luck vs skill

[darryl2172]

So you can take down a pot with any 2 cards against 5 calling stations? You need to learn more.



[/ QUOTE ] First I never said I could do anything, I said "the most skilled players" of which I do not consider myself, so perhaps you need to learn to play closer attention to detail, it will benefit you in life and poker, or maybe you are just "lucky", so things like skill, and detail are not important.

[harboral]

Could be luck - and I've been lucky for 20 years [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]
Could be that Brunson and Reese and Chan and Tuna and others have just been been lucky their whole adult lives. Could be.

[El Barto]

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Bottom line to be a winning player in the LONG RUN is 0% luck and 100% skill. The better player eventually takes the weaker player's money. The luck factor is what effects how long it takes not as to who wins.

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I couldn't agree more!

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Let's not overstate the case. Luck can make the difference between a long term win rate of 1.1 BB/hr vs. 1.3 BB/hr even over a very long term.

Add up the 10 biggest pots you have ever won, and think how your long term win rate would be different if you just lost those extra 10 pots. For a lot of us, this would make a noticable dent in our bankroll.

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If luck factor has not evened out then by definition you are still in the short run.

I know this seems like splitting hairs but to new players it is very important to understand.

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As humans, we do not live long enough to truly be in the long run, although we can get closer and closer as the years go by. We all live in the short run.

[critterdude]

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As humans, we do not live long enough to truly be in the long run, although we can get closer and closer as the years go by. We all live in the short run.

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Agreed, I drive home the point because of newbies not understanding this and all the damn posts about how the sites cheat or how unlucky they are. None of which improves your game.

So to those that know better sorry if I'm splitting hairs.

[subq]

I call it 50% "luck" and 50% skill.

However, I define "luck" as the cards that are dealt. You have absolutely no control over them. Skill is how you play with the cards that you are dealt.

There are some other good comments in this thread though.

How you play should be 100% skill just as the cards that you get are going to be 100% "luck".

Since skill can be improved that is what should be concentrated on.

[Izverg04]

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My poker career is going into year #2, as I have become more serious about my play, friends and family have been critical, becase they feel its all about luck. I personally think its 90% skill and 10% luck, but I would like the opinion of some seasoned veterans

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The question of the impact of skill in a game of chance is non-trivial, and it is often addressed by game theorists.

First of all, the question needs you are asking needs to be well defined. If the answer you are looking is dependent on your time frame, as in: luck is important in the short run and skil is important in the long run, you simply seek a comment on the fact the standard deviation/win rate goes down in time as the square root of the time scale (number of hands played).

To me, the time-frame-dependent answer is not very satisfying. How do you then compare, for example, the luck/skill factor in different games, say poker and backgammon if your answer depends on the number of games played?

One possible definition of the element of skill in a game of chance is as follows (you could read this reference for some discussion). Take 3 players: 1) a rank beginner; 2) world class expert; 3) hypothetical world class expert who knows all the "chance" information in the game. In poker Player 3 would know all other players' holdings and all cards to come, in backgammon he would know the sequence of all rolls to come, in roulette he would know the sequence of all numbers to come, so on.

Match up the expert (2) with beginner (1) and estimate the winrate. Match up the cheater (3) with the expert (2) and estimate the winrate. The ratio of the two is the skill/luck factor. In roulette it would be 0, in chess it would be 1. In poker, I suspect it would be about 20%.

[bunky9590]

"In the long run, the cards break even. The worst player in the world will be dealt over the long haul the same hands as the best player in the world; but, the best player will win more money because he (or she) is the better PLAYER."

paraphrased from Doyle Brunson (Supersystem)
nuff' said.

[unome]

Another distinction between being good or lucky is that good players know how to avoid steaming and tilt which helps keep their loses to a minimum when the luck isn't with them.

[The WET BEAVER]

The bad players share a common trait in that they don't take responsibility for their own bad play. It's never their own fault. They blame it on fish sucking them out, collusion, pattern maps, conspiracies, and THE RAKE.

I noticed that some people love to whine about rake. They say, "I'm good but I can't win because of the rake. But rake has been around for decades and it's part of the game. Skilled players have been making big money even with the rake, because their superior skill enables them to. If someone can't beat raked Party games, they need to stop being lazy and study the game.

[stripsqueez]

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The bad players share a common trait in that they don't take responsibility for their own bad play. It's never their own fault. They blame it on fish sucking them out, collusion, pattern maps, conspiracies, and THE RAKE

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i think that most bad players blame poor luck

english law gives a perspective on this debate - english gaming law used a distinction between games of chance and games of skill in determining which games were illegal and which werent - i'm not sure exactly when the distinction arose but i would guess in the 1700's or 1800's

its plain from the wording of the statutes concerned that the 2 concepts of games of skill and games of chance are mutually exclusive - a given game is one or the other but not both - poker has been held to be a game of skill - that seems obvious to me when there are the easy comparisons of say roulette which is plainly a game of chance

i think its wrong to view poker as X luck and X skill - its a game of skill - virtually all games of skill involve luck in the sense you use that word

stripsqueez - chickenhawk