More Skill, Less Luck

[ArcadianSky]

Just out of curiosity, I was wondering what aspects of poker, in general, would need to be changed to decrease the luck factor and increase the skill factor? (would changing the amount of cards or suits affect any of this?)

Edit: For those looking for specifics when I say "poker", I'll be more specific and say "NL Hold 'Em".

[Spy]

I don't think there is an answer to this question. Not if by skill you mean true poker skill. The skills used to succeed in poker require some degree of luck. If you were to eliminate the need for luck, you would in turn be eliminating the need for the skill.

You could make it a purely math game, but how is that skillful? Basic poker math is not difficult, and you'd still be at the mercy of the cards.

[CurryLover]

Not having a cap on the maximum buy-in. The deeper the stacks, the more skill comes into play. Luck is always a huge factor of course, but less so in deep stacked situations.

[Megenoita]

Time.

There is really no luck theoretically in poker. There is only short-run variance. If you play long enough, theoretically, to have the pre-flop and post-flop situations even out so that everyone involved experiences the exact same number of situations (even distributions of pre-flop hands, of flops, turns, and rivers), then the result will necessarily be that whoever plays the best wins, since everything else has been reduced to being the same.

Although most poker players wont play billions of hands so that this evens out perfectly, all pros and many amateurs play enough that it evens out a bit.

[AaronBrown]

The higher the blinds and antes relative to the stacks or bet limit, the more luck. In the old days, poker was played with no ante, and a blind that had to be raised, it could not be called. That is, if the blind was $1, you could only come in for $2 or more, you had to raise at least $1. That reduces the amount of luck to almost zero.

The more betting that is done late in the hand relative to early, the less luck. So if you started hold'em betting after the flop, or turn, you would reduce the amount of luck. A less radical step is to raise the amount of the big bet relative to the small bet. Also, pot limit tends to have less luck than either limit or no-limit.

[Megenoita]

And by luck you mean variance.

[rcs1537]

Banish the "river" card.

[AaronBrown]

[ QUOTE ]
And by luck you mean variance.

[/ QUOTE ]
Well, yes and no. Everything I said about "luck" is also true of variance. The more luck involved in the game, the higher the variance of outcome.

But I was really talking about the relative importance of skill. Chess, for example, has no randomness, no variance. But the same player still doesn't win every time. If you increase the amount of luck in poker, you decrease the relative effect of skill.

[Megenoita]

Define "luck".

Your point about chess is invalid. In chess, the player who plays better theoretically wins every time. In poker, this isn't true. It's only true of poker in the long run.

The way to reduce "luck" (variance) in poker is to maximize EV situations. For instance, if there were a NL game with no blinds and a bunch of fish who never bet, but almost always call (any piece), then I could win with no luck factor. I would just wait until the river every hand, and bet big with the absolute nuts. The reason NL has the least variance of all forms of poker (ala Mason Malmuth, Sklansky) is b/c it's the closest we can get to the above ideal situation. And tiny blinds don't reduce luck; they just make it easier to nut-peddle. But if everyone played as they should in small blind games (really, really tight), then the "luck" factor would be the same as in big blind games.

[demon102]

This is easy to answer, the less hands that u have to beat the less luck u need and the more skill comes into play. 9-10 handed u have to wait around for solid hands or position, shorthanded or hu ur hand means a whole lot less and it becomes more about ur skill. Hu it is easy to win a whole buy in without holding a pair the whole time. You just need to use ur skills and aggression and grind ur opp down.