Succeeding in the startup world is luck like succeeding in poker is luck. Sure, there is an element of luck undeniably involved, but in the long term, raw talent should play a significant role as well.
You do realize that you can play hundreds of poker hands in a night. For your analogy to hold, you'd need to be able to start companies for a million years.
Of course! There are professional poker players who run bad for months at a time even. Variance is a cruel mistress. That doesn't negate the fact that talent certainly gives you an edge in poker or in the startup world. It's easy to say it's all luck, but that attitude doesn't pay service to the many successful people who had raw talent or an excellent idea in addition to the luck that allowed them to become successful.
A better game analogy would be a game of dice where you win by rolling double 6's. Except that to be able to roll in the first place, you have to be able to solve all of the differential equations in the back of a college engineering textbook.
What's the best way to improve your odds at this game? Be sure you get to roll more than once.