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Good Poker Players Aren't Lucky

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Re: Good Poker Players Aren't Lucky

#11

Post by sharkweek »

This is a really interesting read -

I played a lot in college, but never really got "good" per se. We had a group of about 20 or so of us who played semi-regularly. There were two players who were both far superior to everyone else, but they didn't always win. Just like everyone else, they naturally suffered the turmoil of a bad beat here and there. But aggregate their winnings over the course of the two years we all played together, they came out far ahead of everyone else.

And I think that's probably the main point here. These two knew how to grind out the bad beats and come out on top over a long enough time frame.

I also have a good friend who crabs in Alaska (his dad and him are on the Deadliest catch together) - each season is a "gamble" with how long it will take to catch enough crab to meet quota, but it's not like they're putting money into a slot machine and hoping for the best. There's a system that leads to success. Sometimes they get "lucky" and their season ends quick, others it's more of a lengthened grind.

They seem awfully similar.

Re: Good Poker Players Aren't Lucky

#12

Post by pdpi »

dcsommer wrote: post #3
sejje wrote: post #2

Any game where you can play badly on purpose has skill involved. Some games still involve more luck than skill--blackjack, for instance. Other games involve more skill than luck, and poker certainly falls into that category. Poker is a game of skill with an element of luck. It is not a game of chance.

> Poker is a game of skill with an element of luck. It is not a game of chance. It depends on the level of the players. For beginners and casual players with less strategy, the game is much more about luck.

Isn't that the whole point though? A game is a game of skill iff you can differentiate between beginners and experts.

Re: Good Poker Players Aren't Lucky

#13

Post by mef »

His study of more than a billion hands of online Texas Hold’em found that 85.2 percent of the hands were decided without a show of cards. In other words, players’ betting decisions were of overwhelming importance in determining the outcome. Of the remaining 14.8 percent, almost half were won by a player who didn't hold the best hand but instead had induced the player with the best hand to fold before the showdown.

Isn't inducing the player with the best hand to fold before showdown the same as a hand decided without a show of cards? Or do they mean that 85.2% of hands were decided without seeing the flop? Both don't sound right.

Re: Good Poker Players Aren't Lucky

#14

Post by tom_jones »

The latest statistical analysis suggests that baseball involves more matters of chance than anyone would like to admit. Beyond home runs and strikeouts, it's mostly random. Luck and skill are all around us to varying unmeasurable degrees, including in a game of poker.

Re: Good Poker Players Aren't Lucky

#15

Post by kevhsu »

mef wrote: post #13

His study of more than a billion hands of online Texas Hold’em found that 85.2 percent of the hands were decided without a show of cards. In other words, players’ betting decisions were of overwhelming importance in determining the outcome. Of the remaining 14.8 percent, almost half were won by a player who didn't hold the best hand but instead had induced the player with the best hand to fold before the showdown. Is…

In the case of 'almost half' of 14.8 percent where the best hand folded, other people stayed in besides the winner and the best hand.

Re: Good Poker Players Aren't Lucky

#17

Post by sejje »

darasen wrote: post #4

There is a reason that the top players happen to very good at math.

This is not a rule. A lot of the players don't use much math--basic pot odds. They develop a feel for when they're making the right play, and openly admit to being "feel" players.

I do believe they would be very good at doing on-the-spot calculations in their head, they're often just not very trained in math.

Anyhow, surprisingly little in poker is math-dependent, particularly in normal ten-handed games. The cognitive load is mostly about factoring in thousands of variables, past hands, and potential hand combinations of your opponents.

Re: Good Poker Players Aren't Lucky

#18

Post by candybar »

As a casual poker player, I find this line of reasoning specious. Sports betting, blackjack and even roulette with a biased wheel are all games of skill by this definition. Poker games are designed specifically to appeal to our gambling instinct so that better players can play the house while worse players gamble away their chips. It's true that from the perspective of the best players, it's not truly gambling, but they are not the ones gambling laws are written to protect. This isn't too different from a casino owner saying - I'm not gambling, I make money every day. You may not be gambling but your customers are. The same is true of poker - even if you're not gambling, your opponents are.

Edit: Will downvoters explain their reasoning? Btw, someone else said something about how poker is a game of luck at low skill level and game of chance at high skill level but that's not really how it works. Poker is a game of skill if you're playing against bad players because the game is consistently beatable with sufficient skills. The better and more sound your opponents become, not just relative to you but on an absolute basis, the more important the role of luck becomes.

Re: Good Poker Players Aren't Lucky

#19

Post by Fishkins »

mef wrote: post #13

His study of more than a billion hands of online Texas Hold’em found that 85.2 percent of the hands were decided without a show of cards. In other words, players’ betting decisions were of overwhelming importance in determining the outcome. Of the remaining 14.8 percent, almost half were won by a player who didn't hold the best hand but instead had induced the player with the best hand to fold before the showdown. Is…

I think what that must mean is: Players 1, 2, and 3 have the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd best hand, respectively. During betting, player 1 folds. Neither player 2 nor 3 fold and eventually show their hands. Thus player 2 wins not by having the best hand, but by getting the player with the best hand to fold AND winning the showdown.

Re: Good Poker Players Aren't Lucky

#20

Post by zeppelinnn »

sejje wrote: post #9
dcsommer wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Poker is a game of skill with an element of luck. It is not a game of chance. It depends on the level of the players. For beginners and casual players with less strategy, the game is much more about luck.

By that reasoning, basketball is a game of chance, depending on the level of the players. They're going to lob it up there and hope it goes in. But their lob was a skill--one they don't control very well, but a skill nevertheless. Betting in poker is the same thing, and is the only thing the player controls. The way the cards come out is always chance, and the level of skill can't influence it.

True, the way cards come out is chance in a single instance of a hand, but in the long run, over thousands, maybe millions of hands, the cards that you expect to come out will do so more often, and the skillful players will win more often (as opposed to the occasional bad beat). If you are talking about professional basketball then of course there is luck.. at such a high level a few points, basically a basket, can make the difference between a championship and a lost series, but again, we see the best teams (for the most part) every year in the playoffs repeatedly. The same can be said for rec basketball - the closer the skill levels are of the players to each other, the more luck may play a factor.
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