Poker...Is it a game of skill or luck?

[MikeyLSU]

from what I see, most who are arguing luck have no clue how statistics work.

You are trying to define Poker to a 1 game or tournament setting, that is just not how it works. You have to look at it over a long term process.

Plus, to preslove, you act like tournaments are the only poker game out there. If all you know of poker is from watching the WSOP, then yes I can see why someone would argue luck is a huge factor, because in such a large tournament like the WSOP, luck is a huge factor.

But in normal cash games/smaller tournaments, luck is less of a factor. You must have skill to stay ahead money wise.

 

[lothar]

No, we do not fold because of the existence of hands that are better than ours. We fold if we think the cost of staying in the hand makes us have negative expectation. Of course our opponent's hand from our perspective is a distribution of hands, with some probability of a set of hands that beat ours and some probability of the sets of hands that we beat.

I do not care if I win this hand. I care that we make decisions to maximize our expectation. To maximize our expectation as best as possible requires skill, and these sorts of decisions fully define the distribution of our payoffs given opposing decision tendencies.

Yes, there is variance in the results . Is this your definition of luck? If yes, there is luck. But it's meaningless and pointless to discuss whether this exists. A basketball shot has variance. The shot may go in or not, each with some positive probability. Running a race has variance. Buying a sandwich at subway has variance. Everything has varying results given input, because events in the future are unknown by nature. If this is what you mean by luck I can't believe you have any interest in discussing whether things are characterized by it. It's so boring it's unbelievable, because everything has it.

Also, 100 hands is trivially small. We can play statistically significant sample sizes (2-4 orders of magnitude more than 100 hands) by having good bankroll management. Our results will converge to the mean.

Luck can easily be defined to a certain extent at least...There is variance in the results, the question to ask is "to what extent?"


Let me pick something you mentioned that's easy for me to understand since I obviously don't know much about poker. I haven't really watched basketball since the days of Michael Jordan, but that's clearly more easy for me to understand than poker.

What's the % average of certain basketball players making a shot from the free throw line?

If I can only make 12% of my shots from the line on average, I would attribute those that go in to pure luck and not skill since I don't practice basketball in my case.
If an NBA player has an 85% shooting percentage from the free throw line, can't that easily be attributed to skill and not luck?
There is variance yes, but in this basketball case it can easily be defined, no?

 

[dank69]

Luck can easily be defined to a certain extent at least...There is variance in the results, the question to ask is "to what extent?"


Let me pick something you mentioned that's easy for me to understand since I obviously don't know much about poker. I haven't really watched basketball since the days of Michael Jordan, but that's clearly more easy for me to understand than poker.

What's the % average of certain basketball players making a shot from the free throw line?

If I can only make 12% of my shots from the line on average, I would attribute those that go in to pure luck and not skill since I don't practice basketball in my case.
If an NBA player has an 85% shooting percentage from the free throw line, can't that easily be attributed to skill and not luck?
There is variance yes, but in this basketball case it can easily be defined, no?

I would not call the 12% of your shots that went in luck.

 

[Malak]

The problem is that it is possible for a skilled player to go broke on a bad beat at hand #3,542 and no longer be able to play on to hand #10,000.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWy_0_r3pJI

 

[Farmer]

pew pew pew

 

[MikeyLSU]

If I can only make 12% of my shots from the line on average, I would attribute those that go in to pure luck and not skill since I don't practice basketball in my case.
If an NBA player has an 85% shooting percentage from the free throw line, can't that easily be attributed to skill and not luck?
There is variance yes, but in this basketball case it can easily be defined, no?

Even better example, is if you had a contest of FT shooting against the NBA player who averages 85%.

Both shoot 10 FTs, higher score wins. He will beat you nearly every time, but you could still beat him, maybe only 1% of the time, but you still could win.

Does that mean you are better than him? no.
Does it mean shooting bball is a game of luck? not even close, but luck is involved to a small degree.

 

[actuarial]

Here's Lindgren, Negreanu, and Harmon saying that it's mostly luck, and telling you that they lose far more than they win. Not really consistent.
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/07/11/050711fa_fact_conley

I couldn't read the whole article, but I imagine that it's how you define winning.

For example, I spend money way more often than I make money. I spend money maybe 3-4 times a DAY, and only get paid twice a MONTH. Doesn't mean I have piles of debt.

He may lose far more hands than he wins, he may lose far more tournaments than he wins. But if every hand he's against an average of 8 players, and every tournament he's against an average of hundreds of players, he still wins consistently above expectation. Otherwise he would have a huge piles of debt.

 

[actuarial]

Even better example, is if you had a contest of FT shooting against the NBA player who averages 85%.

Both shoot 10 FTs, higher score wins. He will beat you nearly every time, but you could still beat him, maybe only 1% of the time, but you still could win.

Does that mean you are better than him? no.
Does it mean shooting bball is a game of luck? not even close, but luck is involved to a small degree.

Or a 10 FT competition against 10,000 people. I imagine in 100 tries he would only win a few of them.

 

[lothar]

I would not call the 12% of your shots that went in luck.

Then what would you call it?
It's certainly not skills since I don't have them.

 

[actuarial]

Then what would you call it?
It's certainly not skills since I don't have them.

You have more skill than someone who would make only 1% of them.

 

[lothar]

You have more skill than someone who would make only 1% of them.

Good point.

 

[Juked07]

Then what would you call it?
It's certainly not skills since I don't have them.

It's the variance that's associated with any random process.

Why is the discussion about assigning 100 points to skill and luck? Is skill the expectation? Is luck the variance? If yes, we can discuss the magnitude of those things objectively, especially comparing to other skill related activities. Subjectively bsing about luck that isn't well defined is just tiresome to read. And I'd just like to reiterate that if variance in a random process = luck, pointing out that something has luck is meaningless, because everything has this characteristic.

 

[Malak]

Making a free throw, no matter the percentage, is still skill. Having a bird shit on your face takes skill to hit the target but also luck that you just happened to be looking up.

 

[DrPizza]

Short term, luck.

Long term, it depends on who is playing. There are different skill levels, and long term, it's pretty simple for a more skilled player to beat a lesser skilled player. Short term, a lesser skilled player can easily beat a more skilled player simply through luck. Give a great player 4 aces, and a poor player a straight flush, and the great player is very likely to get burned.

But among players of the same skill level, long term, it comes back down to luck, not skill.