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Poker is a Game of Skill
 

December 15, 2008

If there was ever any doubt, let it be made perfectly clear – poker is a game of skill, not chance. This is evidenced in how it is played. It doesn’t matter what kinds of cards you get, if you aren’t any good at the game you aren’t going to win. Same goes with getting lousy cards – but if you are a good poker player, you can still win.

This is a big question that has been coming up in the dealings with Kentucky and their attempt to seize domain names for the state. Part of their argument that the defendants made was that poker was a game of skill, not chance, and therefore should not even be included in their attempts to take the domain names.

The lower court judge said however that poker was a game of luck. He said that it all depended on the cards that you held and how you played them did not factor in. For anyone who has ever played poker you know that this is not the case, and it was somewhat surprising that the judge did not see that. Can you get a good hand and win by blind luck – absolutely it happens. However – can you stay in the game for any amount of time if you don’t have skill? No.

Poker is mostly about the decisions that are made at the table, and the way that the most skilled players read their opponents. You have to have the luck of the cards, sure, but you have to have the skill to know what to do with them. Without it you might have poker cards, but you won’t have a poker game.