That's a misunderstanding of poker at a high level.

While poker does have a significant element of chance in a given hand, it's no accident that top players consistently make more money over the long run.

Knowing how much to bet based on your odds of winning a hand, figuring out what your opponent's hands could be based on how they're betting, etc. all take skill. There's a reason poker AI can consistently beat humans over the long run, a feat that would be impossible if poker was all about chance.

In fact, poker AI was a difficult area to create software in precisely because the game is one of imperfect information.

> top players consistently make more money over the long run

Has this actually been verified, at least in the modern era (last 10 or so years)? Yes, you see the same guys on TV and to a lesser extent, final-tabling multiple tournaments. But these guys are often on TV because they are entertaining, not necessarily great (or consistently-winning) players. They typically all have external sources of income (sponsorships, poker training, commentary, casino ambassador, company owners, etc) and most reduce volatility by buying and trading pieces of each others' action. In addition, for tournaments, some guys are able to simply enter way more events, which naturally leads to more final tables, but you're not seeing all the losses and bust outs.

All I'm saying is that it's not the same as the 70s through 90s where the skill gap was so huge that yes, certain players could (especially by going on the road and playing private games) absolutely dominate. I think winning consistently today is more of an illusion and some short-term luck.

There is currently a series of poker AI's with game theory optimal solutions to bluff frequencies, bet frequencies, and bet sizing. These strategies are shown to do no worse than break even over a large number of hands.

Winning consistently today relies on being as close as you can to this "game-theory optimal" strategy. As skill gaps decrease chance certainly plays a larger role, but AI analysis of poker has indicated that there are ways to improve your odds and gain an edge.

> While poker does have a significant element of chance in a given hand, it's no accident that top players consistently make more money over the long run.

That's a good point about the cash game format.

But tournament format often forces players into multiple all-ins over the course of the tournament. This leads to a much more luck based outcome.

But over the long run it is still about skill, just the variance is much higher. Any single tournament the result will be dominated by luck but over 10s or 100,000s of thousands skill will dominate. Even the all in situations, you need to know when to go all in and when to call an all in vs when to fold. Better players are going to have a much better handle on this.

The main difference between chess and poker is perfect and imperfect information.

It is decidedly not skill.

> All you have to do is look back at Bobby Fisher who rarely if ever even looked at his opponent.

Physical "tells" are largely a myth in poker, particularly in high-level poker. Please don't speculate wildly on things with at most a novice-level understanding.

The interesting thing is that it is actually the opposite. It's been conjectured that with optimal play Chess ends in a draw (and if it's instead a win for white/black basically the same argument applies). So for two sufficiently smart players the best you can do is avoid blundering your draw away. Winning against a weaker opponent is impossible without psychology and subterfuge. You have to put your opponent in tricky spots where you know he is weak.

Poker on the other hand, by being random, means that you can mindlessly play the mathematically optimal strategy. Eventually your opponent will be put in a tough spot by pure randomness.

It's not the opposite either. Chess is a game of skill, poker is also a game of skill.

The difference is that chess is deterministic and poker is not. Chess skill means being able to forcefully convert a winning or drawing position. Poker skill means optimizing your chances of winning.

Not only is it possible to beat weaker opponents in chess by playing the best moves (contrary to your assertion), it happens all the time over the board. Weaker players are more likely to play moves that transforms the chess game from a win/draw to a draw/loss for them. There isn't a single human or engine alive that can consistently secure a draw against every opponent.

And it's possible for a poker player to mindlessly play the mathematically optimal move and still lose. Poker IS a game a chance, so they could just get unlucky.

If we define optimal play as never turning a win into a draw or a draw into a loss, then I think it's possible to play a passive-but-optimal style, with few traps for weak players to fall into. Also if a position is "lost" but it's very very non-trivial to see why, a stupid-but-optimal strategy is to resign or move pieces randomly. You need psychology to win from a lost position.

Actually, the title is essentially clickbait, at least versus what you naturally read it as, and is all a setup for the final paragraph:

"In that context, cheating scandals may be nothing less than a natural step in chess’s evolution. Poker, after all, has been rocked by allegations of foul play for years, including cases where players are accused of getting help from artificial intelligence. When the highest form of creativity is outfoxing your opponent—as has always been true of poker—breaking rules seems only natural."

I'm ruling this "clickbait" because while the core idea is reasonable, that is clearly a very weak way of phrasing it solely done to be in service of a clickbait title. Without the need for clickbait it's trivial to phrase that in a better way.

Poker is certainly not just about chance; skill, particularly aptitude for maths and psychology are important at high levels. Chance does play a role though, which is generally not the case in chess.

In the highest levels of chess, psychological fortitude and physical fitness are also important.

Poker is absolutely about a chance, you can play your hand perfectly make right calls and loose. Because someone got lucky on a last card.

The whole idea in poker is to make the most right plays that on average should get you the win. Its management to chances.

There are no hidden information in chess, if you play better moves you will win.

And while there are factors that affect selection of best chess moves, you can hardly claim that the other guy got lucky.

Perhaps you misread. It's not just about chance.

Bobby Fischer seems to disagree with you: https://youtube.com/watch?v=P349BdHUxlc&t=11s

If poker was "about" chance you wouldn't see the same top players every year in the finals of every major competition. The chance aspect is why poker is so interesting. But in the long run (ie, 100 games played with the same players), a great poker player will beat an average one 95% of the time.

> Poker is about chance, chess is actual skill.

Maybe you missed it. Humans are now using deceit to trick opponents trained by AI. While they may not "look at" their opponent, they are using similar strategies deployed in poker such as bluffing/misdirection/cloaking etc.

>Poker is about chance

If this were true, then the recurrent Pocker champions must be the luckiest persons in the world, luck is undoubtedly an element, but there are many ways to influence other variables of the game.

One could equally say "chess is about memorization, poker is actual skill".

This is also unfair. Both chess and poker now have top players performing strategy based on computer prep and the best players have memorized shitloads of computer prep.

(I agree with you, to be clear -- my comment was facetious.)