Knowledge vs Luck

Poker required discipline and knowledge to successful

In continuing from last week Medium essay, I promised to explain the Process Model. The Process Model also helps the poker players to determine the things which are lacking in their strategies and evaluating them following by a complete analysis. The process consists of these stages (Tendler and Carter):

· Preparation

· Performance

· Evaluation

· Analysis

· Conclusion

These stages help the player to get better at winning hand by evaluating himself as some other person. All these stages reform the strategies of the player and allow him to assess the hands in a much better way. All of these theories explains the all the basic fundamentals of poker by evaluating each and every single negativity found in the playing style of player. In other gambling game, no one can find any of these strategically reformed moves to be needed. Playing a roulette of blackjack does not require any sort of expertise; that is why those games can be called gambles (Tendler and Carter).

Though, the scenario gets completely changed while talking about poker as it requires much more self-control, assessing and evaluating power, ability to read body language and do simple yet imperative mathematical calculations to think about the odds and then raising, calling or folding according to the situation. After discussing all these theories based on poker to prove that is not a gambling game as it is not dependent on your luck at all, few basic things would be discussed to prove that poker requires such more than just a good luck to win some noticeable money from the majority of the hands.

Let’s just go back to defining gambling, it was stated that gambling means that a person is putting his money or anything on stake in order to win some extraordinary prize. Although, the chances of winning these prizes are very thin as no one knows about the outcome of that gamble. Just take an example of roulette, a person would call a number which gets stuck in his mind and puts money on it without knowing even if the coin would even touch that number during its rotation in the roulette. This can be called as true gambling, but poker is entirely different thing as the person controls each and every single thing in the game and knows about his standing position in the game from the very start of playing a hand (Kelly, Dhar and Verbiest).

Just take an example of a player who is playing in Texas Hold’em poker and gets ‘jack’ and ‘10’ of spades in his hand. Suppose that the first three cards drawn on the table are of ‘ace’, ‘king’ and ‘queen’ of spades then the player would get the most superior hand in poker known as a royal flush. He can call, raise or bet as much as he wants as he already knows that he would be going to win the hand in any case. This sort of things only happens in poker as compared to any other casino’s games which only demands luck.

This fact can also not be neglected that the above-stated example happens once in a while, but same is the case with bad hands as long as the person is folding any hand hand at the right time. Other than this fact, there are many other factors involved winning the hand. Suppose if a player is getting straight from ‘ace’ to ‘5’ with 2, 3 and 5 on the table, and you are having some mediocre cards of 4 and 6. Now, knowing this condition puts you in the driving seat, and you can raise as much as you like to win by a very big margin. There are many another sort of combination and tricks to try while playing a hand. Even though, bluffing is not recommended in a lot of cases, but it can be performed at some certain situation where the opponents are frustrated of winning big amount of money; these sort of situations out the opponents in more complicated situation where they try to earn back their many in a single hand and ends up in losing more money.

In short, it can be said that a poker player has got all the control of his game, and he has all the power to raise or bet at the time when (Sklansky):

· He is confirmed that he has the best hand

· He is trying to raise the prize amount by inspiring opponents to put some money

· He is trying to decrease the number of opponents by forcing them to fold

· To gain information about the cards of other players

Or he can call at a time when:

· He wants to see some more cards

· He wants to stick to the hand without folding and calling

· He wants to bluff by making others think that he is not having good cards

In all the other situations, the person is supposed to fold as soon as possible to refrain himself from losing any money. All these strategies and experience can lead a player towards a better situation of understanding the hands, which would, eventually, increase their chances of winning almost every hand the raise or call. The reality of poker is a lot more changes than shown in television or movies, where you watch every hand getting won by having royal flush or full house; all of it depends upon the skill level of player rather than hi luck other player’s bad luck or a very big bluff (Tendler, Jared and Barry Carter).

The crux of the story is that poker is not a game to win by chance or luck as it demands much more than that. Any person can win or lose by playing blackjack or roulette, but this does not happen in poker as a person is supposed to know the basic things before playing it. Unlike other gambling games, poker requires mental activeness, ideal body gestures, psychological assessment power and ability to evaluate every hand at the right time. By following the above-stated theories and understanding poker, a person can win a lot of money because of his knowledge, experience and understanding of the game. These sort of things is almost impossible to happen in any other gambling game. So, it can be said with utter confidence that poker can only be played and win after understanding and mastering the art of winning hands.