USA Today skill vs luck

[Clowngod]

[ QUOTE ]
There is a luck component in poker.. So in legalistic terms - it is a game of chance ... thats why its called 'gambling'
Chess is a pure game of skill..

[/ QUOTE ]

There is no such think as "luck". What you people are talking about is "variance". A long period of downside variance or a highly unlikely event (like a perfect-perfect suckout) is only "bad luck" because you choose to call the event that. There is no "bad luck" particle in the universe or "bad luck" force that causes these events. They are just the result of the statistical reality that random events are not uniformly random but bunch from time to time. And, that even highly unlikely events like "perfect perfects" do occur given a large enough sample size.

I play about 30,000+ hands per month and haven't had a losing month in over 4 years. Either poker is a game of skill or I'm "lucky" to cosmically unlikely degree.

The problem is simple. For most players their edge (if they have one) against the competition is either smaller than the variance so that it may take a long time to measure their relative skill, or their edge is smaller than the rake so that being a good player still makes them a lifetime loser.

The issue then is over what period or time, or number of hands you are defining for. Clearly for any single hand of poker the variance or "luck" component is a tidal wave compared to the skill component. Unfortunately judges tend to look at this. It's only if we can convince them to look at it from the perspective of the player who plays 100's of thousands of hands that the skill component predominates. Since most players don't play that many hands, for most players poker is a game of chance.

Look at it this way. When I walk up to the craps table, I'm gambling. When the casino books my bet at the same table, they are not.