Some poker pros, such as Daniel Negreanu, have said that large no-limit hold-em tournaments are too dependent on luck. The impression that I got was that high level bluffing techniques do not work on a lot of the “dead money” amateurs, and pros are forced to play down to their level, which is inherently more luck-based. From what I know about poker, it seems like the stud variants, especially hi-lo, are known to reward skill. Some tournaments use schemes like HORSE, which rotates between several variants.
Which variants do you think reward skill the most, or which would best ensure that the top players make it to the final table in a tournament?
IDK exactly, but the thing that got me into poker, like many twenty somethings, was how much more skill was involved in Hold 'em than say, 5 card draw.
As far as I’m concerned, you decrease blind shit luck the more information each player on the table has. So hold 'em or other community card games, or seven card stud…those are my picks!
I don’t think there is any definitive answer but I think most of the pros would rather play Pot Limit games against Amateurs than either No Limit or Fixed Limit. It is not likely that you can price someone out of a pot before the flop and if the Am does not “Bet Pot” before the Flop, he cannot price the pro on the flop either. Generally, the pro is going to out play the amateur post flop. JMO, fwiw.
And I think Pros have an edge on 6 player max tables rather than 9 player tables.
I have a friend who plays poker professionally who swears that pot-limit Omaha hi/low is the game that most rewards skill, which seems to jive with the OP and the responses so far.
I suspect that, in general, live games will reward skill more than tournaments. So I think it’s important to distinguish the two questions – what game out of all poker variants, tournaments included, rewards skill the most; and what tournament game rewards skill the most. For the second question, tournament structure also needs to be taken into account – i.e., longer rounds (more time between blind increases) will reward skill more.
The different game types reward different skills. High-limit Hold’Em rewards a good bluff, knowing how much to bet; 7-Card Stud rewards patience and knowing the percentages. If the question is which games are affected by luck the least, I would guess the games that use the most cards out of the deck in a given hand.
The issue Negreanu is talking about is he volatile combination of “large field” and “no-limit.” With no bet limit, players face being all-in often. All it takes is one bad draw, and with a large field, you face more of those chances. A bet limit means you don’t end up all-in all the time, and a smaller field means you have fewer idiots sucking out on you.
I don’t think there’s a definite answer to this.
I heard this is the reason Texas Holdem is the chosen game for the “Main Event.” That good hands hold up more often in Holdem than most (all?) other poker games. KK will hold up 94% of the time against K2. A dominated hand like AK vs. AJ will win about 75% of the time. Also, 25+ cards could be known to a player playing 8-handed Stud. In Holdem, there is at most 7 cards known to the player. This puts a larger emphasis on reading players and knowing “when to hold 'em and when to fold em.”
On the other hand, I used to play Omaha-8 around town whenever I could. Not because I was good at it, I wasn’t, but because while I wasn’t very good everyone else in the games were HORRIBLE (and wealthy). So I guess Omaha-8 “rewarded skill” in that I had a slight clue as to what was going on.
If you want to ensure pros make it to the final table your best bets are probably to choose something other than Holdem, since that’s the only games a lot of amateurs know. Or two, increase the tourney buy ins to at least $25K. Granted, the Justice Department coming down on Stars and FullTilt will probably thin the Main Event field considerably this year anyway.