Is poker a game of skill
or is it purely luck?
That's what I'm going to answer today.
My name is Christian Rauchenwald
and welcome to my YouTube channel.
But before we are going to look at the
questions, if poker is a game of skill
or luck in the legal sense, and also
in a logical sense, so like in the
real world, and not just in the legal
system, I actually wanted to quickly
share a little bit my background.
So, you know, what kind of experience
I have when it comes to playing poker?
Roughly 10 years ago, or a little bit
more than 10 years ago, I started playing
poker myself and initially for the first
couple of months, I actually lost quite a
lot, but I also enjoy the game very much.
And eventually I started diving
into it I started reading articles.
I started reading books about poker
theory, and I also started to analyze my
own game from a mathematical perspective
instead of just blaming winnings to good
luck or skill and losses to bad luck.
And it may come as a surprise to you.
The more time is spent studying game
theory and analyzing on game, and also
the game of my frequent opponents,
the more profit I started to make.
So the more regularly I
started to win against them.
Now, back then, I was still working as a
freelance developer and I made roughly $40
per hour on average in that profession.
However with poker, at some point, I
also eventually reached a point where
I made $40 per hour playing poker.
And so eventually I actually shut down
my business for almost a year and made my
living just by playing Pot Limit Omaha.
Some of you may be wondering, why
did I stop playing poker and got back
into developing and building my own
business, when I actually was making
money, playing poker quite consistently?
And the answer is quite simple.
As long as you play poker as a hobby.
So you play with money, that you can
afford to lose and you don't rely on it as
an income source, you have less pressure.
You're not pressured that you need to
earn or win $2,000 this month or $3,000
this month to actually pay your bills.
And that was one of the reasons
why I eventually stopped
playing poker for a living.
The other reason was while you're
playing professional poker, you
usually play/work at night, which
means my days back then consisted of
getting home somewhere between two
and 10 in the morning, sleeping till
the afternoon, having breakfast, and
then actually going to "work" again.
So finding a game to play poker,
and then you play at night.
And in addition to that, so because most
of your friends that have regular jobs
actually are not active during the night.
And when they have free time
during the weekends, you usually
have the best poker games going.
So you don't have time to meet them.
And as a result, most of the people that
you get to spend time with are actually
other professional and semiprofessional
players, as well as gambling addicts,
that simply cannot stop playing.
So overall, it's definitely not
what you see in some movies when
it comes to playing poker, but
it actually is more like having a
regular job if you do it for a living.
And what most people don't know is for
every hour that you play at a table,
you probably spent an hour or maybe even
two analyzing your game and analyzing
your opponent's game to find weaknesses
in your own game and fix them, and also
to find weaknesses in your opponent's
game and exploit them to make sure
that you also win in the future.
Now that said, if you're curious
about watching me playing poker on
GGPoker.com, then I recommend that you
check the link in description down below,
which leads you to my Twitch channel.
There, I'm going live from time to time
and actually play some online poker.
Now that we got that out of the way,
and you know that I have a little
bit of experience, when it comes
to playing poker, let's look at
the legal aspects of playing poker.
Over the years the decisions
changed a little bit, but I just
looked it up recently again.
And currently the only country
that considers poker game
of skill is actually Brazil.
In all other countries,
it's considered gambling.
Now, based on that, we could say that
poker is not a game of skill, but what's,
interestingly enough is for example, a
German court ruled at some point that
poker players that win consistently.
So they play poker for a living and make
a consistent profit, actually have to
pay taxes on those profits because, in
that case suddenly it's not considered
luck anymore and it's not considered
gambling anymore, but for those few
people, it's suddenly a game of skill.
It's a little bit selective, in
my opinion, to say that for the
average person that's gambling.
But as soon as you show that you
actually can beat the game with skill
and consistently make profit, which
by definition makes it not gambling
anymore, in my opinion, suddenly you
get treated differently just so the
government can make some more money.
That's one of the reasons, for example,
why many successful poker players within
Europe actually moved their residency
to Austria because there poker is
also considered gambling and Austria
doesn't have any taxes on gambling
winnings that you somehow manage to get.
Another quite interesting case actually
comes from the US where in 2012 a judge
decided that poker is a game of skill.
In that case, somebody was
running their own gambling
warehouse and got arrested for it.
And eventually in court, it was
decided after some witness testimonials
that poker game is a game of skill.
