A discussion I often have with poker players is about how much the game relies on skill and how much on luck. According to poker fans, it's about 50/50 and poker is hardly more random than a sport. According to me, it's over 90% luck, all those who make a living by playing poker online can only do so while the influx of clueless newbies lasts, any single tournament is almost as random as a lottery, and all the poker 'stars' are only famous because the media need poster boys for the game.

This leads to endless discussions, but imo my strongest argument settles the whole matter. Whenever there is a big poker tournament, go to Betfair and see what the betting market says on the chances of the stars. You will see that for every poker tournament, the favourite to win is always "The Field", i.e. a completely unknown player who's never won anything before.

For the upcoming World Poker Tour event in Los Angeles, you can bet on any of the famous poker stars - Phil Ivey, Daniel Negreanu, Scotty Nguyen, Gus Hansen, ... - yet the price for The Field is 1.24, which means the market considers it 80.6% likely (1 / 1.24) that a completely unknown player will beat all those stars. That figure just says it all. In any real sport, the chance of an unknown beating all the most famous players to win a major tournament is less than 1%.