Is Poker a Game of Skill or Game of Chance?

And so the debate rages.

What is my opinion?

Glad you asked.

My answer is poker is a hybrid of the two.  You can’t shake the game of either.  I’ll advocate both sides before arriving at my conclusion of whether it is skill or luck.

Poker is Luck

Nobody on the planet can deny poker isn’t laced with luck.  The most notorious player in the world, Phil Hellmuth, is quoted as saying “If it weren’t for luck I’d win ‘em all.”  Moreover, you can’t walk around any poker tournament without hearing shouts of “luck” and “lucky” smattered within conversations.  Recent winner WSOP Joe Hachem also acknowledged you need a lot luck to win a tournament so big.  I don’t think any pro would doubt the veracity of this statement. Needless to say poker players recognize luck within poker.

And the game itself yields it.  Luck is built into the game.  Whenever pocket Aces are busted by another hand before the flop, that’s luck.  It’s lucky in the sense that the other hand was highly improbable to win against the Aces and yet it happens.  And people play hands where they know they are not favorites, when they play from behind.  They know they are banking on luck.  Doug Lee is famous for this.  If you’ll recall from a past tournament (not sure which but the reruns have been plentiful) Lee called with only a flush draw and down one card on the river and won.  Lee knew he was a dog, but still went with a roll of the dice and banked his bank on luck.

In fact, here is a video of an even better example of Doug “Lucky” Lee trashing pocket Queens with 53 off.  If this isn’t luck, neither was me winning $10 on a scratch off ticket.

So you can’t say luck isn’t there. I can walk into a heads up match with Daniel Negreanu and take him down if the cards are lucky enough for me or conversely unlucky enough for Daniel. Everyone knows pros aren’t immune to the luck factor. This is why Phil Hellmuth so chides players like Hoyt Corkins for repeatedly going all-in. The all-in is a big time skill neutralizer and Hellmuth knows this, but its still part of the game and has been effectively used by many.

In short, luck is all over poker.

Poker is Skill

Tune into next blog when I go advocate for poker being skill.