15. Juni 2009

Poker - Is it a game of skill or is it a game of luck?

Is poker a game of skill or is it a game of luck? If you are a regular poker player you will claim that it is a game of skill. Now the scientists have tasked themselves with proving it once and for all.

The motivation to prove whether luck or skill is the main factor in being successful in poker is in fact extremely important to the gambling industry and players alike. There are very different rules in different states and countries that differentiate games of chance and games of skill.

In order to determine the luck skill balance in real poker games, a group of scientists studied 55,000 poker games that were played online and which constituted literally millions of hands. They determined the mean of the players' winnings and losses along with the amount by which these values varied. If the variance was large, then luck played a major part, whist if it was small it would suggest that skill dominated. In terms of the size of the winnings of the better players and the losses of the bad players, if luck was the major factor there would not be much difference, but if skill was dominant then the better players would win more and the poor players would lose more. They concluded that skill dominated.

Another group looked at a different method. They examined over 100 million hands and concentrated on determining the number of hands that finished on a showdown, which is when players expose their cards, compared to the number of hands that were won due to all other players folding. They found that only one quarter of games ended in a showdown which indicates that skill is dominant rather than luck as for the most part cards are invisible.

An interesting by-product of this study was information on how much poker needs to be played before a player gains enough skill to overcome the fluctuations due to luck. They determined that on average this was 1000 hands which equated to 33 hours of live poker or 13 hours of poker played online.