I know this thread is unlikely to get much love, and there's probably been many similar threads. But I don't pay that much attention, so this is the first one I've seen.
I find that "cards decide the winner" thing interesting. Lately it's seemed to me like skill is just kind of like cover charge to get in the room. ie, if you don't have pretty good skills, you either are gonna redeposit a lot or be out of the game pretty quick. The unskilled people pay the rake for everybody, while the skilled regs are left to play a zero sum game where luck determines the winner.
Yeah, some regs have more leaks than others, but in the overall scheme of poker skill the leaks create very, very small edges. Small enough that they can easily be overcome over a long sample by variance. Like for example, I generally suck, and one of my leaks is calling 3bets with small pp's too often. But how many extra times do I have to hit a set to make it not a leak, results wise, over a pretty large sample? Because it's *almost* justified already, not very many at all. Not saying that makes it less of a leak. Just saying I don't have to get insanely lucky to overcome it. Just a little lucky.
There are obviously people apparently proving this wrong, although it could just be that black swan idea. Somebody has to get lucky, and we'll inevitably worship whoever it is. I mean, everybody thought Durrrr was untouchable, till it turns out he wasn't.
One way to overcome this would be to play at stakes that you outclass. People used to talk about being overrolled for a game. Maybe in the future they'll look to be overskilled for the stakes. Of course, eventually everybody will move down to a game they can beat, and then that game will become unbeatable, and everyone will have to move down again.
If you want to be ahead of the poker curve, you better move down first.
Yep, that's the way it is. At least on those Thursday nights that I've been drinking.