I have a question about luck in Tx Hold em!!!!!!!!!!

Me and my friends were talking about how there hasn't been a big name in years to win  the world series of poker.  And my one friend claims thats because the World Series and Tx hold em tournaments in general are at 90 percent luck. I totally disagree with his assessment. What do you guys think?

thanks for the reply donnyl

you have to understand that "name player" make up a very very small % of the field nowadays.....

 

when you have 99% of unknown players it's not that hard to do the math....

Am I being unreasonable with this statement:

 

Cash games showcase a higher level of skill than tournaments.

 

When youre playing with chips that have real monetary value, players approach the game completely different as oppose to tournaments where your success is determined by a lot of "coin flips".

If you're a good poker player...good luck is just avoiding the bad luck in my opinion

If it's mostly luck, then why aren't all of us making a living playing a card game? 

the guys that have won the main event have played well but have had some luck along the way. in the case of J Gold he was playing stuff like 2-5 and flopping straights, he had just an unbelievable run and then controlled the table too. And these guys catch all of the breaks, win the coin flips and also lay some bad beats on some fuckers too.

thanks for all the responses guys. But i would still like to get you guys to give me a percentage of how much luck do you think is involved in winning the whole tournament.  I will start it off with mine

30 % luck 70 skill

It's tough to give a difinitive answer because it is all relative.  I mean if you compare the skill level of the winner of said tourney to the skill level of my uncle then it is 85% skill.  If you compare it to the average skill level of a $10,000 buy in tourney then I'd say 70-80% of luck is needed to win in a field the size of the world series of poker main event maybe even more.  The reason being is that you are going to run into "coolers" and unfortunate situations such your KK running into AA, so to overcome those situations you will need to pull some "suck outs" and "miracle flops".   Also this is to win first place mind you.  But the winners (Gold, Hachem, and Raymer) all have a skill level beyond myself or the average weekend player.  In my opinion but I haven't played in the world series or a WPT event either. 

The luck evens itself out in the long run (think 10,000 hands plus). Therefore, in any single tournament you need to catch cards big time to actually win it, the blind structure is not deep enough to do otherwise. So yes, any given tournament there is alot of luck involved. But over say, 300 events the good players will be the ones winning the most amount. And you win your big scores on merit due to all the other times you play well and get cold decked etc and fail to cash.

 

So it's possible for an ordinary player to go on a huge heater and win big like Jerry Yang this year. He was recently playing the 2/5 NL game at the Bellagio saying that was where his abilities were at so that gives you some idea. Also look at the way Jamie Gold played on HSP recently.

 

This is why real poker is played in cash games. There is no place to hide there, stacks are deeper and luck is reduced. I'm biased perhaps because I'm a cash game player 99% of the time. I will be playing the Main Event this year again though because it's the juiciest tournament of the year.

 

Jerry yang is playing 2/5 NL at the bellagio.  What a bitch.

 

Gd damn these stupid frauds that have won the last 2 years. Gold and yang.  In the main event, you have to just catch cards to win. You can fucking throw skill right out the door. What a bunch of donkeys, to me its almost an embarassment for poker. 2/5, what a joke. Sad for the poker world, that the player who won our main event/wsop championship plays friggin 2/5.

 

dewey tomko is still a high stakes cash game player, from what I have heard. probably just doesnt dabble into the tourney world anymore, which is why we havent see much or any of him

 

also heard that he plays in the big game, does anyone know if that is true?

I play 1/2 and 2/5. I would love to school jerry yang and take down a  big pot from his not-hard-earned money. I hated that cocksucker.

 

note to self, move out to vegas.

 

maybe the bitch will come to AC one day.

If we are talking solely about the Main Event I would say that winning requires an incredible amount of luck....I would say 90% luck and 10% skill for ME champ sounds about right.

You just can't get through that many days and people without an unbelievable amount of luck.

 

In the short term, luck is a huge factor.....in the long run, skill plays a major role in profit/loss. And you need more than skill in just playing cards. You also need to be disciplined and skilled with money management.

This is my humble opinion,

 

   Luck is a HUGE factor in tournaments, the larger the field the higher the percentage. However I do believe great players need much less luck then  good or average players. The big fields due to the luck variance also send hundreds of people home but at the same time build imposing stacks sometimes in the hands of average players, yes like Jamie Gold. These players then are far less intimidated by a Phil Ivey because I do not care how great Ivey and his bretheren are if when they  push all in and it only puts 10% of your chips at risk it keeps them in line. Because they know you would be so much more likely to "look them up", meaning call them. they can not make a move when they normally would. These HUGE fields and HUGE chip stacks in the middle and end of tourneys in some respects hurt the great players. Also like someone mentioned earlier that 90% of the players are no names. Pros call the "the field". Sometimes you will here a pro say " I am not getting all in vs the field early in a tournament without a monster hand". The field means a guy no one has ever seen. I am more of fan of Lee Watkinson type play, you just be patient and wait for a spot and then play your hand strong. Also don't fall in love with your hand , if you don't have the nuts you may have to lay the hand down. Always respect position and no theatrics at the table. Although no pro has won in a long time like someone mentioned earlier Raymer and Hachem are great tournament players. Hachem has won some MAJOR tourneys since his WSOP main event title.  Hachem by most accounts has been very unlucky to boot. I truly believe that you CAN NOT win a tournament in this era without not just some good luck but also you have to avoid bad luck. Aces cracked pre flop, runner runner losses etc etc. However like I wrote earlier, the better the player the less luck needed.

 

PS Cash is much tougher then tourney play and less then ten people are great at both.

thanks for the replies everyone; keep em coming  I love the discipline in playing tournaments but I love to play live poker because it takes a lot more skill.

why you calling yang out because he is playing  2/5 at the bellagio

As far as luck goes just figure that if you are in a 50/50 race 5 times(which is a very small number in this field and the amount of hands you need to win to make it) and each of those will either cripple you or take you out then you will have to win them all which is a slightly better then 3% chance of happening.  Say you never get in that situation and you are a 60/40 fav in all 5 of those scenarios.  Odds of you winning all 5 are still only 7.76%.  Say you need to hit the 60/40 hand 10 times that would be a .60% chance of hitting them all.

 

So yeah a lot of luck is involved in winning.

 

The real good players will not play anything under QQ early on to try and avoid getting into too many all in situations.  No matter how big a favorite youa re the more you run up against it the tougher it is to last.  When you get to half the field then they tend to loosen up a bit.  This is why some top players dont bother showing up for the first few hours.  Even some pro's who play more hands early will very rarely get themselves in a compromising position early.  Many amateurs see these guys on tv and always think they are making a play at them but early ina  tournament against a top player respect all their bets.  They dont know you and are expecting everyone to be a calling station early and wont go bluffing their chips off early.