And if you basically do the math - that's
all what it is in most cases - you will
make more profit than you will lose.
With that, we can conclude
the legal aspects of poker.
Now let's look at it from
a logical perspective.
Now, while there are many different
games of poker, like Texas Hold'em
Omaha, 7 Card Stud, and so on.
We are going to focus on Texas Hold'em
in this video because it's the mostly
spread or widely known game out there.
And so most of you already are
familiar with the rules or at
least some basic rules about it.
Now in Texas, Hold'em each player
initially receives two cards, which are
called hole cards and based on the number
of suits and cards in a deck there's
theoretically 1,326 different combinations
of cards that you can receive.
However, because there's no difference
when it comes to the starting hands before
you have the community cards on the table.
If you have an ace of hearts or an
ace of spades, we can actually narrow
it down to 169 different possible
combinations that you can start with.
And that's actually where we can start
to figure out if poker is a game of skill
or if it's a game of luck, because the
difference between a recreational player
that doesn't really understand the rules
very well and just plays randomly and
a professional player that consistently
makes profit already starts at the moment
when they receive their hole cards.
To give you an example, a recreational
player, most likely would play
almost any combination that contains
an ace in his hand without paying
much attention to the second card.
For a professional player, however,
the second card makes a huge difference
where ace, king would be a premium
hand that he most likely will not
fold and will be willing to raise
and even go all in with pre-flop.
So before the community cards are dealt.
An ace, seven offsuit, so ace of diamonds,
with an seven of spades, for example,
instead of having both carts with the same
suit, would most likely be a combination
that a professional player would fold
if somebody already raised to him.
So you see one of the key differences
between a professional player and a
recreational player, on the other hand,
is that the professional player runs some
kind of let's call it risk management,
to judge, if he should risk his money
with a certain combination of hands.
And for that, he considers the 169
possible starting hands combination.
He also considers where he
is sitting at the table.
So is he the first that has to act,
which is called under the gun or is
he the last to act, which would be
in the big blind, before the flop, or
is he sitting on the so called button
and based on those factors and some
other factors that we're going to
ignore right now, a professional player
makes the decision if he should play a
certain hand or if he should fold it.
Where a recreational player, for
example, is almost always willing to
go all in before the flop, so before
the community cards, with a pair of
tens, a professional player is able to
fold the pair of tens if the action,
so the things that happened before it
is his turn indicate that the other
players most likely have better pairs
like aces, kings, queens, or ace king.
Now, obviously as a poker player,
you don't know it exactly what
kind of cards your opponents has.
If you're playing against a recreational
player, it's most likely a guessing
game because that kind of player can
hold any possible two card combinations.
However, when you see other players
over and over again at the table, and
they are semi-professional players,
you start to get a feeling what kind
of hands they are playing and that
would be classified as their range.
So you start to develop a feeling based on
where another player is sitting and based
on how he played in the past, what kind
of hands he most likely will be willing
to risk his money with in a certain spot.
And based on that, you know, his so
called range and you can look at your
own two cards and then you can evaluate
how good your combination of cards
performs against the entire range.
So all the possible combinations that
you believe that player will be willing
to play with in the current spot.
And based on that, you are able to
make a profit, because if you're able
to determine the range of another play
quite accurately, you will be able
to estimate if your cards on average
are more likely to win against his
range or to lose against this range.
And based on that, you will know
if it's mathematically correct to
either risk more of your money or to
fold the hand and actually cut your
losses or not lose anything at all.
Now, I know that it's quite theoretical
and it's hard to believe that people
are able to estimate other people's
ranges, but the more you play with
somebody, the better feeling you get,
get as to what kind of hands or starting
hand combination, a player is willing
to play with or risk his money with.
So as you can clearly see, based on
the information I provided you with
poker is mostly a game of skill.
Luck only factors in in the
short run, but not when you play
consistently and over a long amount
of time playing a lot of hands.
Now, what I would like to know
from all of you guys, do you agree?
Do you see poker is a game of
the skill  or as a game of luck.
Let me know that in the
comments down below.
And if you want to discuss a
little bit more about playing
poker and different poker hands
and mathematical profitabilities.
I encourage you to check the link
in the description down below
and follow my Twitch channel.
And when I go live you can just
jump in and we can actually discuss
poker while I'm playing poker, I'm
really looking forward to that.
Thanks for watching.
And as always see you in one
of my other videos until then.
Bye bye.
