[saucymew]

"Poker is a combination of luck and skill. People think mastering the skill is hard, but they're wrong. The trick to poker is mastering the luck. That's philosophy. Understanding luck is philosophy, and there are some people who aren't ever gonna fade it. That's what sets poker apart. And that's what keeps everyone coming back for more." -- Shut Up & Deal

[interroboink]

> mastering the luck

I feel there are multiple notions of "luck" in common use and the ambiguous term leads to misunderstandings.

In my mind, the purest form of luck is, by definition, not something that can be mastered. It is 100% beyond one's control to influence. Examples might include: your genetics, flipping a fair coin, etc.

But lots of people talk about "luck" as though it's something that somehow one take advantage of in a willful way. They say "make your own luck." Or perhaps "put yourself in situations where you're more likely get lucky." Or maybe "master luck"?

That's all fine, and is a worthwhile topic, but I would call that "skill". Maximizing one's odds of something (even something involving luck) is a skill.

Perhaps by "mastering luck" they mean not allowing it to psych you out — even if you're on a long losing streak, even while doing everything right. But again, I'd say saying level-headed is a straightforward skill (difficult though it may be).

Anyway, that's my little rant on the ambiguity of the term "luck" (:

[thornewolf]

the quote GP is considering "mastering luck" as understanding emotionally that sometimes you will lose. the quote asserts that handling your emotions is more difficult than the skill of the game.

so i think there is a chance that the quoted person would agree with your comment here, as I think it is orthogonal to the quote

[trhway]

>Poker is a combination of luck and skill

Luck follows (or at least positively correlates) with skill :) 30+ years ago in our company of friends in the university dormitories we had a guy who had the card deck handling skills of a major illusionist (and those skills were naturally a source of significant income for him). The guy was also tremendously lucky - well beside mere being alive and without broken bones while applying his skills for income :) - in particular once he won an amount enough to buy 1-bdrm apt in St.Petersburg back then on a scratch lottery ticket that he bought at a random place on our way while we were walking to some business meeting in a city that we just arrived that morning. If it were a skillful illusion, then it was way beyond anything i've heard or seen before :)

[interroboink]

I'm not sure I follow... You feel that his skills as an illusionist somehow helped him win on that scratch lottery ticket?

[eschneider]

I used to be the absolute BEST at scratch lottery tickets. OTOH, "every ticket a winner" used to be a thing, and I had free access to an MRI machine at the time.

Sometimes, you make your own luck...

[WalterBright]

I thought the people that administer the lottery keep track of the winners, and investigate any statistically anomalous winners.

[eschneider]

You may have noticed that "every ticket a winner" scratch cards are no longer a thing.