Poker is a card game played with a randomly shuffled deck, so luck is an inherent part of the game, and on any given day a “bad” player may win money versus a “good” player. Over the long run, however, skill, not luck, will be the deciding factor as to who wins or loses.
Firstly, it should be noted that leading economists Steven D. Levitt and Thomas J. Miles recently wrote a paper on the skill of poker. The two economists studied the results of the 2010 World Series of Poker, and found that of 720 players labeled highly skilled, each made an average of 30 percent profit on their bets. What’s more, with the rise of online poker, results-tracking websites have been created, which track the profits and losses of poker players. It is easy to see that although the vast majority of players are losers, some turn a large profit over hundreds of thousands of poker hands.
The rules of the game also indicate much skill, and there are a number of small decisions which players must perfect. In Texas Hold’em, a popular variant of poker, each player is dealt two face-down cards before the first round of betting. During the betting, each player essentially bets how much they believe their hand is worth. This is where the skill lies. A player with a king and a jack in their hand may realize he has a fairly strong hand, but depending on how much other players bet, they may decide to fold their hand because another player may have an even better hand. So there is skill in determining the relative strength of any given hand.
What’s more, a player with two aces in her opening hand knows she has the best hand. What is difficult for this player, then, is making other players believe she does not have the strongest hand, while still making money. In other words, there is skill in extracting money from opponents.
Luck rears its ugly head, however, when the player with the two aces loses to the player with the king and jack. Scenarios when the best hand loses are common, but do not determine the long-term winners. The player who is experienced enough to know when his king and jack are beat will, in the long run, make more money than the player who does not recognize his king and jack are beat.
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