Poker
I just finished playing poker (Texas hold'em) with my buddies tonight and I had the most amazing luck. I ended up with four-of-a-kind two hands in a row. The probability of getting a four-of-a-kind on any given hand is about 1/4100, so the probability of getting it twice in a row is (1/4100)*(1/4100)=(1/16810000). The odds of this happening is in the same ballpark as winning the lottery, so I'm just amazed.
I'm thinking about going to Vegas in late July. A friend of mine won an online tournament with a prize package (approximately worth $12000) of an entry into the World Series of Poker. The WSOP is scheduled to have about 8000 players, with a prize pool of around $80 million. My buddy is definitely the best player among the people I play and I hope he does well in the WSOP. I don't do any online poker playing, but I'd like to try it. I think I would do decent, but I've never tried.
People who think poker is purely luck don't understand the game. On average, everyone will have the same amount of luck in the long term, so luck is cancelled out of the equation of who comes out ahead. The amount of skill a person has is the determining factor of how a player performs in the long run. In game to game, luck will factor in determining if a player wins, but luck is cancelled out in the long term. Winning in poker is analogous to performance in the stock market. Good companies will increase shareholder value in the long term, but from day to day, the stock price will fluctuate both up and down.
I'm thinking about going to Vegas in late July. A friend of mine won an online tournament with a prize package (approximately worth $12000) of an entry into the World Series of Poker. The WSOP is scheduled to have about 8000 players, with a prize pool of around $80 million. My buddy is definitely the best player among the people I play and I hope he does well in the WSOP. I don't do any online poker playing, but I'd like to try it. I think I would do decent, but I've never tried.
People who think poker is purely luck don't understand the game. On average, everyone will have the same amount of luck in the long term, so luck is cancelled out of the equation of who comes out ahead. The amount of skill a person has is the determining factor of how a player performs in the long run. In game to game, luck will factor in determining if a player wins, but luck is cancelled out in the long term. Winning in poker is analogous to performance in the stock market. Good companies will increase shareholder value in the long term, but from day to day, the stock price will fluctuate both up and down.
posted by Ray at 2:27 AM
3 Comments:
Congratulations on your spectacular hands! Just recently, I had my first pair of aces of the deal which eventually turned into a full house.
I agree with you that luck cancels out in the long run. As far as skill goes, I'm not sure what it really is in poker. Is it being able to bluff or to read an opponent? To me, I prefer to think of those things more as an art than a skill. What I'm saying is that those things aren't visually evident in poker and that's why many people perceive the game to be more luck than anything else.
To be fair, at the recreational level, the knowledge of knowing when to fold based on the flop separates the good players from the bad players. -Cecil
Being good involves a variery of skills, some of which you've listed. The other part of poker that people don't think about is probabilities, pot odds, and betting.
The pot odds is the amount of money in the pot verses the amount you need to call with. If the pot has $90 and your call is $10, then the pot odds is 9:1. This is very good pot odds. You would need to only win once out of every ten calls to break even. If you are on a drawing hand and you're chance of hitting is better than 10%, then it would be a good call. Otherwise, it would be a bad call. Pot odds also should play into what you bet. If you know your opponent is on a drawing hand, then you should bet enough such that he has bad pot odds, but not so much that you lose extra money if he does call and hit.
In gambling, you want to play the games with the highest return, and the same is true of hands in poker. If you mostly play hands that have positive return, you will more likely win in the long term (just like the casino).
The above just scratches the surface of poker theory.
What you've said is very interesting, but I think knowing poker theory alone is not going to make someone a great player. It may work well in an online poker game over a long period of time, but in real-life games where you see your opponents and they see you, there are many other variables at play that can affect your chances to win.
Knowing your opponent's style, reading your opponent's movements, using your wits, and being able to outbluff your opponent are just some of the things that can turn the tide in your favor. I haven't played online poker either, but you know what, we should get some people together and play some online poker and see how it goes. It would be very interesting because one of my friends, supposedly, kicks ass in online poker, but in real-life poker, shall we say, he's been underperforming... -Cecil
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