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I played poker every week for a couple of years and have firmly come to the conclusion that some people are born luckier at card games than others, and that's what separates the best players from the rest.

This isn't the talk of a sore loser. I actually doubt I lost any money cumulatively over the period.

But based on playing local players and online, and watching the top guns on TV, I've narrowed the element of skill down to mostly luck.

Don't get me wrong, there is some skill involved. But there are literally hundreds of thousands of people who play the same passive aggressive style, who can count odds as quickly as you like. So the core skill of knowing when to hold and fold is completely is balanced out in competitive poker. Bullying, bluffing and calling comes with the cards, not the player.

Patience is a much bigger skill, but anyone who plays to win picks this up too.

Anyway, three key examples stick out in my mind of luck.

1. A famous hand when Phil Ivey sat down AK suited pre-flop. As it turned out one of his rivals had AA. The commentators creamed themselves over his sixth sense for danger. This is also known as luck.

2. In a pro-celebrity tournament, Daniel Negreanu knocked out three celebs in a row to go from mid-stack to basically tournament winner. All three hands were won on the river card when everything was stacked against him. The cumulative odds of this happening must be hundreds to one. Luck hanging out of him.

3. Doyle Brunson wrote a whole book on the theory of poker, and one of those theories was about never seeing the flob with anything less than face cards. Yet he twice won the WSOP with finishing hands of 10-2. You can blather all you want about reading your opponent, but when you win sackloads of money with 10-2, you are born lucky.

Ah wobbler....

1. Sensing danger and folding a big hand is not luck, that is skill. I once folded pocket aces in a 6 handed final table, where I was the chip leader. Id re raised on the button with the aces and the small blind, big blind and player two places under the gun moved all in. If I had have played the hand (which Id have ultimately lost to a set of 9s) id have been an out right idiot. Even if I had have not lost to the nines, Id have tied with another player who held the other two aces. So Id have been putting my tournament chip lead at risk when I didnt really have to, as in a 3 way pot I was guaranteed that at least one player was going home and so I was closer to the bigger money.

There is no luck in sensing danger or waiting for a better spot - that IS skill.

Furthermore - Ace, King is a piece of crap hand and Id regularly fold it!

Have to agree. Most of what you call luck is skill . It's the ability to read other players .

Ah FFS i wasnt claiming it as my own speil!!!
Some man to be talking about good practice!!

Do as I say not as I do

That f**king goat from the bóthar ads!

I'm going to attempt, boldly, to settle a debate that began before poker tables had felt on them.  How much of poker is skill, and how much of it is luck. It seems like everyone has there own opinion on the subject. I've heard people say, ignorantly, that poker is all luck. "It's all in the cards". I've also heard people, just as ignorantly, argue that luck has nothing to do with poker, "It's a skill game." So what's the answer? Is poker 90% luck and 10% skill? Is it 90% skill and 10% luck? I'm afraid it just isn't that simple.

To ask how much of poker is skill and how much is luck is like asking how much of a book is creativity and how much is paper. Or to ask how much of a human being is body and how much is mind. Am I 90% body and 10% mind? No, maybe I'm 90% mind and 10% body. The reality is that it's an unfair question to begin with and one that has no logical answer. The same is true of the "luck vs. skill" debate. It would be impossible to quantify the attributes luck and skill and then compare them on a scale. The truth is that poker is nearly 100% luck in the very short term and approaches 100% skill in the very long term. Luck is the predominate force in any single hand, and has a great effect on any single session. In the long run, however, that luck will be boiled down to an infinitesimal, near-nothing.

In a single hand of poker the cards play the biggest role in assigning a winner, with the better player having only a very small edge over the weaker opponent. If enough hands are played, the edge that the better player has on each hand, as small as it is, will eventually amount to a statistical advantage that luck cannot overcome. In any single session, the worst player at the table has a reasonable chance of walking away a winner. Likewise, the best player could easily lose. If those players played long enough, however, the better player would profit eventually and the worst player would invariably lose.

