Poker in the West - Skill or Luck

[stickynotes]

I'll leave that to you to answer.. especially if you witnessed the final table 'showdown' at the lockleys last night...

[bennymacca]

to be honest, my opinion of final tables in general is that they are all luck in a super turbo format

[rcon]

if all "luck", ie. random, shouldn't everyone get a perfect distribution of 9th, 8th, 7th.... 2nd and 1st over a statistically significant time period.

Wouldn't be too hard to prove or disprove that theory

[maccatak11]

I think because of the small stacks relative to blind levels, there is little room for anything else other than push/fold poker. That is why you often see 3 or more all ins in the same hand, meaning a player does need a greater amount of luck than normally.

I think that NPL should investigate the possibility of capping the blinds at the final table, possibly at 5k/10k (depending on venue size though).

I have frequently seen some excellent shorthanded battles which are almost ruined when the blinds double and players only have 3-4 BB left instead of double that.

So perhaps at the start of any final table, the blinds should be raised once, and then capped. I think this would remove a lot of the perceived luck of final tables, without making the tourney run for too much longer.

[stickynotes]

I don't think the percentages on luck need to be calculated if you're playing against someone who will explode if they don't win. Thats actually called, 'intimidation'...

[Scotty]

But the heading asks to differentiate between skill and luck

If there's a story you wish to tell about a particular final table, by all means - fill us in!

[David]

intimidation actually looks a lot less intimidating when you write it in pink

[rcon]

So perhaps at the start of any final table, the blinds should be raised once, and then capped. I think this would remove a lot of the perceived luck of final tables, without making the tourney run for too much longer.

This has been raised numerous times on here, with varying degrees of support. I personally like the idea, but I seem to think Garth rebuffed it pretty well one time (can't remember the line he took tho)

[maccatak11]

This has been raised numerous times on here

Yeah i remember but i coudnt remember what the official line on this was, i thought this thread might be a good place to discuss this again.

[stickynotes]

Intimidation is a wonderful thing.

If you really want the full story, perhaps another runner could elaborate...