Luck vs. Skill in Poker
Most people who play poker have heard the factoid, mostly based on opinion, that poker is eighty percent luck and twenty percent skill. The luck, of course, delves from needing the right hands, flops, rivers, and so on to win hands. There are nights when even the best poker player in the world can lose to someone who has never played before because of a bad beat (watch the World Series of Poker if you don’t believe it.)
But does skill really take a backseat to luck? And for that matter, how exactly is skill in poker defined? Does skill refer to knowing which hands to play and which hands not to? Probably not. Any person who can read and research can find and memorize which hands are good enough to play past blinds no matter what. It isn’t exactly rocket science to know that ace-king is a good hand and two-seven is not.
The truth is that skill refers to a number of small things that only experienced poker players can do. Watching other players for tells and other small signals is an important part of being successful at poker, but one that can only be learned through many matches. Knowing how and when to bet is also a big part of poker. The beginning player may think that betting is done in a simple formulaic matter, but in reality professionals use bluffs, set traps, and even occasionally throw chips in the blind to confuse opponents.
And that’s not all. Players use table position to play bad hands that would usually be folded right away. Some players use sunglasses and hats to hide their faces and expressions as much as possible. Poker is a complexly played game where small advantages such as knowing how much to bet and how to use big blind can be the difference between winning and losing. In the future, we will cover all of the mentioned strategies in full detail. For now, just realize that skill in this card game is a much more valuable asset than luck ever will be in the long run. And it certainly holds more value than a simple twenty percent.
Filed under: Strategies
