Was it skills or was it just pure luck?

Last week in class while we were watching the movie, we discussed about how life is a gamble and how in a game of poker the outcome of the gamble is determined by either pure luck or pure skill. Here are my thoughts about this topic…

To win a poker game, one might say it was pure luck, another might say it is pure skill. I say its more luck than skill. Let's say Player A has a good hand but no skill and Player B has a bad hand but excellent poker skills or the perfect pokerface, who would win the hand? Player A would of course because the hand is what determines the game. So they play many more rounds and Player A keeps receiving a better hand than Player B and taking the pot, Player B will soon be out of the game. Player A wins all of the money because of pure luck. Player B has all the skills but he cannot control what cards he is given, the outcome is always random. You can learn a skill, that is an action that you can control. However, you cannot learn to be lucky because you can't control your luck.

Although I do not believe skill is totally out of the equation in the poker game, I believe luck is a much stronger factor. It is like life. Some people might have the skill to become a powerful business man or a famous singer, but not everyone is lucky enough to have the opportunity to even come across a record breaking deal or a fantastic job offer. I'm sure there are many people out there with more potential and more skills than those that are famous or successful that we see on the faces of the media today. But the only problem is that they didn't meet the right person that gave them the job at the right time. Like I have mentioned before, having skills is still a very important factor in society today especially with the crazy competition that we have to face everyday. But I still believe that luck has a bigger role in our lives than skill. You can't be born as an heir or heiress with skill, and you definitely can't win the lottery with skill. Our lives are effected by what happens around us. Where we are at an exact moment and who we're with can determine our fate of our lives or it can change it completely. And who might be passing by at that time or what's that? A benjamin on the floor? Well, that's just pure luck.