Poker is 60 per cent luck, 40 per cent skill.
That’s what I tell everyone outside of the game when they ask the ‘luck or skill’ question.
It’s shorthand for a longer answer that I’m not interested in outlining, and they don’t want to hear.
When you’re in the pub, who wants to talk about expected value and equity?
So I stick to the set 60-40 answer.
But the truth is, I don’t even really believe it.
It’s impossible to work out the true nature of luck in poker – there are so many variables.
OK, everyone knows that AK v QQ is about 50/50, give a percentage point or two.
But what luck variable do you attach to your queens, when someone away from the table is dealt aces?
Often the signs aren’t so clear
And since he’s missing when his aces are mucked, we never know how lucky we have been to dodge them.
Luck is everywhere in poker.
And most of it is invisible and immeasurable.
I busted out last night, a few spots off the bubble, and I left feeling pretty hard-done by.
But after thinking over the night’s play, I was actually lucky to still be in the tournament at that stage.
Now bear with me…I’m about to describe a poker hand.
In a rare un-raised pot, I sat in the small blind with 4-2 suited on a board of 3-5-7.
I was up against a big blind, and a button limper.
I had been re-raising the button’s steals, so I guessed he had weak broadway cards and wanted to see a cheaper flop.
As it turned out, I was wrong.
I checked, intending to check-shove my straight draw.
The big blind checked behind.
The button raised, as I had hoped, and I was all set to spring my trap…
Then, out of position, the big blind shoved.
He was now committed to the pot, and all the fold equity I had been wanting to use, evaporated.
I folded, with a certain amount of frustration, but it’s very lucky that I did.
The big blind had been slow-playing two pair, and the button called with the flopped straight (4-6).
Now, that was lucky.
Poker has endless moments of luck determined by how the cards fall.
But sometimes it is the luck that we don’t see and can’t measure that decides who takes home the money.
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