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Is Poker Mostly Luck or Skill, or the Perfect Blend of Both?

Home » Guides » Is Poker Mostly Luck or Skill, or the Perfect Blend of Both?

Is Poker Mostly Luck or Skill, or the Perfect Blend of Both?

A person holds a poker hand with two aces and two fours at a poker table, with chips and card back visible.

All good poker players know there will be times when your hands just fail. Your nut flush gets trampled by the most unlikely full house on the river. Your pocket rockets get cracked by a set of 2s on the flop. And it happens over and over again. It’s all variance, and it’s an integral part of the game. 

But those who claim that success at the poker tables is only down to pure luck have never played the game, or they are just not very skilled players. If your strategy is watertight, your knowledge solid, and you adapt where needed, you’ll be aware of this. When the variance does get a bit much, take time out, study more, and come back at a later stage, refreshed and ready. You’ll soon be on track again and ready to take on your opponents in online poker.

Is There Really a Strategy in Poker?

Is poker mostly luck or skill? Success at the poker tables is a balancing act between the two. Luck is like lightning, it can strike anyone, anywhere. But with lightning as in poker, there are a certain set of variables. You can safely assume that a bolt of electricity from a blue sky on a summer day is less probable than one in a thunderstorm. I’d hardly take cover when it’s warm and balmy outside. Unplugging all electrical appliances when there’s a storm raging or avoiding shelter under a tree? That’s strategy.

Is there really strategy in poker? And why is poker strategy important? Well, luck will only get you that far before you find yourself with a bankroll that has seen better days, or this type of sign flashes across your screen after being the first player eliminated in an online game: “Your tournament has come to an end. Please try again next time!” A well-thought-out and well-executed strategy is essential to winning long-term at the poker tables.

This comes down to decisions you make at any given moment. Will you check, fold, call, bet, raise, 3bet, 4bet, or shove, among other fun poker terminology? Will you go stand under that tree in a thunderstorm? Hello? Golf, anyone? Strategize, and once you’ve taken into account most variables and made your play, then it’s all down to luck.

With the growth in popularity, poker has changed. Strategies have evolved. The game isn’t the same as years ago when legal online poker was a twinkle in the eye of some developer. How poker strategy has changed over the years is largely due to the larger pool of players online poker has brought to the game. Play, on average, is more aggressive and the skill divide between recreational and professional players is narrower.

Is Poker Really About Math?

Poker is many things, it seems. It is luck. It is skill. It is strategy. But is poker really math too, as it’s claimed? In fact, the importance of poker math cannot be stressed enough. Without even a rudimentary grip of poker maths, you might as well be holding your pocket aces drifting in a lifeboat out at sea. You’d have no idea of their intrinsic value apart from that it’s the strongest possible starting hand preflop. The flop will change everything. So will the turn. The river is called that because it sweeps your poorly played and weakly strategized aces downstream.

Applying math to poker is a boss move. With the math behind Texas Hold’em, for example, you’d be able to calculate fold equity, your pot odds, implied odds, and your outs on the fly. Greek? No, just math. Taking all of these into consideration would allow you to be able to make that final decision: check, fold, bet, raise, shove? However it pans out from there with the set of skills you’ve grinded for and that poker math brain of yours, you can be assured that you’d have made the right decision given a particular set of variables.

How Do Luck and Skill Intersect in Poker?

The intersection of luck and skill in poker could go by the name of “educated guess.” The beauty in poker is exactly that element of luck. It’s exactly why it attracts all the fish too (poker players need the fish). It can be frustrating that even after doing all the maths, strategizing all the strategies, and bluffing all the bluffs, the final say would always come down to luck. For good measure, there are even different types of luck in poker. We’ve all experienced beginner’s luck. Blind luck is that guy in the lifeboat. Luck in persistence is the one you want to aspire to.

There are 52 cards in a deck, 13 to each suit, four of a kind. Each player gets dealt two cards. There are five community cards to a player on the board. Those are solid numbers. They’re your stability, your base. That’s what you get to play around with. Learn all the rules, the strategies, the maths, and then get creative.

Play Poker Online at BetMGM Poker

Fired up to put your newfound knowledge and new poker maths skills to the test? Play online poker at BetMGM, available 24/7 with loads of different types of games to choose from. On joining you will also receive a generous BetMGM Poker bonus, a welcome gift from the house.

Have fun at the tables, and may good luck and good skill come your way.

Successful poker players know how to balance between luck and skill. Find out how a good strategy can help players to ride out the waves of variance.