Yeah it's so awesome that poker attracts suckers to believe in a false hope that they can actually win.

When people ask about luck vs skill, I like to quote the example of Annette Obrestad' "no look" win of a 180-player MTT - a lovely illustration of the impact of exceptional skill.

http://www.pokerlistings.com/videos/...t-win-6bc031f6

I think you are missing the point of the "long run". If I have an edge over you in some game, so that each hand I have a 55% chance of winning $10, and a 45% chance of losing $10, then the probabilities (rounded slightly) are:

After 10 hands:
- P(I am ahead) = 0.5044
- P(You are ahead) = 0.234
- P(We are level) = 0.262

After 100 hands:
- P(I am ahead) = 0.817
- P(You are ahead) = 0.135
- P(We are level) = 0.05

After 1000 hands:
- P(I am ahead) > 0.999
- P(You are ahead) < 0.0007
- P(We are level) < 0.0002

Google "binomial distribution" for lots on this.

I got lucky last night, and I wasn't even playing poker!

Let's think about the whole "in the long run, skill always overcomes luck". That must clearly be true. So if I took 1000 identical guys and had them play some unlimited texas hold-them over maybe 1 million hands, it is going to work out in the end. Or is it? Thanks to this handy variance simulator.




Wat? Didn't skill win out in the end? I know I picked a modest win rate, but plenty of people add enough tables or play zoom to put their WR in that region. In our little sample of 1000 players who win at exactly 2bb/100, 700 of them ran between 1.25bb/100 and 2.65bb/100. That means 300 of them didn't. Let's look at someone in the bottom half. A guy who actually wins exactly 2bb/100 thinks he wins about 1? Turns out that 6.9% of our sample actually won less than 1bb/100.

Let's think about a buddy who is on the bottom of the 70% CI. He won 13,500bb. He ran kind of bad, so definitely his skill did overcome luck. Of course, he has 6,500 fewer bb than a guy who ran average and 13,000 bb than a guy who ran as well as he did badly (the + size of the 70%). Some guy just made ~2x what our buddy did. In a pure skill game where the long run erases luck, does this happen? Answer: it happens in games that include luck and skill, but most people think about this all wrong. On the good side, only one guy in our sample actually lost. Wouldn't it suck to be that guy?

Again, real life is like this. People want to explain their genius leading to good results. My parents farm wheat. One of the annual risks is hail storms. Let's say that hail that damages crops is a circle a couple miles in diameter (not 100% sure, but let's say). It would be really convenient to have your whole farm in one big lump, to minimize how far you drive in giant equipment. However if you break your fields up such that a single hail storm only gets one or two of them, you greatly reduce the chances that a single storm wipes out the whole crop.

If there were a farmer PTR, you'd have the various disasters that accompany farming creating poker-like variance in results. No doubt some guy who got exactly the right rain and no bad beats would be on farmer2+2, waxing on about how he was focused and in the zone this year. Some guy on the bottom of our 70% CI would be griping about how he ran bad and that the Earth is rigged.

Skill game with luck involved. If you want to compare games, look at the ratio of WR/variance.

Playing solitaire, one hand at a time ?

Started with poker, but switched to BJ.

Is it skilful to fold 94o UTG or to open it and flop top 2 v a set?

Read this article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/22/ny...ules.html?_r=0

but we can choose how much we want to put in the pot.

All dumb luck when all are equally or close to equally skilled.

Heres the thing. Skill hides in the vapors. Maybe the waitress walked by and caught V attention... now he looks at his cards fresh and sadly checks turn... you can get a fold here from a mid small pair with air.

Edges are hidden inside our villians emotions. Its all about extracting those emotions and extracting value. Obv they will hero call in spots but the times we outplay them in pots where we have no EV far out weighs the loss.

There's about a 420 buy-in difference between the results of the luckiest and unluckiest.
i.e. in the real world of 100NL, a player that expects to win at 2bb/100 for a million hands might make as much as $40,000 if he runs like God, or he might lose $2,000.
If that's not a clear indication of how big a role luck can play in longterm results, I don't know what is.

It's like you're at sea. You can't control the waves but you can learn how not to drown.

Said this waaaay better than I could have.

most people cant stand agression due to different subcons reasons.... that's why lots of illiterate psychopaths very successful at poker.
But i dont understand what it has to do with skill thing.
Merely mind this term - "agression".Very scientific one.

By agressive means raise and bet more often when you have a strong hand so you can not only inglate your win rate but to narrow ranges so to speak.