Well, it’s not necessarily correct. It probably is, but I was being more facetious than anything else.
You can always tell the expert poker players in movies because they always get amazing hands. The crappy poker players always get crappy hands. So the main thing to learn in poker is how to draw good cards.
And here I thought you had to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em, know when to walk away, and know when to run.
Common mistake. 
If you are a top notch mathematician and you want to make money it becomes obvious that the way to do it is not in a casino or at a card table.
That being said, some mathematicians used to make money in the casinos playing blackjack when card counting was feasible. Also, many mathematicians do enjoy playing poker as a recreation.
A top tier mathematician that really wants to get rich will play in the stock market, the currency markets or commodities markets where the odds are in the player’s favor. It is mathematicians that are behind the successful quant funds. A mathematician understands odds and unless they have a self-destructive wish they will play where the odds are in their favor. When you have stacked the odds in your favor you are no longer gambling, you are winning. In a casino, the house doesn’t gamble, the players gamble.
We’re talking about poker, in which you aren’t playing against the house.
But you are relying on the luck of the draw and, to a greater degree, bluffing. There’s the old saying, “If you don’t know who the sucker is at the table, then it’s you.”
“Sucker” means that the odds are not in your favor. Your only hope is the luck of the draw. A mathematician will understand that principle and go where the odds are in his favor. (S)he’s not going to risk the money on something that can’t be quantified.
But not math?
Many of the world class poker pros come from analytical backgrounds. Two that are particularly recognizable: Chris Ferguson and Barry Greenstein.
An important thing to keep in mind: Poker is not synonymous with no-limit Texas hold’em. The latter is a form of poker that has a particularly high amount of luck (which is why it is so popular – unskilled players won’t readily notice that they’re being outplayed because even they win plenty of pots.) Draw poker, 7-card stud, and Omaha all have notably less luck in them, and the analytical types often win their bread there.
I’m not talking about analytical types, I’m talking about people with the ability to do high level math. “Mathematicians”, which is what the OP asked. Of course, playing poker well requires analytical skills and the better those skills are the more success that is likely to be had. I’d also suggest that memory skills are as important as analytical skills.
In my first post I noted that a lot of mathematicians enjoy playing poker recreationally. I’m saying that a true mathematician that wants to make a lot of money will quickly realize that the odds are much better in the financial markets than at the poker table. Five mathematicians at a poker table each have poor odds of winning. Five mathematicians in the financial markets can all potentially clean up. The mathematicians that want a safer bet will teach math or do research for a salary.
In poker, the odds can very often be in your favor.
I don’t think anyone is disputing the a top-tier quant jock is well paid, and poker may not be the best career choice in the world. I’m not sure how this turned into a how to make money with your mathematics PhD thread.
Yes, people with all three of those skills probably would rather just have a steady job, and would find poker boring, preferring tournament bridge, in which luck is completely eliminated, which is ten times more challenging, and which makes poker seem like child’s play.
Cite?
I don’t agree.
I’ve played and discussed bridge with international players. Of course it’s a very skillful test of memory concentration and deduction. Nevertheless playing poker for huge sums of money is very stressful and uses similar skills.
I would claim that playing chess against a top computer for a large prize is more difficult than both, but I still wouldn’t dismiss the skills involved as you do.
I don’t dismiss the skills of successful poker players at all. Poker players who make money have to play many hands, and they succeed by choosing when to fold or not, using odds. Losing one hand is not “failure” in poker, because you just got a bad deal, and there was no other choice. That’s a definite skill, and I don’t put it down at all.
In duplicate bridge, however, luck will never be the reason that you don’t get IMPs, because you’re really competing against all the other tables with your exact same deal. Also, in poker, the deal is in flux. In bridge, it’s established from the onset.
And I agree that chess tops them all, but it’s not so mathematical as visual.
No game which involves the random distribution of a game element completely eliminates “luck.”
He means Duplicate Bridge, in which teams of 4 play the same cards twice, so their performances can be directly compared.
Or teams of two, grouped into four people per table.
In poker, whether someone draws before you effects the odds. There was a thread a while ago asking if poker could be played in duplicate, and for that reason, it can’t, by it’s very nature.
Check out the wiki article, in the part on tournaments.
I understand that. Dealing the cards is still a random distribution of elements. The cards can fall in such a way as to favor N-S or E-W. That’s “luck.” Getting seated N-S or E-W when the cards are falling in favor of those seats is also “luck.”
But in duplicate bridge, if you’re part of an E-W pair you’re ranked only against the other E-W pairs (i.e. those who see the exact same cards as you).
There is still some luck. Sometimes you play a hand against a N-S opponent who makes a really stupid play, giving you a top score. Sometimes you congratulate yourself for solid play against a strong opposing pair, only to find that with the same hand another E-W pair reaped the benefit of some boneheaded play and were top on board.