Poker is mostly skill and a bit of luck. You can hone your skill to trump luck.
Poker is one game that is more about skill than luck. Imagine a slot machine. It has a random number generator. There is no way you can control or influence a random number generator. You bet a coin and are a sitting duck. Your chance of winning is at the mercy of the random number generator. This is not the case with poker. You have a great deal of control over your wins, losses and the game as it progresses.
The Role of Skill in Poker
Let us consider the absolute start of a game. You have your cash and sign up for a game. The players join in and the hole cards are dealt. Unless you have to stake the small blind, you can fold and avoid risking any money. It is up to you to decide whether or not your hole cards are worthwhile to continue playing. With most other games at a casino, offline or online, you cannot withdraw without placing a bet. You cannot withdraw in the middle of a round either. Poker allows you to do this so it is not all about luck.
You are playing against a system in most other games. It could be the dealer and the cards being dealt. It could be a random number generator or some other type of machine. Luck weighs heavily in all such cases. Poker is not as much about all the cards. It is limited to the hole cards and the community cards. You have to play against the players. They are being subjected to the same scope of luck. It is a level playing field. Skill emerges as the more influencing factor when luck has played its part.
Whether it is folding or raising and bluffing or reading a game and the other players, skill plays a vital and definitely a major role in poker. Luck is certainly a factor but only to an extent. You have the freedom to overrule luck by simply folding.
Turning Bad Luck to your Advantage in Poker
You cannot turn back luck to your advantage in most games. Poker is an exception. If you keep getting bad hands and the rounds are not going in your favor, you can always come up with a tactic to pretend to have poor hole cards when in fact you don’t. Others may perceive you as weak, due to your bad hands in previous rounds, and you can raise the stakes to an extent wherein you bag a handsome win.
