Unlike pool poker can readily be modeled. Over the course of a lifetime career luck affects a poker player's income less than two percent. The number is actually about 1.5%. So the question becomes is pool more or less than 1.5% luck?
I dodged poker and played pool for many years because while I knew that skill was involved I thought the luck factor was too large in poker. I now suspect that long term there is probably considerably more luck in pool than poker if we consider people at an "A" or low pro level or above.
Short term luck has a far larger effect playing poker than pool. Long term purely based on experience since pool can't be readily modeled, I'd say that there is more luck in pool which was a very surprising conclusion for me!
Hu
People talk about how little luck there is in poker in the long run. But how much luck there is in pool in the long run? For example a 9 ball match race to 125. Do you think Efren beat Strickland on the color of money because he was luckier than Earl? Or for example a one pocket match race to 15, how much luck is a factor in this type of race?
People seems to compare luck in poker in the long run with pool in a single match. If luck is so big in pool, why SVB is winning a lot of tournaments? Efren got lucky for years and Souquet too.
Barring any equipment problems which might affect a roll, there is no luck in Pool.
For every action, there is a reaction. For every shot played, the rolls occur based on how that shot was shot. If you miss, it's because you shot the shot wrong. If you scratch, its because you shot the shot wrong. If you accidently hook yourself, its because you shot the shot wrong.
If you have 'bad luck', just ask any good player watching you how you could of avoided the 'bad luck' and they will tell you. Most of the time, bad luck, as you refer to it, is a result of improper english used or something the player overlooked when he shot the shot.
In Pool, as well as in life, You reap what you sew.
I almost agree with you! I think there's very little luck in pool. If you get to the table and execute with perfection, you win. But what if you don't get to the table? If I lose a match without chalking my cue, it's hard not to consider that bad luck. For years I thought it was my bad luck to draw Nicky Varner for my first match in the 1981 8-ball National Championships, but if I wouldn't have drawn him first and played my best, I'd likely have had to play him anyway.
I do consider it bad luck to have a gunshot ring out as you're striking the cue ball, or to have the roof spring a leak over your table as you're shooting, or have the juke box kick in with earth-shaking volume as you deliver your business stroke.
I believe there's much luck on the break, as even with a Magic Rack, you can't get a truly perfect rack every time (particularly when the object balls have lots of miles on them).
Luck is something you have no control over. The idea that the better you play the more "luck" you have is an illusion. When you get a "bad roll", it is nearly always an error of some kind on your part. When you slow roll a ball into a pocket and it stops on the lip and rolls back an inch, you're "unlucky" to be playing on a table with problems, but if you'd struck the shot with adequate speed, it would have gone in. When you get a sour roll because of nipping another ball on the way to position, it's your fault, ultimately.
By learning how a table rolls before a match, checking the rack, checking object balls for dirt and nicks, using your own chalk, etc., you can also eliminate what many folks call luck before the match even starts.
I gave up my dream of becoming a pro bowler in 1970 and moved to pool, because it seemed there was more luck in bowling (partly because there's no defense on the lanes). This might make a good new thread...
Donny L
PBIA/ACS Instructor
What he means by 'modeled' is that a computer simulation can play out every possible combination of possibilities in how the cards can possibly be dealt and figure the odds that a person will have the winning hand in any number of given hands.
What is not being mentioned is the human element of poker. If Hu wants to claim that a person mis-hitting a shot in pool is bad luck, then he has to admit that a person who doesn't call despite having the best hand in poker (tho he could not have known it) is also bad luck.
Poker cannot be modeled. The odds can be calculated, the potential can be assessed, but the human element remains.
dld
I would have to disagree. I have seen armatures win the world series of poker. I have never seen a amateur win the us 9 ball open or other such event.
What if you aim incorrectly, say, too far left. But you also put unintentional right english on the cueball. So you end up pocketing the ball anyway.
Should I call this luck?
For pool to disallow luck, we must not just call pockets, we must also assign cut angles and amounts of english.
See the second line of my post...But when you get a favorable outcome that you didn't foresee, isn't that luck?