[StellarWind]

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I would also be interested in how you would respond to the skill v. chance argument if it were phrased in this manner: Does chance account for over 50% of the results (of individual hands) in Poker?

I ask it this way because many state laws define games of chance as those in which chance predominantly determines the outcome. Thus if the outcome is determined by things other than chance (not just skill) more than 1/2 the time, poker is not gambling as legally defined (in those states).

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There are many hands you can never win by any method. There are also many hands where it is virtually impossible to lose except by deliberate dumping. But that doesn't mean there is no skill involved in those hands.

You need to strongly make the argument that poker is about winning money, not pots. An "outcome" is the *amount* of money won or lost. Once the politician or juror accepts this principle it is easy to see that skill plays an important role in determining the outcome of most hands.

Side issue: Poker is not a game at all. It is actually a generic name for a large class of games many of which are quite different from each other. There is no obvious reason why an old precedent that (e.g.) 5-card draw is a game of chance should be applied against the operator of a NL holdem game. Presumably this issue can be relitigated for every form of poker and cash game versus tournament as well. This is especially powerful for someone accused of running a tournament as the "outcome of the game" must mean the whole tournament and not just a single hand.

Side issue 2: Win rates are a red herring. Two chess masters of near equal strength playing a long match may experience a win rate very near breakeven. That doesn't mean chess is not a game of skill. It just means they have the same amount of skill. Forget all the 2 BB/100 stuff. Really terrible 6-max LHE players can easily lose 10-15 BB/100 in real online games (check a PT database). There can be a 20 BB/100 difference in win rate between an expert and an awful player sitting at the same table (+5 vs. -15). That's the real measure of the advantage a highly skilled player has over a terrible player. That's the amount of skill in the game.