When people say poker is a game of luck, tell them..

Poker is a game of luck?
Do you go to Wall Street and tell all the day traders that the stock market is a game of luck? Poker and the stock market are very similar: luck is a part of it, there are swings, but a smart player in the game wins money over the long haul. The fact that sometimes bad players win, is in itself an admittance that there are good players and bad players, therefore it is a game of skill.

If I were to offer you coin flips at $100 a pop with a coin weighted to land heads 55% of the time (for the sake of the argument lets say you can confirm the validity of this), for as many flips as you want and you can have heads, you would take this wager right? Even though you MIGHT be down after 100 flips, 500 flips, heck even 1000 flips. Well, being a knowledgeable poker player is much like this. Sometimes you lose those flips, but the weighted coin affords you a positive expectation in the long run -- which, through patience and discipline, eventually becomes realized.