According to a report in the ScienceDaily, while luck does play a factor in poker, more skill is involved.

Citing research from Case Western Reserve University doctoral student Michael DeDonno, it seemed skill was the determining factor when it came to size of stack.

In one study DeDonno had 41 inexperienced poker playing college students play eight games (equalling 200 hands) of a computer simulated version of Texas Hold'em.

Half of the group was given a sheet with pocket card combination rankings (from best to worst) and was told that poker pros don't play every hand.

The other 50 percent was given a sheet with the history of poker and nothing else.

Based on that, DeDonno found that those with instruction, albeit limited, performed better than those without.

As a control, DeDonno also conducted a second study with only 720 hands of Hold'em with half receiving combination rankings and the other half receiving poker history.

Again, the ones receiving limited instruction performed better.