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Skill-Based Vs Traditional Games – Can One Be Too Lucky In Poker?

When it comes to gambling, discussions about luck as well as the skill involved in poker games have been ongoing for as long as the game has existed. Is poker a game of odds, expertise, or a blend of both?

It’s like the chicken and egg debate, never ending. There’s always the counter story, as there is with every other game / sport across the world. As with all such explanations, let’s break down the conflict and interpret poker into other games or situations.

Luck, skill, and a combination of the two!

There are three broad categories of games:

1. Skill-based games

These are the games that make a pro out of those who have mastered their respective mechanisms, spent enough time practicing the game, learned to read their opponents, and think strategically. Examples include:

• Poker: Managing the chances and decoding the oppositions. This can be played online or in a live set-up as well.
• Esports: Heard of professional online gaming such as Dota 2, Mobile Legends, or Counter Strike? It is like other standard sports where your teammates, skills, mental ability, and strategy play a big part in the outcome.
• Chess: It is purely a strategy-based game. There are thousands of combinations and mathematical strategies to winning or drawing the game. One must stay ahead of the opponent’s next move by thinking about his/her next possible moves in advance.

In most cases, skill games require a player’s alertness and speed when making decisions, and how well he or she masters techniques.

2. Luck-Based Games

Few games like Bingo, Lottery, Spin-the-wheel, Slot Machine, and Roulette are probabilistic; they are determined purely by chance. In such games, the players themselves have no control over the outcome and luck is the sole determinant. Mostly, these games are firmly under the ‘GAMBLING’ category and are played mostly for entertainment purposes.

3. Combination Games

This type of game needs the player’s skills and luck when faced with challenges or tasks in a game. Some games are a mix of random opportunity and danger together with planned choice. Like for example:

• Poker: Applying the poker example once again – the cards that are first randomly dealt to a player rely on luck but the way that they continue through the hand calls for great skill.
• Ludo: The chance appears from throwing the dice, but the move of the pieces implies the plan. Move the wrong piece and you could end up on the losing side.
• Blackjack: A probability mixed with choices made by players in this card game. The goal is to hit the number 21 but you have no control over the cards being dealt. Your skill is where you choose to Hit or Stand.
• Monopoly: It is mostly a chance-based game when it comes to rolling a dice and landing on the desired spot. But it also requires skill and strategy in trading cards and building properties.

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ALSO READ: Live Poker Series To Play In December 2024

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Randomness vs tactics in poker

Poker is usually believed to be a game of chance because the cards are distributed unevenly at the beginning of the game. However, it has been assessed repeatedly that professionals always defeat novices eventually, which is evidence that poker is a game of skill.

Example: One of the shocking bad beats in the record of WSOP Championships

At the time of the 2008 World Series of Poker Main Event, Justin Phillips was again playing poker, this time against Motoyuki Mabuchi in a $10,000 buy-in. Mabuchi had quad aces staring him in the face; a position that is considered an extraordinarily strong hand indeed! Phillips came back into the game, however, with a royal flush, the strongest of all poker hands.

Along with skills, Phillips’s calmness, patient but calculated thinking, and ability to act by raising at the right time also were the reasons that paid him off handsomely.

Why Skill Matters in Poker

1. Reading opponents: The knowledge that someone is bluffing or has a weaker hand than themselves.
2. Probability: Odds of hitting the needed card and comparing between two and three cards. Accordingly, you will know how much of a risk can be taken.
3. Emotional control: Being cool and composed at a time when all one has is a set of weak cards.

Lack of these skills would have seen Phillips hit a major wall but for the win, it was made possible by the above competencies.

Luck in other Sports

Cricket and Football: Weather factors are known to have significant effects on the outcome of a game. Forecasting rain, wind, or humidity could be an advantage for the teams.

Esports: Matches may be interrupted due to some technical difficulties or any other unforeseen circumstance.

Case Study: Wild Card Stage of Mobile Legends: Bang Bang

In the MLBB M6 Championship, which is ongoing at the time of writing this, a Wild Card match between the teams- China’s Dian Feng Yao Guai and Turkey’s ULFHEDNAR was interrupted due to an issue on gold laner DFYGzzzed’s phone. What is more shocking is that Team China could have ended the match if the misfortune had not happened. The game was eventually prolonged, resulting in DGYG losing the match.

Conclusion

You do not have to limit luck to board, dice, or card games because it is inevitable. Even traditional and electronic sports are not immune to luck. Poker does include luck to a minor extent, yet strategy holds the throne in this case.

In every foundation of gaming where strategy is involved; it is practice, planning, and patience that make the champion in odds calculation, reading the opponent, and having the gut. Sometimes luck will be on your side on a specific hand but there is always skill in the grand game.

For similar updates, stay tuned to GutshotMagazine.com.

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