[jjxw]

I enjoy chess and Formula 1 too! I think poker is broadly misunderstood to be a game of luck disguised as a game of skill when in reality it is very much a game of skill in the long run. The "long run" here being hundreds of thousands of hands.

There are absolutely brilliant plays in poker at its highest levels when a player finds an interesting line with a particular hand. I agree that most poker "highlights" are not of this variety, but instead highlight the gambley nature of the game, but that is not the whole story. To me, studying and understanding the dynamics of good poker strategy has the exact same beauty and elegance which you use to describe football / chess / Formula 1.

I'd fully agree that the way poker markets itself in many contexts definitely leans into the degenerate nature of it and does itself no favors. However, there is a very complex beautiful game of skill behind all of it.

[qkeast]

I’m genuinely curious—what makes for an “interesting line with a particular hand?” Do you have any examples?

[jjxw]

I found this one [1] pretty interesting - finding a raise with top pair weak kicker is not intuitive. There is some solver work in this video which is probably overly technical for a casual observer, but will give a bit of flavor on how poker is studied at a high level.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jNVRwTSN-A