Luck or Skill

[ThinkQuick]

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Someone on 2+2 said that poker is like a coin flip for $100 followed by a chess game for $1. In the short term the luckiest will win but over a year the best player will be ahead.

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yes i've remembered this as well. it was pzhon, of course,
here .

the $10 coinflips even out, but what matters is how you do in the chess games.

[gildwulf]

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Someone on 2+2 said that poker is like a coin flip for $100 followed by a chess game for $1. In the short term the luckiest will win but over a year the best player will be ahead.

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yes i've remembered this as well. it was pzhon, of course,
here .

the $10 coinflips even out, but what matters is how you do in the chess games.

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That is an awesome analogy.

[27offsuit]

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I am writing a paper for my english class, a persuasive research paper debating whether or not Poker is luck or skill. I believe it to be a combination of both, but I would like your opinions considering you are all much smarter than myself. Could to give me some factors that help prove how poker is more luck or skill based. All help is greatly appreciated. Thanks [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

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F-

[beekeeper]

When I first started playing, I won a lot and I thought poker was about skill. Then I started reading a lot of 2+2 books and losing and I thought poker was about luck. Now I'm starting to win again, and I think it's both a matter of skill and luck, but I couldn't say how much of either.

You may be playing a table that you feel in control of, and a player with a lot of gamble sits down and suddenly he's raising every pot, you're not catching cards and never get a chance to play. You could say he's lucky because he's cathing cards or catching flops, but if everyone else is afraid to call him, then his play is correct and now he's skillful. You could consider yourself unlucky because you're not catching cards, or unlucky because the gambler showed up. Is is luck or skill that leads you to sit at a table with less skillful players, or causes a maniac to sit at your table?

Lots of variables. It seems like you're assuming poker is played one hand at a time. A better approach would be to consider what Sklansky says about how, in no limit, you can learn to be skillful at forcing your opponent to make a mistake by controlling the relationship of the betot. This much is within your control. By taking a few sample hands and made up circumstances and run a hand simulator to determine how often those hands win in those circumstances. If you add that to your anecdotal evidence you'd have a meatier paper.

[pokerrookie]

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Xavier University, Freshman Composition with a buffoon of a teacher.

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OH or LA?

[Larimani]

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Turning in to a 3 page essay is gonna take alot of imagination, you could go in to details about gambling theory and what exactly is considerd gambling in your introduction, go over things like the long run, short run, expected value, then you can maybe write half a page about luck and certian luck myths, check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambler%27s_Fallacy then you can expmain the different aspects of skills, for example, how emtions play a large part of the game and bankroll issues, table selection, how the game is constantly evolving and how your skill can turn in to a handicap if you play too much of a mechanical game where people can guess your cards.
I would broaden your topic from just "luck vs skill" to The essentials to become a good poker player, and just include the luck aspect as a sub-category.

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I'm writing my final year dissertation on Gambler's fallacy (and the "hot-hand fallacy")so you should easily be able to write 3-pages on that... I suggest you search scientific journals (webofscience) for references.

Compare to other gambling. Playing blackjack at optimal strategy the casino will hold an edge, even small at 1.5%. Same for other types of gambling, you never receive true odds (which is still only giving you 50/50 chance). Horse racing, the payouts are based on the amounts bet on each horse. Sports, you need to be good about 53% of the time to beat the juice.

In poker, you only need to be better/make fewer mistakes than your competition to make money long term. You are playing against other people, not the house percentage. You can get unlucky for a period, but over time if you are still getting "unlucky", that means you're not better than your opponents.

I'm quite sure the simple stats. answer to your question is as follows:

Luck is inversely proportional to the square root of the amount of poker you play. To simply further the more you play the less luck there is. We've all sat down and got our asses handed to us by a table full of fish at some point. And we've all taken successful shots at games we were not capable of beating in the long term. Why? The amount of short-term luck in poker is so great. This is why it's important to not put too much stock in your short-term results.

However over an extended period of time this both of the above outcomes become less and less probable. Ultimately after an infinite amount of poker there would be no luck involved.

[gildwulf]

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Luck is inversely proportional to the square root of the amount of poker you play.

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I think this should be the new sup bro.

[DiabloVt7]

limit poker = extreme luck in short, luck vs skill starts to balance out over extreme long run. More variance than no-limit, and tougher game to win consistently at.

NL poker = less luck in short because of more information recieved in a hand. Varying bet sizes give you this rather than just a black and white "call, raise, fold". Skill out weighs luck faster than limit poker and you will get to long term much faster. Less variance as limit.