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Every poker player knows that poker is a game of skill – it’s a hard lesson that is usually learned when a new player, full of enthusiasm, enjoys some success in the lower stakes games, and then has their illusions shattered when they move up to higher stakes games too soon. For non players, however, the debate of whether or not poker is a game of luck or skill is one that rages on even today. Fortunately, scientists testing the theory that poker is a game of skill are coming down squarely on the side of poker players. Recently, a British university tested the theory by getting some poker novices to play a large number of poker hands. They then took another group of poker novices, and gave some of them a sheet of poker hand rankings, and told them to play only good hands. These players were all inexperienced, however the ones armed with the poker hand ranking charts played fewer hands than the novices who did not have the chart, and had a much higher win percentage. The study, which tracked the player’s performance over a large number of hands, proved that luck is only a small factor – skilled players do better than unskilled ones in the game of poker. If you’re a poker novice yourself, then the one thing you can take away from this study is that playing fewer hands is a good quick fix for your poker performance. If you are selective about the poker hands that you play you will do better than a player who chases a win every hand, and puts money in the pot unnecessarily. As for the luck vs skill debate, it’s only a matter of time before more studies emerge, and even more countries recognise that poker is indeed a game of skill. That’s great news for those of us that like to play poker online, and enjoy our poker tournaments! |