Poker – Luck vs. Skill

Congratulations to Kathy Liebert, who recently became the first person to win $1 million in a limit hold'em tournament. Of course, I am speaking of the PartyPoker Million, which was hosted by Card Player Cruises during a cruise of the Mexican Riviera.

As usual, everybody had a great time on the cruise – especially Kathy. However, what made it particularly interesting for me was that for once, there was a mix of many of poker's best players (one-third of the field) and many rank amateurs (two-thirds of the field). This was due to the brilliance of allowing casual recreational players to qualify for a shot at winning $1 million, while the pros drooled at the opportunity of paying $8,000 for the same shot against a seemingly small and inexperienced field, given the prize money.

Clearly, there were different camps of players. Bearing in mind that all of the $22 buy-in qualifiers won not only a chance of winning the $1 million, but also a cruise for two and $500 spending money, many thought they were in heaven. On the other hand, many of the pros traveled a long way for a one-event tournament with an $8,000 buy-in that was just too good to pass up.

Prior to the tournament, Card Player columnist and PartyPoker representative Mike Sexton posed this question on the Internet: "How many online qualifiers do you think will make the final table (nine players)?" I immediately went on record as saying three, which was the exact number.

When the dust settled, that one-third of the field made up of the most well-known pros and amateurs had two-thirds of the seats at the final table, and three of the final four.

What does that tend to indicate? There seems to be a very nice balance of luck and skill in poker, in that the hard-working pros and serious students of the game are going to win a disproportionately large amount of the prize money, but the casual amateur still can beat any or all of the pros on any given day. That is what makes poker so popular.