The Poker Skill Vs. Luck Argument
What do you say to people who argue that poker is more luck than skill after understanding the fundamentals of play?
Whenever my friend and I play we always end up in argument about different styles of playing poker and how luck comes into play for winning players. I argue that you should always play aggressive poker if you want to win. That is, raising your good hands preflop (depending on position) and betting your winning hands post flop (depending on the board and your read on your opponent). He says that you should play aggressive only sometimes and claims I lose from playing aggressive. It is true I have ran my stack into the ground from being too aggro in spots that I thought were good to play. At the same time, he was on a heater - getting great hands and connecting with the flop often. I couldn't get a great hand so I wanted to play the button a little loose to try and outplay him.
My view is that you can play more mediocre cards on the button if you have a post-flop plan because it's more about your position rather than your cards (I might be wrong). This to me is where part of the skill of the game comes in. Yes you can be too aggressive, but I've seen pros make that mistake as well because it's not possible to play perfect poker (never making a mistake in the hand). But by playing more aggressive you put pressure on your opponent and induce them to make more mistakes.
I think in the long run playing aggressive will win more than a passive play style. He argues that you should only play TAG and that LAG is bad. I think that's up to debate and depends on the player as well as the table. I asked him about players like Ole Schemion who is a huge winner known for his LAG style. He says that he is just lucky and that he is capable of playing pros like Schemion because it's about playing the player.
This to me just becomes a circular argument. How can you convince someone that skillful poker players are more than just lucky? How do you determine who is a good poker player when luck is indeed involved and on the less skillful players side? I'm sure if any person did decide to play one of these pros they could get lucky and win a number of times. In the long however, the pro is coming out as an overall winner. It's like those fish you see at tables who go on heaters and build a huge stack. But they will make many mistakes when luck is not on their side causing them to lose their stacks. But it is hard to make this clear because winning always inflates your ego in poker. It also counterintuitive to think that a person who loses could be far more skillful.
tl;dr How do you argue that poker is a game of skill as opposed to luck when it takes a large sample of games to determine who the winning player is.
Sorry for the long post but this is the most frustrating argument and seems impossible to conclude due to ego and variance.
12 Replies
Poker is not a pure skill game like chess. In chess, the stronger player always wins because there is no luck. But in poker, luck exists in every hand, from your hole cards to the river, and in every tournament from start to finish. No one can escape it.
Luck is the foundation. You need it to even have playable cards, and you need it again for those hands to actually hold up. Even the best pocket pair can lose when the board runs against you. Without luck, no amount of knowledge or study will carry you to the end.
Patience, Calmness, and Discipline are what keep you alive long enough for luck to come. These mental characteristics are not easily learned or changed, but they are the real edge in poker. They prevent you from tilting, wasting chips, or forcing action. With strong character, you can survive the downswings and wait for luck to turn.
Skill comes last. It is useful, yes — to extract maximum value when luck gives you good hands and when your discipline has kept you alive. But skill is learnable through books and practice, and it can never replace luck or character.
That is why I believe the true formula of poker is:
Poker = Luck + Character (Patience, Calmness, Discipline) + Skill (last).
You may win a few tournaments with just skill and luck, but without strong character, you will lose most of the time. On the other hand, with luck and strong character — even with only a bit of skill — you can beat the pros and go deep in tournaments.
tl;dr How do you argue that poker is a game of skill as opposed to luck when it takes a large sample of games to determine who the winning player is.
Sorry for the long post but this is the most frustrating argument and seems impossible to conclude due to ego and variance.
Are you actually trying to convince a friend or convince yourself? Just win the money and let that speak for itself, if your friends play with you or don't and never find out who really cares. Why do you need to convince someone else who's not trying to consistently make money at poker that it's possible?
I like to use the reserve when explaining how playing better will win you more often. If I were to try to lose my money as fast as possibly on roulette but am limited to $100 worth of bets per spin, it doesn't matter what bets I place or what numbers I choose because my EV will be the same, regardless. Now let's do that with poker. I can just checkcall the nut low on all street
Can't argue with that last statement, whatever it means.
Wow, I haven't checked the forums in quite some time, and I decide to check NVG only to see some dumb post from my first account being resurrected from the dead a decade later lol. How ****ing random.
Are you actually trying to convince a friend or convince yourself? Just win the money and let that speak for itself, if your friends play with you or don't and never find out who really cares. Why do you need to convince someone else who's not trying to consistently make money at poker that it's possible?
I have no idea why this random account with its first post decided to necropost this long dead stupid thread. Also, did you not realize you were replying to such an old question? Somehow, I am still here to reply lol. This is from when I first began to learn and play poker. I was playing 2NL online. I remember I *really* wanted to be a winning poker player and was a broke college student who would get sad about losing a few bucks. Whatever I was saying in the OP was stupid and I was clueless. What you're saying is basically the right answer to my pointless question.
Poker is not a pure skill game like chess. In chess, the stronger player always wins because there is no luck. But in poker, luck exists in every hand, from your hole cards to the river, and in every tournament from start to finish. No one can escape it.Luck is the foundation. You need it to even have playable cards, and you need it again for those hands to actually hold up. Ev
Epic bump, .... after 10 years hiatus, ........ thread dormant from post 66 January 2015 to post 67 September, 2025.
who knew poker had a "true fomula" :p
"Long-awaited" - I think there might be a better way of phrasing this.
Absolute droolers think poker is 99% luck
Midwits who think they are smart but arent think poker is mostly skill
Actual great players with experience realize poker is 99% luck.
Insert normal distribution meme template.
To honor this very high stakes important debate + bumped thread, my opinion is that online poker is near the ceiling in individual's skill expression of modern careers over the long term. (my condolences to ppl who run under-ev/bad/low volume on higher stakes). If you would get a massive realistic study made/magically got perfect information about the variance of performance/outcomes in different careers explained by individual's skill or merit, that would be pretty disconcerting information for average joe when comparing them to online poker. (ofc they wouldn't care).
Joe Pesci did an interview once on his acting career, and he said something like you need to get lucky but you need to be prepared, no sense in getting lucky if you aren’t prepared. So I feel like on a less extreme scale this applies to poker, you need to know how to extract value with strong hands when you get lucky. It’s a mix of both
I dropped in to have a look at my previous response to this thread. As I recall, what I wrote back in the day was cogent and succinct, breaking down the issue and settling the debate in a few brief sentences. Alas, my response must have been in one of the other 14 threads on the subject, as it is not here.
To the best of my memory what I said was "Blah, blah, blah, luck matters alot in the short term, not so much in the long term, but the short term can last a really long time, and can easily last longer than your bankroll does."
