[annacappa]

The reason poker is a successful game is because bad players can win. Otherwise why would a person who was bad at the game stake any money at all. Personally I would rather take the luck out of it and attempt to normalize (perhaps by playing duplicate hands) but I imagine it would be quite boring for non poker nerds and therefore non lucrative for everyone.

[piltdownman]

The reason poker is a successful game, outside of the inherent fun, low barrier to entry, and high skill ceiling, is that you can leverage one or many different skills to achieve victory hand to hand.

This includes 'soft skills' like body-language reads, speech-play, false-representation, baiting players into non-optimal play, as well as the underlying mathematical basis.

The luck element - known elsewhere as RNG Jesus - is mitigated completely over 10,000 hands by appropriately skilled players. There's a reason the composition of the final tables of the WSOP can be so static year on year, multiple bracelet winners wouldn't be a thing otherwise .

A fully optimised 'safe' player can be beaten both short-term and long-term live by a player who is skilled in reading tells, or simply bluffing. The BBV may be different, but the concept of a 'hero fold' exists for a reason - and is often more satisfying than a 'hero call' to veteran players.

[annacappa]

I’m an expert poker player.

What I said was 100% correct and didn’t need a bunch of extra unrelated stuff.

I’m making a fundamental point about randomness and poker which you are failing to understand. Stop and try to understand for a second instead of launching into mansplaining.

[piltdownman]

And I'm a golden retriever. My tail wags when I've a good hand.

Please take your reductive misandry elsewhere. It's impressing no one.

[annacappa]

So you’ve heard of mansplaining before, I’m guessing quite a few times.

Here is a suggestion. Read the comment the other person states and then engage with it instead of attempting to use it as a jumping off point for your post.

And btw, luck does not disappear over 10k hands. The final table at the wsop has not been static.

Since 2000 when hold’em poker became popular nobody has repeated back to back wins. If it was a game of skill we would expect the best player to keep winning.

[piltdownman]

Of course. Anyone with Direct Reports in IT gets training on how to handle narcissists and self-appointed experts when they devolve into bigotry to derail conversations.

As for your contention regarding the modern era, I simply answer 'Phil Hellmuth' with his 154 WSOP cashes 64 WSOP final tables. Negreanu, Ferguson and Seidel all have 40+ WSOP final tables. Hellmuth also has 17 bracelets to Ivey's 11.

[annacappa]

But zero back to back winners since 2000.

[cortesoft]

> Personally I would rather take the luck out of it

Then you should play Chess, or some other perfect information game. There are popular games that don't involve luck.

[annacappa]

I do and I play duplicate bridge, a game that has taken the luck out of a card game. I just like poker theory - I ran a bot for years - and I just don’t like variance that much and I guess I like the game for the strategy more than who has the most chips at the end, although obviously without the hazard it’s not anywhere as entertaining

[MaxfordAndSons]

Curious what do you mean by "I ran a bot"? Like, you programmed and/or operated a bot that played on real money sites?

[annacappa]

I programmed and ran a bot that played on real money sites.

[MaxfordAndSons]

Oh, so you cheated people out of their money. That's not cool.

[piltdownman]

Not in the slightest. No different than a player playing optimally or with tight adherence to a strategy like Brunson's SuperSystem. Game Theory Optimal Poker is just the given when playing MTT - although many platforms have some form of Real Time Assistance detection.

Even in live games they use poker solvers in between breaks to optimise your playing potential and reduce the range of 'playable hands'.

[MaxfordAndSons]

> Personally I would rather take the luck out of it and attempt to normalize (perhaps by playing duplicate hands)

There's something called "match poker" which does exactly that.