Comment by mettamage

Hey I've started playing poker occasionally again, wanna have a chat about poker? My email is in my profile.

I used to be a winning player at small stakes about 20 years ago, so nothing major but enough for me to show that it's a game of skill.

But yea, for anyone interested why poker is a game of skill, it's due to the law of large numbers. You can easily see the law kick into effect when you simulate a dice roll and you win from 1 to 4 and the other wins 5 to 6 and you both get $1 if you win. I recently had to explain this concept so I happen to have the JS still lying around in my Chrome console.

  const rolls = 10_000;
  let a = 0;
  let b = 0;
  
  for (let i = 0; i < rolls; i++) {
    const die = Math.ceil(Math.random() * 6); // 1–6
    if (die <= 4) a++;
    else b++;
  }
  
  console.log(`Player A wins: $${a}`);
  console.log(`Player B wins: $${b}`);
  console.log(`Total paid out: $${a + b}`);
  console.log(`A's edge per game: ${(a - b) / rolls}`);
  console.log(`Difference: ${(a - b)}`);