The skill in poker can almost be hidden within the luck. Many great players just appear to be very lucky to other players (Gus Hansen). There is enough luck involved to keep horrible players thinking they are great and thinking that great players are just lucky. That is fundamental to the poker community, and the biggest reason that there even exists a lucrative opportunity for professional and semi-pro players. After all, most people wouldn't play Tiger Woods at golf for $1000 a hole, and how many people in there right mind would shoot hoops against Lebraon James at $100 a point? Funny thing though, rich business men practically stand in line to wait for a chance to play high stakes poker against Phil Ivy and Doyle Brunson. So, to answer the age old debate "how much of poker is luck and how much is skill", I say, well, just enough.

http://www.vegaspokerpro.com/poker-articles-luck-vs-skill.asp

jesus gnevin have you a link for everything,  if so you wouldn't have a drop link for me auld tractor by any chance can't find one anywhere and mine is bolluxe*

It's considered good practice to include a link when you copy and paste a article to show your not attempting to pass it off as your own and as a nod to the original author

Talks have collapsed according to the radio.

I'm going to attempt, boldly, to settle a debate that began before poker tables had felt on them.  How much of poker is skill, and how much of it is luck. It seems like everyone has there own opinion on the subject. I've heard people say, ignorantly, that poker is all luck. "It's all in the cards". I've also heard people, just as ignorantly, argue that luck has nothing to do with poker, "It's a skill game." So what's the answer? Is poker 90% luck and 10% skill? Is it 90% skill and 10% luck? I'm afraid it just isn't that simple.

To ask how much of poker is skill and how much is luck is like asking how much of a book is creativity and how much is paper. Or to ask how much of a human being is body and how much is mind. Am I 90% body and 10% mind? No, maybe I'm 90% mind and 10% body. The reality is that it's an unfair question to begin with and one that has no logical answer. The same is true of the "luck vs. skill" debate. It would be impossible to quantify the attributes luck and skill and then compare them on a scale. The truth is that poker is nearly 100% luck in the very short term and approaches 100% skill in the very long term. Luck is the predominate force in any single hand, and has a great effect on any single session. In the long run, however, that luck will be boiled down to an infinitesimal, near-nothing.

In a single hand of poker the cards play the biggest role in assigning a winner, with the better player having only a very small edge over the weaker opponent. If enough hands are played, the edge that the better player has on each hand, as small as it is, will eventually amount to a statistical advantage that luck cannot overcome. In any single session, the worst player at the table has a reasonable chance of walking away a winner. Likewise, the best player could easily lose. If those players played long enough, however, the better player would profit eventually and the worst player would invariably lose.

The skill in poker can almost be hidden within the luck. Many great players just appear to be very lucky to other players (Gus Hansen). There is enough luck involved to keep horrible players thinking they are great and thinking that great players are just lucky. That is fundamental to the poker community, and the biggest reason that there even exists a lucrative opportunity for professional and semi-pro players. After all, most people wouldn't play Tiger Woods at golf for $1000 a hole, and how many people in there right mind would shoot hoops against Lebraon James at $100 a point? Funny thing though, rich business men practically stand in line to wait for a chance to play high stakes poker against Phil Ivy and Doyle Brunson. So, to answer the age old debate "how much of poker is luck and how much is skill", I say, well, just enough.

http://www.vegaspokerpro.com/poker-articles-luck-vs-skill.asp

Don't gamble myself but isn't Poker meant to be 90% skill  10% luck. Surely a game of soccer has as much luck involved . Haven't we all seen the effect of a lucky hand in soccer.

Hi, I've got an xbox which I bought last January in hmv.
Went to play it tonight only to find that it's not reading any discs. Am a bit raging cos I was wanting a few games of cod.
Don't think I have the receipt anymore. What can I do?

Is it reading DVD's  , do your disks look damaged  ?

[Five people who stared at the sun in the hope they might be witnessing religious apparitions are being treated for serious eye damage]

Wednesday, 2 December 2009

Five people who stared at the sun in the hope they might be witnessing religious apparitions are being treated for serious eye damage, a top eye surgeon has revealed.

Reports of pilgrims to Knock seeing the sun dance in the sky and changing colour indicate serious eye damage.

And a number of people who attended the recent religious gathering at the Catholic shrine are reporting symptoms of damaged retinas, said Dr Eamonn O'Donoghue, of University College Hospital in Galway.

