Is Poker a game of Skill or Chance?

[Decado]

I spotted this article when I was browsing today.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/6248553.stm

What are your thoughts? Is a professional Poker player a master of skill or just plain lucky? I don't really play poker much so I can't say but I do know we have a few people here who do.
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[Ujitsuna]

I suppose it's a mixture, I'd say about 70% luck and 30% skill. Bluffing and things like that can win you a round if you're good enough at it. If you're always lucky however you nearly always win, even if other players start to lower their bets because of that.

[Archy]

Luck as more of the advantage.

I play poker, I know what it's like to get bad luck. And if I did get bad luck, I almost always certainly lose within two or three rounds if the bad streak continues. If I get good luck, though, I almost certainly win some rounds regardless of how I'm inferior to the other players.

Skill is bluffing, being able to deceive the opponent and all that. I'm not a good bluffer, personally, but I've been fooled.... tons of times. This takes time to master, though. A damn lot of time.
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[Decado]

Could it not be that for an amateur poker player that luck is a large factor but a professional poker player that luck doesn't really enter the equation and so becomes a game on skill instead?
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[John Layfield]

A good way to determine that would be to check the results of national and/or international poker tournaments of years past. If the same people pop up on a semi-regular basis over a period of a few years, it would certainly appear that skill rather than luck plays a larger part on the professional circuit.
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[Ujitsuna]

[Exile]

Skill is definitely a factor, like John says if the same players pop up it's got to be something they're doing right? Well I've seen Phil Ivey (for one example) in enough finals to think he's got to have some kind of edge other than being just plain lucky since anyone can work out the percentages someone has on a hand. Sure luck can play into things but I don't think it's the larger factor compared to skill in winning a tournament.
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[Sailor Sexy]

Yes, there is certainly a measure of skill involved. I mean, look at Chris Moneymaker. He won the World Series of Poker a few years back and hasn't done anything since. Then you have people like Phil Ivey, Jesus Ferguson, Phil Helmuth, and so on who make a lot of final tables, not so much at the WSOP, mainly because of the amount of players there so luck plays a higher factor, but in the smaller events.

So, the skill needed is the ability to read other people and pick up on their tells. If it's a game of a bunch of veteran players, then skill becomes more of a factor. If you have a lot of first time players, and even worse, internet players, then it shifts greatly to luck. What I mean by that is, very rarely will a veteran player play a junk hand in the hopes of getting lucky and picking up that one card he needs. The internet player does that more often than not and thinks they're hot stuff if they luck out and get that card.
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~Uguu!~

[Cedric]

It's a bit of both pretty much. On an average, counting home games and high-stakes poker in Vegas, I'm predicting that the ratio is 65% luck and 35% skill.

Home games are pretty much based on luck alone. You're with your friends and you're just trying to have a good time. Regardless of the buy in, you're playing with your friends. That implies that the game isn't that important and you just want to hang out with them.

However, the ratios change as we get to the big time high stakes cash games. People who play these games for a living rely on skill and not luck. As they say, they don't play their hands; they play their opponent hands. If someone has the other guy on a draw, then they'll use their multiple techniques to brush them aside. This needs the skill of memory (betting patterns), and the skill of hiding your own hand. Luck is something you can't rely on when you start facing serious poker players. You need to rely on your abilities more than luck at that point.

The playing field is also an issue. If there are more people, luck is the overwhelming factor. The Main Event for the WSOP is high stakes, but really it's just an over-glorified house game. The reason why pros barely win it now is because everyone enters this tournament regardless of skill. If you have the money, you can play. In this atmosphere of random players, of course it's going to rely on luck. Alan Cunningham finished the highest among the "pros" but he only took 4th place. The last pro to win the Main Event was Carlos Mortenson at 2001.

If luck wasn't involved, then the pros would win them all. They have the distinct advantage in every tournament. Sometimes luck does kill them though. I don't think I've ever seen people like Phil Ivey or Daniel Negreanu bust out on a bad hand.
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[Timbo]

It depends on the type of poker. Five card draw has more luck, as there are fewer bets and the probability aspects are much more random, while something like Texas hold em has a lot of skill, considering you have to go through probabilities, bluffs can be more prominent, slow plays are trickier and there are more chances to read people. The best poker players don't get Royal Flushes, they win knowing their two pair or their two sevens are the highest thing on the table. If you are banking on hitting a royal flush to win it, you haven't thought out the likely hood of it and I would say you are a poor poker player.

Winning poker doesn't make you good at it, but winning consistently does. There's always the chance that they get the one card that will beat you, but if you have a 85% chance of victory and you bet high to force three players out to make it 96%, then that's a good bit of skill.
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[Flare]

I would say that with Texas Hold'em, which is what I play, it is both luck and skill. Luck dictates what cards you get and skill in how you play them. I would say that the majority of it is luck though. It is luck in what you get for your hand and luck that dictates what comes up in the community cards.
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[Inko]

I say that it is more a game of skill then luck, I mean the majority of people who win rely on there skills. Bluffing is more a thing of skill which I enjoy doing very much. but depending on your outlook on life, and you locus of control, depends on what you think on this matter.

[Fu Su Lu]

Luck is important, maybe more than skill. But skill is fundamental, since you gotta read your opponents from the first leads. Ones only play with winning figures, other will bet just to see your cards even if have nothing. Some people try to appear relaxed when have something good, others get anxious, asking too early : who goes?
Furthermore, you have to go inside your opponents mind and know what they think of you, so you can show to them the way they think you are, then you can clear them out... but with GOOD LUCK!! :wink:
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[Aurelien]

I think it's more luck than skill. As important as skill is in playing poker, there's not much you can do if you're unlucky and got crap cards. You can bluff, but if your opponent is not stupid, then they won't get fooled.

And while bluffing requires skill, bluffing also relies on luck as well since you can't predict whether your opponent would get fooled or not. So even the skill relies on luck as well. No point in bluffing with "ALL IN" if your opponent isn't fooled (who knows if they're crazy people and just go with "Oh well what the heck, let's play anyways" approach) because you're just screwing yourself.

In the end, luck would play much more role because if you got good cards (lucky), then you WILL win. The only way to lose if your opponent gets better cards (which makes you "unlucky").
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~City-States of Jowston and Tinto Republic~
06.06.2004 - 20.01.2008

[Amyral]

There's an element of luck, but I think there's a significant element of skill, and the importance of that increases as the field decreases (with a limit on that being a table or so, since once it gets down to only a few players, luck increases in importance). How you play based on what chances your opponent has changes things. There's a significant level of strategy involved that's not involved in, say, blackjack.

Of course, the sheer fact that there's a shuffled deck involved means you aren't going to get by saying it's all luck, but even with only a few great hands, a good player can still make it further. Like any game, a person without strategy can throw it all in whack, but I think there's enough to say it's not just a game of chance.