07.29.10
Thoughts on Poker Luck vs Skill Part Two
Thoughts on Poker Luck vs Skill part 2 By B. Butler Moving beyond thoughts of proving poker online prowess via clinical data, how much of poker is really skill? It doesn’t seem quite right to cite a basic knowledge of the game as a primary factor, but I’m also in agreement that in order to do well over the long haul, talent is more important as opposed to in the short run. Over shorter periods, chance has a big consequence, as can be attested to by anyone who’s seen the newbie at the table end up running the poker table without even realizing fully why. But what can also be attested to is that if that new or bad play continues to play by riding on luck alone he will go bust. Part of the law of chance includes the design that the improbable will indeed happen. Over time, though, if you keep putting all your money in randomly or at will, you will lose. The odds will catch up to you. The same is true of house games in the casino like Everest: you have to know how to play to even have a possibility, but ultimately you will get caught. As in the movie Rounders, one of the major disputes people tend to make for poker being skill is ‘If poker’s not skill, how come you see the same people at the final tables every time?’ Well, these days, you don’t anymore. Enormous fields and donkey kicks have put an end to that, making luck a bit more of an authority than it ever had been.
