Is Poker All Luck When Pocket Aces Get Cracked?

My friends like to argue and ask is poker all luck? (we play Texas Hold'em) When someone is all in, then it only depends on the cards that turn over right? But otherwise, is poker luck or skill - or what combination of each? Consider getting lucky for a minute - getting good poker luck is not necessarily something you can control (NLP anyone?) I mean you could stop playing hands when you notice you're getting bad cards or getting "bad beats" - but that's all you can do in regards to changing your luck at poker. In our opinion, poker is all luck when pocket aces get cracked! Here are three examples from the 2009 WSOP (World Series of Poker): 1) Lambs aces are beat by Begleiter's Jack 9. Begleiter has J9 of diamonds: raises to 450k. Lamb raises to 1.1M with his aces Flop: 5 J 9 - Begleiter has two pair Begleiter checks, Lamb raises to 1.1M, Begleiter goes all in and get Lamb to call. The turn and river do nothing for Lamb. The odds went like this (Begleiter/Lamb): Preflop(20/80) - Flop (75/25) - Turn (82/18) Is poker luck? When Begleiter wins on a 20% change, we think so. 2) Robbins looses to Akenhead's King Queen. Robbins goes all in with pocket Aces, Akenhead calls with KQ Flop: KQJ - Akenhead gets 2 pair Turn and river do nothing for Robbins The odd this time (Akenhead/Robbins): Preflop (13/87) - Flop (62/38)... so Akenhead converts his 13% and then Robbins gets unlucky and can't do anything with his 38%! 3) Robbins beats Cada's AAs with pocket 10s Robbins goes all in with 10s, Cada calls Preflop, Robbins has a 21% chance of winning, after the flop, he's looking at 9% - then after the turn comes, he only has a 5% chance of winning... guess what happens? That's right, a 10 comes and Robbins converts his 5% into a lucky poker play. So we consider poker luck when someone is all in, behind, and gets the lucky card to win. But we also understand that there is skill involved when playing poker. When someone raises to represent having a very strong hand and scares the other player off a small hand, that is skill, and a gamble! What do you think? If you play poker often, we would love to hear your opinion

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