Chinese Poker, is any skill involved other than basic puzzling?

[Ferdinand Peelen]

Many will have heard how Phill Hellmuth lost over half a million $ recently on a night of Chinese Poker with Phil Ivey and Patrick Antonius. Even for $2,000 a point that is a big number for a game that's deemed to be down to purely luck (once you assume all three of the mentioned players master basic hand ranking knowledge and have skill to build optimal hands with the 13 cards they were dealt).

I've not played it often but do people agree that it's basically a 100% game of luck or have I missed something about its optimal strategy?

[biblesalesman]

Phil Ivey would never put up with the mental pain and head ache caused by playing with Phil Hellmuth unless he had an edge which guaranteed him to win lots of monies

[lamgabejambo]

I wonder how much is Phil Hell's bankroll is....

[Ferdinand Peelen]

He talks about his loss on the below link. Judging from his spontanious donations to charity and mortgage repayment his bankroll won't be what it used to be.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hD2DFBKNTdo

[Nsight7]

It isn't really luck against poor players, but against good players of any sort it is a very high variance game.

[johnnyrocket]

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I wonder how much is Phil Hell's bankroll is....

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i'm guessing busto, he gets run over by everything but the biggest fish and everyone knows this

[BigCummins]

Just like every other form of poker, mistakes can still be made. Whoever makes the fewest wins. Losing that much in one night had to be partly human error on phils part.

[T Money]

Is it just me or did Phil admit in that interview to writting bad checks to charity in order to motivate himself so that he could cover them?

Way to go Phil...looks like you've got life under control. What's the name of his book again?

[TheChad]

There is a ton of skill in C-poker. What I would do is sit down with a couple of generally poker-skilled friends and just play for a few hours. Afterwards, talk about who is ahead vs behind and their strategies. I've played it for money and I've made more money from C-poker relative to the number of hands than NLHE.

[Red_Diamond]

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I've not played it often but do people agree that it's basically a 100% game of luck or have I missed something about its optimal strategy?

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It would seem you have missed some things about optimal strategy. C-Poker used to be in the WSOP, was removed but many pros want it brought back in. Reason? The pros have more an edge in C-Poker than Hold'em.

That should raise some eyebrows.