Everything that's wrong with poker as a game can be exhibited in the fact that 70-30 is considered a rout. It's slightly better than 2 to 1, you lose almost 1/3rd of the time. AQ vs KK preflop is roughly like leading 1-0 in a baseball game.
What I think you're saying is "everything that's wrong with poker" is exactly what I find makes poker great.
So much incomplete information combined with luck obscures the best strategy. If it weren't for these traits, it's likely poker would have been relegated to the likes of checkers by now. Solved and not fun for competent players.
The luck keeps people coming back.
Anyway, I can't agree with what you're saying, which is really just an opinion.
Go does not have any luck, but it's an incredibly elegant and deep game with basically 3 rules. Computers still don't win against the top pros. (But that'll probably change over the next 5-10 years.)
So you don't need luck to make it an attractive spectator sport. But I suppose it might be very different from poker if there wasn't luck involved.
Mostly I mean that people think it's absolutely unbelievable that 70-30 gets beat and whine like it was an actual rout when it happens, then tell stories about it for years.
