UK Court Rules Poker is a Game of Chance - Idiots

www.foxnews.com...

In the end, good fortune had the stronger hand. A jury decided yesterday that luck, not skill, played the greater part in poker in a landmark ruling on the status of gambling in Britain.

Derek Kelly, the chairman of a private members’ club in London, lost his fight to make poker exempt from gambling legislation on the grounds that it was a game of skill.

Poker is not a game of luck. If that was the case, then any schmuck could compete at the highest levels. If poker was a game of luck, then we wouldn't see the same group of people at every big ticket event.

Poker is, without a doubt, a game of skill.

Anybody can win if they're dealt a royal flush, but it takes skill to win the other 99.999% of hands, to bluff, to know when to fold, to understand the interactions between players and to stay at the table through the good hands and the bad.

Good hands don't make the game of poker, good players do. Give the same hand to ten different people, and their respective levels of skill will determine the flow of play, and their chance of success. Most decent poker players will agree, the cards you're dealt are probably the LEAST important aspect of the game.

A good player can consistently stay on top, regardless of what cards s/he's dealt, if s/he knows how to manipulate the other people at the table and control their own projections.

It's ridiculous that this court has ruled poker a game of chance, because that couldn't be farther from the truth. I suspect that if they knew anything about the game, they would feel differently. I bet that these jurors just lose all the time, and are happier blaming luck than analyzing their own level of play, or the case wasn't argued well and failed to convince them.

I can imagine intelligent, informed people making such a stupid decision.

Like you said, if it was a game of luck we'd all be sitting across from Chris Moneymaker.

Seeing as how nobody with an ounce of sense could come to that conclusion, it seems to me that the UK just doesn't want to miss out on any licensing fees, plain and simple.

Peace

Ok while I agree with you....

You have to acknowledge that chance does play a part in a game of Poker.

ie. You have two equally skilled players (for sake of argument) who get dealt different hands. The only thing that will seperate them is the cards they are dealt, which is chance.

Thats why some of the best players in the world do not win every game they play - there is a chance factor involved.

I'm not saying there isn't some element of chance, only that a single hand, or even a single night is meaningless, and thus, luck is meaningless - since it handicaps every player equally.

Luck may determine a hand, or even an entire night (everyone has those nights), but it doesn't do much more than annoy a skilled player. They will have three or four or a hundred good nights under their belt, won through skill, for every bizarre evening where every hand is garbage and the ante grinds them down.

Point being, poker is not one hand. It's a freakin' career.

Good players don't throw their money around, they don't dump a bunch of chips in the pot on every hand, in hopes of drawing into something decent; they don't rely on luck to win. The folks who rely on luck to win are the same folks who you see trying to convince other players at the table of the real cash value of the deed to their home.

:shk:

Schmucks may win a hand, they may even win a bunch of hands, but the skilled players are the ones who always have money in their pockets, and can consistently play well, no matter what cards they're dealt.

An example:

A solid player, Mike, plays hold 'em with a regular group. He's known for checking every chance he gets, folding often, and raising strong on rare occasions, usually after the river card creates a pair on the table. (IMO, bad players follow a schedule unknowingly, whereas good players can use the appearance of a schedule to their advantage - but I'm an amateur at best.)

Every time in recent memory that someone has played into that strong raise, Mike has swept the table with a strong full house or four of a kind. Mike gets dealt a load of garbage one hand, and instead of folding after the second ace hits the table face up, he bluffs, raising strong like he normally would if he was just dealt the final element of a money-maker hand. If he doesn't give himself away, the other players at the table fold, wisely, and he collects the pot without ever having to show his garbage. Well played.

Or, one of the other players has two aces in hand, when that second ace hits the table and Mike raises strong, and he's sure he knows that Mike's either bluffing four of a kind or holding a full house, he comes right back at him in the hopes of scaring him away or taking even more of his money.

Now Mike has a decision to make...

If he stays in, raises again, controls his bowels and looks at his opponent the way a Grizzly looks at salmon, he just might raise a seedling of doubt in the mind of the guy across the table, especially if the guy across the table happens to look down and realizes for the first time that there's a King, Queen, and Ace of diamonds staring back at him, along with another random ace and the ubiquitous two, then he looks back up at Mike, realization creeps across his face, and Mike grins. So what happens?

Someone loses big when the dust settles, and it had little to do with luck, and everything to do with the individuals' ability to analyze their opponents.

That's good poker, I think.

If a fella wants to just throw money into the pot and take a chance on the cards he's dealt, why not play War instead, and leave poker to the poker players?

The fact that bluffing is allowed (both ways) makes poker a game of skill over chance.

And from what I've been able to learn from poker tournaments in real life is that the best players are kings in pretending and acting and only a few 100% technical players can dream to reach the highest levels.

If there weren't any bluffing rules (like in the versions where all cards have to be open on the table and you are completely reliant on the cards you get) then it would be mostly luck.

I guess the judges in the UK suck at poker :p