Luck in Poker

Throughout my poker career, brief as it may be, I often hear statements about the luck versus skill factor involved in poker. I also hear people's thoughts on bankroll management, and many other things, many of which I find erroneous and are backed by little statistical evidence. Many involve extremely small samples sizes, for example: "Man, I got 2 out-ed 3 times last night. Poker is all luck." "Why do I need $5000 set aside to play $1/$2? The maximum amount I can lose in a single session is only $500 tops. You're bankroll management concepts are absurd." I would like to present some statistics about the extreme ups and downs of the game. The data I use in my analysis is the hands that I played online on Full Tilt Poker during the month of September, at $.02/$.05, and October, at $.05/$.10. On the following graphs, the dark green line represents my actual winnings for that particular month. The light green represents my "All-In Expected Value". What is All-In Expected Value (or AI EV)? All-In EV is an imperfect measure of the luck factor that one experiences while playing poker. If you go all in before the flop with AK before the flop against 22, you will win about 48% of the time, and lose 52% of the time. Since you are almost even money, your All-In EV line will remain flat. If you win the hand, your winnings line will increase relative to your All-In EV line, and in that case be running better than your expectation. All-In expectation is only an imperfect measure because the times that you go all in on the flop in a blind versus blind war with T8 on a board of J,T,8 versus JT, your all in expectation is extremely negative, although this was obviously an extremely unlucky situation for you. Also, the times that you call an all in on the river with AA on a board of A, 2, 3, J, J versus your opponents JJ, your All In expectation line will sharply decrease despite JJ having 1 outed you on the river. In short, All In expectation only considers your expectation on the street when you are actually all in. With that in mind, how much can someone's winnings differ from their all in expectation? X-Axis = Dollars Won. Y-Axis = Hands Played. September: < September Winnings Image> October: By the end of the month of September, I had actually won $40.39 at $.02/$.05. But my All In Expectation was only $17.80! Essentially, luck accounted for over 400 big blinds, or 4 buy ins of 100 big blinds, of my winnings for the month of September. At hand 4,762 for the month of October, my All-In EV was -$2.01, but my actual winnings were -$62.27! And these swings are over a relatively small sample size of only 26,000 hands! (statistically significant samples are typically 50,000 - 100,000 or more hands) Greg Raymer, WSOP Main Event winner, once said that a single session of poker was 100% luck, and that a solid year of poker was 100% skill. I'm inclined to say he was right. Don't concern yourselves with the results of an individual hand, or even an individual session. Play solid poker, and over the long run your play will be rewarded. -Eric "Abacus" Detweiler