The huge, raging fire in the great poker debate has always been whether poker is a game of skill or luck. Of course, winning players classify the game as one of skill as a means to boast their talent. Losing players may pass the game off as luck of the draw so as not to dismiss their ability.
Defining Skill and Luck
Webster’s American Heritage Dictionary defines skill as proficiency, facility, or dexterity that is acquired or developed through training or experience, while luck is defined as the chance happening of fortunate or adverse events; fortune.
Skill in poker involves having a proficiency for reading ones opponent, a facility to make the right decision, and the dexterity to adapt to ones environment. Being lucky or unlucky in poker hinges on catching fortunate or adverse cards at fortunate or adverse moments.
So which is it, skill or luck? It has been painstakingly proven over years of grinding it out on the tournament circuit bu top professionals like Brunson, Chan, Helmuth, other WSOP alum that poker is a game of skill. Results over time prove that skill bests luck in the long run. Like Mike McDermott says in Rounders, “If it’s luck, how come the same five guys make it to the final table every year.”
Where Does Luck Come From?
Those faces may vary and change over years, but the fact that skill outplays luck remains the same. So, since poker has been deemed a game of skill, how and where does luck factor in? Is it possible that skill creates luck? Perhaps superb skill and mental acumen are rewarded with fortuity. During the 2008 WSOP Main Event, poker pro Mike Matusow was definitely under the impression that cards could sense skilled players with positive (winning) attitudes.
If this is true, it means that good cards come to those who made the right decision with the good cards they’ve had in the past. Evidence of this exists in the rushes of several consecutive winning hands that players may experience over the course of a poker session.
In online poker specifically, skill does influence luck in the form of timing. A player’s reaction time affects which random card falls from the deck. So, how much effect does timing have on luck? Enough to assume that luck is created solely by skill? No.
So then perhaps luck is part of the equation that can be manipulated by the skilled. One could argue that skilled players put themselves in a position to get lucky, but one could also argue that perhaps truly skilled players would avoid situations where luck has too much of an influence on the outcome.
Then this again begs the question, how much influence does luck have over any outcome? Less than skill? Who really knows? Arguments still rage on from both sides, and it is a fire that may never be extinguished.
