Question: Is it reasonable for me to start doubting that poker is down to skill?

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Answer #1:

Gotta be luck ! How can anyone know what card is coming next ! I've watched some games on TV and novices's beat the top players.

Answer #2:

there is no such thing as luck. luck is a word used by people who only see the short-term and have no sense of the future. there is a percentage for everything, and those percentages play out if you play enough hands.

it's also selective memory. you remember those times when you got beat by some guy with a 10% chance of winning, but those times when you win when the odds are in your favour don't stick out as much because you were supposed to have won.

when i sit down at a table, i don't get any better or any worse hands than anybody else. there may be times when i go through bad and good stretches, but there's a good reason i'm a long-term winner at the game, and it has nothing to do with luck.

the second any gambler starts believing in luck is the second they should quit gambling.

Answer #3:

It's part of both. There is a considerable element of skill, and there is an element of chance (what we might call "luck"). It's entirely possible to bluff through an entire game, since you can cover it up by not ever revealing your cards unless you have to. Whether the other players will begin to get suspicious and call it is another matter, and entirely down to the sort of player you're up against.

Answer #4:

You've pretty much answered your own question, but you just don't realize it. You said, "I'm not a tight player either I do my fair share of bluffing."

What you don't understand is that you might as well have said, "I'm not a winning at poker, because I just don't know how to play poker in a profitable manner."

Truly. (I'm not saying this in a mean way - just the truth.)

Of course there is luck. On any given poker session, ANYONE can win. (Even folks that really don't know what they're doing!) The reality, however, is that SKILLED and DISCIPLINED players will always win IN THE LONG RUN.

If you are not winning over all, then the simple fact, BELIEVE IT OR NOT, is that you are not yet sufficiently SKILLED and/or DISCIPLINED in this game. It has nothing to do with the luck you've ever gotten or NOT gotten during any one session of playing.

Answer #5:

The shorter the time you are talking about, the more luck plays a role. The longer term, the more skill plays a role.

This is common knowledge.

Why should I care if you are getting turned off to poker?

Answer #6:

A lot of years of observation leads me to think the consensus among players is that if they win it's skill, if they lose, it's luck.

It's different from blackjack in that, if you win it's skill and if you lose it's the fault of one or more of the other players.

Answer #7:

Saw a couple of people who say luck means nothing but ofcourse it does. I mean come on that is a ridiculous statement. Getting AA in the hole is not down to skill is it? however the skill comes into after you decide to play or fold your hand. If you have a great hand the amount you bet is down to skill. You don't want to scare too many people out of the hand too early because you want the maximum amount in the pot, however not betting enough might allow a player with a bad hand to stay in and luck out on the river or whatever. Also telling what people have is a skill in itself. You can often tell which cards a person has by their betting patterns and the amount of time they spend thinking about wether to call/raise/fold (online poker) in real life the same things apply except then you can also take in facial expressions and avoiding eye contact and so on.

Conclusion is that ofcourse their is skill involved in poker but people who say that there is no amount of luck whatsoever are daft. I don't care what they say about percentages over time. Luck is a factor for sure in your hole cards, how you play what you are given is where the skill comes in.

Answer #8:

Luck only determines what cards you get...skill is what you do with them. As the song says, "Every hand's a winner and every hand's a loser."

Answer #9:

While there is luck involved in Poker, there is definately a lot of skill and strategy used aswell.

Its all about odds in the long run. While a bad hand might beat your premium hand in one game, in the long run the premium hand is going to win a lot more often.

Read some guides, and learn about odds, mainly pot odds. I wrote up some simple articles for new to intermediate players on this site:

Click Here

Answer #10:

PDQ put it perfect, #1 your probably playing to many hands in the 1st place #2 then when you have good hands and don't hit you continue to call or bet with obvious flushes or str8's draws on the board and get beat. If I were to analyze poker I'd say it is probably 75-80 % skill and 20-25% luck. Sure you may lose some to a lucky hand by another, but if U continue to play the odds and do it right you will always win money and come out on top.

Answer #11:

poker is a game of skill most of the time. depending on the structure of the game. the deeper your stack compared to any forced bets the more skilled involved. if you lose money playing poker it is not probably luck or you getting cheated. it is probably you are a bad player.


you need to play at least 500 games to take out most stat variance. if you flip a coin 10 times you might get heads 7 and tails 3 (70% heads).....but if you flip it 1000 times...its likely to be closer to 547 to 453 one way or another.(54.7%) don't ever expect 500/500.

bluffing is not always(and rarely is) the answer. winning players like barry greenstien don't bluff that often. they wait to pick off bluffs or value bet chasing players. there are many players that constantly win pretty often. there are many styles of poker, aggressive and passive styles and many in between there is not right way to play. i would suggest you just play low limit levels never play with anything that is not entertainment money.

if you are losing you might want to consider that you just don't understand the game. 2/3 of players lose money while 1/3 make money in poker. you are in the majority if you are losing.

Answer #12:

I think when you play in a tournament and early on in the tournament a lot of players go all in to get the chip lead and that is luck. When it comes down to head to head play then it is about skill. The strategy is to mix up your game and that does require some skill and experimenting which have already started to with bluffing.

Answer #13:

I answered a similar question yesterday and gave a lengthy response. See the link below, my answer is the comment. It's a philosophical matter, so my answer is only an opinion, but i've put lots of thought into it because i'm a professional player.

Answer #14:

You're right-you do need good hands some time or another, but thats not to say you wont have games where you're on a losing streak (not getting any premium hands, your draws never completing, your folded hands being the nuts post flop) and have to shake it off and accept that it just wasn't your night. Use those sessions to try to read other players. If you're no longer involved in a hand (which if you're having a run of bad cards you wont be) try to put each player still involved on a hand, try to rememer their betting patterns, what raise they made and when, how aggressive they were. Remember what they flipped over at showdown and use all this to try and put them more accurately on a hand the next time. By doing this and playing at a table with a fairly good standard of players your reads will become more accurate and your bluffs will pay off more as you will know exactly when the times to make them are and how expensive you have to make the bluff for that particular player to shake him/her off. By playing a table of inexperienced fish no expensive bet you make will stop them hitting their crappy gutshot draw and although long term they will lose it will annoy the hell out of you if they hit that time. If you stick to your game, keep reading and learning, stick to a strict list of hands you are willing to play in early, middle and late position, observe regular players intently and pick up on their weaknesses, you will need luck a lot less, and when you get your lucky streak, you'll deserve it and know how to suck out the most possible amount of chips from it. If you feel yourself getting mad at the game, have a couple of weeks off, watch some poker tv, wait until you miss playing then go get em!!
I play a lot of poker but this is the first question I have answered as I signed up today so please let me know how you found my answer.





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