chess or poker

[David Nicoson]

What does it mean for a game to "require" skill?

Beyond understanding the rules, a game requires no skill specific level of skill at all. Beating specific players (and I mean this in a long term, +EV sort of way) requires an amount of skill.

So if I rephrase the question, is it easier to beat poker players or chess players? Well, clearly, it depends on which players. Beating me at chess requires less skill than beating Stu Unger at poker, but beating Tiffany Williamson at poker requires less skill than beating Kasparov at chess.

One huge difference between the games is that it is very easy for poker players to overestimate their skill due to the noise of the luck factor. So we see players with vastly different skill levels competing against each other.