Underground Poker

Cigital, Inc. conducted a recent study which analyzed over 100 million poker hands which were played out on PokerStars.com. The study showed that about 75% of hands which were played never made it to showdown, which is the completion of the last round of betting. The study also showed that 50% of the hands that won at showdown, were not the best hands on the table. In order for them to have won with a worse,  someone had to have folded the better hand. This is what many are claiming to be as proof that poker is a game of skill. The best hand only won 12% of the time, therefore, players more skilled must have won the other 88%  of pots using skills such as betting techniques. Well, this all makes sense to me!

Former three-term Senator from New York and current Poker Players Alliance (PPA) Chairman Alfonse D’Amato commented, “As a poker player, I can tell you that knowing when to hold or fold is not based solely on the cards that are dealt, but a series of decisions based on skill and the actions taken by other players. This study provides the raw data to back up the compelling arguments made by poker players around the world that it’s skill, not pure luck, that determines the outcome of this game.”

Once again, we as poker players know this to be true. As Phil Hellmuth might say, we got our Jackals, Mice, Elephants, and Lions. Once you get to a certain level of thnking and playing, you begin to play your opponents, and your cards begin to have less and less of a impact on your decision making.

The data this study has accumulated has been used in many poker legal battles, and will continue to be used in many more in the future.

Wall Street Journal writer Carl Bialik authored a blog on the study, outlining many of the doubts its opponents had. Among them were “players’ decisions are determined by the cards they draw, which is entirely a matter of luck.” In addition, the relationship between Cigital and PokerStars was questioned and individual players were not tracked to see if they experienced success over time. Finally, “the study doesn’t answer the question of how showdowns and best-hand wins would look in a game of pure skill, or of pure chance.”

I guess the world of poker, especially online poker, is always going to have its critics and skeptics. Maybe one day they will pull their head out of their a$$ and actually try to experience the game for themselves. Maybe they just dont have the mental capacity to think on such a dynamic level, or maybe they lost their luch money in a game of poker to their cousin Rooney when they were 9 years old, and still havnt recovered. Who knows what dark secrets are keeping them from allowing this beautiful game to flourish, as it should be. All we can do is continue to conduct studies such as this, and continue learning as much as we can about this wonderful game. The skeptics will fall, its a matter of time. The skeptics will fall…

Play at PokerStars.com right now! or try Full Tilt Poker!

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