Well then I guess everything (and I do mean everything) is based on "chance," right? Let's take.... oh, I don't know.... NASCAR. That'll do. Clearly that doesn't require any skill, right, because each driver's engine COULD blow up or he could be caught up in an accident that wasn't his fault at any given moment, right? I'd like to think that the best drivers would win the most races in the long run, but if the court is insisting on looking at RIGHT NOW and not the long term, and we have no idea who is going to win TODAY'S race (let alone lead the next lap - to compare with your "next card" logic), then clearly there is no skill involved, right? Sure, you could argue that Jimmie Johnson's EV to lead the first lap of today's race is higher than, say, Derrick Cope's, but anything COULD happen, so we just don't know. So I guess it's all luck.
Just like baseball. Sure, the Yankees win more games than the Brewers every single year, but in any given game, the Brewers could beat them, so I guess that's all luck too. Who's going to win TODAY? You don't know. So it must be all luck, right?
Now, you could argue that in order to compare apples to apples here, we'd need to be talking about BETTING on said sports as opposed to participating in them, but that's fine too. Throw Vegas odds out the window for a moment. If betting on these sports is all luck, then I'll take the Yankees and Jimmie Johnson week in and week out, and you take the Brewers and Derrick Cope, and we'll see who ends up with the most money in the end. If it's all luck, in the long run, we should break even. But you and I and anyone with half a brain in this world knows that's not going to be the case.
I said to throw the Vegas odds out the window, but really, they are proof in themselves that these events (and betting on them) are skill based. The lines are to offset the lopsidedness of each event. So yes, betting against perfect lines may be CLOSE to a game of chance, but it's still not exactly. And without lines, CLEARLY this would be a game of skill.
You want me to prove that poker is a game of skill and not chance? Fine. How's this? In court, I'll pick 5 professional players and 5 people from the jury who have little or ideally NO poker experience. We'll give them each $1000 (ideally, they will play with their own money) and let them play a 10 handed game for a couple of hours (sitting in alternating seats, of course) right there in the court room. If poker is a game of chance, then the combined stacks of the pros and the non players should be approximately $5000 each at the end of the session. Of course they won't be exact, but the point is, the non players will have just as good a chance of having more than $5k as the pros do, right? And you know what's gong to happen? The amateurs will NEVER have more money than the pros, even after only 2 hours. If they do, it would be maybe 1 time in 10, if that.... which pretty clearly proves that poker is a game of skill, if you ask me.
I rest my case.
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