[duncanawoods]

>> Poker is not a lottery, the cards are not 'stacked against us

Not quite.

Cash games with rakes and evenly matched players are effectively "stacked against you". Every player at the table will be a loser. Even if you are +ev, a high rake can still make you a loser.

Very large field MTTs are close to lotteries. A good player can not expect to play one hundred 1000 player tournaments and beat variance. Assuming the typical definition of a good player being twice as likely to win, confidently beating variance requires 1000s of tournaments.

[mod]

Nobody is twice as likely to win the lottery. Saying that it's "close to a lottery" is clearly wrong.

Similarly, no game is evenly matched, and there's no particular reason any given player can't elevate their game to the point of beating the rake.