Dr O'Donoghue revealed he is treating five patients for serious eye injuries caused by staring at the sun at recent gatherings at Knock organised by Dublin "spiritual healers" Joe Coleman and Keith Henderson.

And he has warned those planning to attend a similar gathering this Saturday that they risk damaging their eyes if they stare at the sun for any length of time.

Dr O'Donoghue's patients were part of the 10,000-strong crowd that visited the Marian Shrine in October in the hope of seeing an apparition.

They have since suffered a serious condition called solar retinopathy, caused by the sun's rays burning into the central part of the eye's retina.

Victims have suffered 50pc vision loss which seriously impairs basic abilities such as reading and driving.

Dr O'Donoghue said that it was "monstrous" to mislead people into thinking that altered vision and effects, such as seeing the sun dance, were a religious apparition when they were classic symptoms of solar retinopathy.

"If it did not have such monstrous effects you could describe it as a cheap circus trick," he said.

Dr O'Donoghue, a renowned opthalmic surgeon who also lectures in NUI Galway and works on vision-aid schemes in developing countries, warned that many others could have suffered similar damage to their eyes. And he fears that children attending the next event will suffer loss of vision as they are particularly vulnerable to sun damage. He warned pilgrims that they could accumulate further problems if they repeated the practice of staring at the sun at the next gathering.

"Any person who has any sort of eye problem would be well advised to give this a very wide berth," he said.

While some of those who have damaged their vision may recover some of their sight in the short term, the damage this has done could cause serious sight problems as they age, Dr O'Donoghue said.

He warned that people would be doing "grievous bodily harm" to themselves if they insisted on staring at the sun in the hope of seeing visions.

Although the Catholic Church warned against attending, some 10,000 pilgrims attended a gathering at Knock on October 31 in the hope of seeing a vision of the Blessed Virgin -- the mother of God according to Catholic doctrine.

Mr Coleman, of Ballyfermot, Dublin, has again predicted an apparition for this week.

The Bishop of Killaloe, Dr Willie Walsh, and the Archbishop of Tuam, Dr Michael Neary, have both appealed to Catholics to stay away from the event.

Mr Coleman was unavailable for comment last night.

Source Irish Independent

Read more: http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/knock-miracle--i-could-see-now-i-am-blind-14582942.html#ixzz0YcwPrz5j


Morons! Lets all stare at the sun till we damage our eyes and then claim it's a miracle.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClcmV4TBhfE&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDhmXE-S9Co&feature=player_embedded

If these 12 days unpaid leave are supposed to save this famous 1.3 billion a year , then the average public sector worker earns 433 euro a day. If, and its a big if, the average joe soap in this country pays 30euro a day in income tax,  It takes almost 14.5 ordinary workers to pay one civil servant.
All the figures being touted about are bullshite. Truth is the public service earn far more than the unions would have us believe, and the government dont really know how much they cost. If people truly knew what the public service was costing they wouldnt tolerate it. And like it or not, the majority of them do next to nothing.

This measure will save 750 to 800 million max .

[Liberians]

I can't understand why we have to deal with the Nurse and Teachers in the same way as the lads in the libraries etc. No office to Liberians but they are essential . If their is 1 Liberian out of a week you stack the books late but no one really cares.

Leave George Weah's people out of this debate.

Feck the lot of ya. 

The seem to be going nuts for in Breton

http://liguebretonne.footballgaelique.com/

That's great to see but I think we could do much more to promote the GAA abroad, would it not be possible to play a 'European championships' here (no Irish teams obviously) and play the final in CP maybe before a Dublin championship game or QF double header?

What game was Alex Ferguson at?

The Clare V Dublin AI semi final in 1992, if memory serves me.

There is a European Championship already.

http://www.europe.gaa.ie/

I would imagine that for essential services like nursing the HSE will end up paying people overtime to cover the required shifts 

As a Nordie I can't understand why you lot just seem to be accepting what is happening.  First NAMA and now with this episode Cowen should have been in a huge position of strength yet he still couldn't deliver anything meaningful.

Shocking, shocking governance.

Mind you, as I am half way thru Fintan O'Toole's book "Ship of Fools" nothing surprises me anymore.

I'd rather our TD's than your MLA's