Luck Versus Skill in Playing Poker Games

Is poker a game based on luck or skill? This debate has been going on for quite sometime now. The group of people who are into the game, say that the rules and strategies are required to play this game. Without skills, one cannot dream of winning this pot. Whereas the other group who are watching poker from a distance, feel that it's a game totally driven by luck and probability. They feel that it just another game of gambling or lottery requiring no skills.


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But if you think harder then poker is a game which has tournaments. We never heard of any other so called gambling tournaments like say blackjack tournament. The famous poker legends definitely didn't win the World Series of Poker, twice by fluke. From various studies it is clear that a player with knowledge of the game fair better compared to a layman. In Pennsylvania where gambling was being prohibited, a judge named Thomas A. James Junior, declared Texas Holdem to be a game driven by skill and thus does not fall under the category of gambling. This clearly spells out that poker requires much more than sheer luck.

But again if you see it from the other side, then a lucky player with the right cards will go a long way and even win a particular game. And you will have to agree that a bit of luck is required everywhere. Even a skilled poker player will need some luck to push him further towards winning the pot. But poker is generally badly confused with gambling. Moreover it is difficult to say that it's a game of skill, when a game of payer is played only once. At such a situation it is difficult to predict that which of the two (luck or skill) contributes to the game.

The most rational thinkers will not bother getting into the debatable topic of luck versus skill. They know that poker players should be well aware of the rules, bets and strategies to be able to make the best hand of five cards. A completely ill-informed player cannot go a long way. Luck is again a factor that ensures an easy win. A great set of cards does have an advantage. Where skill can be relied on, luck is not reliable. One cannot go on winning consecutive games on the basis of luck. A player with both good luck and good skill will definitely win the pot but a player with both bad skill and bad luck shouldn't hope much. So let's just say that poker requires both luck and skill in the right combination.

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