ABC – Poker site pokerasiapacific.com is reporting that the Coalition plans to ban online poker in Australia. Technically online gambling is illegal already but this is not enforced. However, the main issue appears to be that poker is being equated to pokies and is therefore a game of chance and not skill. However, anyone who has played poker knows that this is far from the case.
To the uninitiated It’s easiest to understand the game if we break the elements of playing poker in to three categories.
A third of the game is based on blind luck. Anyone can get the top hand (called ‘the nuts’) on any given day and beat the best player in the world. However, this is modified by how you play your winning hand. If you get a Royal Flush, you then have to make it pay off. There’s little point in winning a hand if you don’t get any reward for doing so. If you gasp in excitement, raise the pot to its maximum and have a big grin on your face, then all of the other players are likely to take one look at you and fold their hands. Winning the war is the goal. Experienced players expect to lose many battles along the way, and the cheaper that is, the better.
It takes great skill to pretend you’ve got a low hand but keep your opponents thinking otherwise and experienced opponents will have seen every trick in the book many times. The way you bet, the amount you bet, the amount of time it takes you to bet and the difference in the way you play one hand over your previous hands all influence those who know what to look for. More on this below.
The second third of the game is pure maths. If you can work out the odds – on-the-fly – of what cards are left in the pack and the likelihood of the cards you need turning up later in the game, then you are immediately above the majority of players who are simply hoping that their card will turn up. If you play the odds, in a sensible way, it is highly-likely that you will win more than you lose over time.
The final third of the game is arguably the most important and is derived mostly from skill and experience. It encompasses elements of the first two ‘thirds’ above and adds much more. In terms of raw luck, if you’ve got a good hand then the skill is how to maximise it, but you’ll also be working out what the other players on the table have in front of them.
How can the best players get so lucky?
