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?