In this article, I would like to try and give some insight into the age old battle of is poker a game of skill or luck. I have personally been a money and free poker online player for some 7 years. I have made some nice cash at times but I have also busted several bankrolls.
In my opinion a skilled player is one who can recognize betting patterns, understand flop odds, and percentages, and have a solid concept of strategy and theory. I have noticed however, not matter how well skilled one may be, you must account for variance, and sometimes aggressive, even poor play from others.
I believe in conclusion it is best to assume that poker is a combination of both skill and luck.
The assumption would be based on this conclusion that you have to be both pre flop aggressive, as well as post flop smart. Many times one might find themselves in a position where they made the proper call, yet they find themselves behind due in part to an opponents luck hitting a one or two outer.
It is very difficult to try and overcome such a situation. This also can be attributed more toward online game playing vs. traditional brick and mortar casinos because of the amount of hands dealt online. The action of online poker is much faster, and decisions must come much quicker.
Many individuals feel that they take more bad beats online as opposed to live play. This mathematically can be attributed to the number of hands both seen, and played. As well, there is a tile factor involved when one feels that they are being pushed too hard, or perhaps have suffered a bad beat.
When playing online players can play more irrational and play hands that they normally wouldn’t play to try to get back money that they have lost.
An experienced player will more than likely notice the tendencies of opposing players, and exploit these factors to their gain. To the loosing player the loss seems coincidental and becomes another defeat in their mindset based on luck. The truth of the matter is this is not the case, and the loss is due to the flaws in their technique due to lack of experience.
This is a game of two equals, luck and skill, neither in my opinion more important than the other, however the successful poker player knows how to manage both aspects of the game, learns skill playing free poker online before moving into money games and uses skill, in effect, tweak luck and so sustain consistency in winning.
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March 22, 2010
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