More Luck in Poker than most people think...............

[MANTIS01]

Poker is all about skill when you are running good and all about luck when running bad.

[HOLDorFOLD]

Just to throw into the pot, there's the factor of "creating your own luck/bad luck"?

For example, some people say "that lucky bastard always wins competitions" but that 'lucky bastard' created an opportunity to have good luck by actually enterting it in the first place.   Could the same be said for 'entering a pot' initially with a bad hand and striking lucky on the flop???  Yes you got lucky but you created an window for luck to hit you in the first place?

Hell, what do I know, I'm just an Essex 'neon blue' fish 


As for the luck in moving tables and hitting BB 3 times etc on the trot, it would be interesting to see if that does even out over a period of time.   Hmmmmmmmm sadly I think I may now make a note of when it happens versus moving tables and missing the blind - yes, I do have too much time on my hands (and I'm curious now lol)

[tantrum]

Luck - you can make yourself 'lucky' or make yourself 'unlucky'.  It all depends on our attitude to life in general.
The studies shown that people who believe that are 'lucky' in fact are luckier by default.

In poker as in life the same principle applies.  Those who dwell on their 'bad beats' outdraws and so forth are not focusing enough on grabbing the opportunities and exploiting what was given to them



Yes sometimes this 'distrubution' might appear as unfair or 'unlucky' but I am sure this is only our perception.

[Moskvich]

I remember reading something written by a statistician a while ago, saying that in fact the numbers are not in fact large enough to even luck out in a lifetime, so some players will in fact benefit from good or suffer from bad luck even in the long run. I'll rack my brain to think where I got that.

This why the long run is so long, and why people are so fond of saying that you need to play 100k/500k/1mln hands before your cash stats can tell a true story. Because it's not just about winning 60% of your 60/40s - it's about having all those weird and wonderful situations (like m3Boy getting moved to the BB time after time) even themselves out. That sort of bad luck only happens once in a blue moon, and you're going to need several such blue moons to ensure that you get enough good luck back to cancel out the bad.

As others have said though, the game's more about shrugging off that luck and playing well enough the rest of the time that this luck aspect doesn't really matter.

In the original OP, for instance - how many times have you played in a tournament where someone else has been crippled by consecutive blinds like this? You probably don't know, because you wouldn't have noticed. It may be that you once won a tournament precisely because someone else got crippled like this. Even though this happened to you on this occasion, it may be that your good luck in the past in similar situations already outweighs the bad luck you had this time.

You just don't know - and therefore it comes back to what is essentially the common sense way of dealing with it, which is that it's just not worth worrying about.

[Snatiramas]

I have never been lucky...every single win has just been skill.

How quickly people forget previous blonde bashes................

 

probably my most skilfull/lucky moment ever

[Woodsey]

I remember reading something written by a statistician a while ago, saying that in fact the numbers are not in fact large enough to even luck out in a lifetime, so some players will in fact benefit from good or suffer from bad luck even in the long run. I'll rack my brain to think where I got that.

This why the long run is so long, and why people are so fond of saying that you need to play 100k/500k/1mln hands before your cash stats can tell a true story. Because it's not just about winning 60% of your 60/40s - it's about having all those weird and wonderful situations (like m3Boy getting moved to the BB time after time) even themselves out. That sort of bad luck only happens once in a blue moon, and you're going to need several such blue moons to ensure that you get enough good luck back to cancel out the bad.

As others have said though, the game's more about shrugging off that luck and playing well enough the rest of the time that this luck aspect doesn't really matter.

In the original OP, for instance - how many times have you played in a tournament where someone else has been crippled by consecutive blinds like this? You probably don't know, because you wouldn't have noticed. It may be that you once won a tournament precisely because someone else got crippled like this. Even though this happened to you on this occasion, it may be that your good luck in the past in similar situations already outweighs the bad luck you had this time.

You just don't know - and therefore it comes back to what is essentially the common sense way of dealing with it, which is that it's just not worth worrying about.

I've been trying to find the article, I do remember him talking about running various hand simulations, including wierd and wonderful ones that we all play not just your standard flips or 60/40's etc. I think it showed he luck factor was still apparent after a couple of million hands and only evened out after several million more. I also remember Greg Raymer talking about seeing the same thing in his simulations as he's a bit of a geek when it comes to that sort of stuff.

[bhoywonder]

My last live tourney luck backfired on me...1 off the bubble, i refused a race for my tourney life( I folded to his all in preflop ),having 99,my opponent showed AQ....

thought I'd wait for a better spot as this guy although being the CL was very agressive and would tend to overplay his hands

It came several rounds later and being the small stack i had no alternative to call same opponents all in with 55,now i did get a better spot ,he had 22....only to river a 2 to KO me...not a problem we have all been there...

but luck misfired on me there

So yeah, luck has a huge impact in my opinion

just left wondering whether i should have taken the 50/50 option instead of the 80/20.....

[Hawkeye1976]

Hi,

I also think it is how players see luck!

Alot of players don't notice when they get moved from UTG to the CO, or when their KQ beats AK on a final table.

But when it is reversed they are the unluckiest player in the world.

If you got moved from the CO the UTG 5 times in a tourney but won the whole thing, would it matter, or would you remember?

Thanks
Steve

[tikay]

Hi,

I also think it is how players see luck!

Alot of players don't notice when they get moved from UTG to the CO, or when their KQ beats AK on a final table.

But when it is reversed they are the unluckiest player in the world.

If you got moved from the CO the UTG 5 times in a tourney but won the whole thing, would it matter, or would you remember?

Thanks
Steve

There you have it.

[AndrewT]

There is an easy way to avoid all the heartache of being knocked out of a tournament by a bad beat. Simply get knocked out by playing badly - don't let Lady Luck get a look in.

It works for me beautifully - you never hear me moan about bad beats.

[M3boy]

The result is irrelevant to my OP

I would of made that post regardless of the result.

The move for me left me with no choice but to "gamble" with my A8 - if I won that hand and went on to win, the point of my post would be the same.

[M3boy]

There is an easy way to avoid all the heartache of being knocked out of a tournament by a bad beat. Simply get knocked out by playing badly - don't let Lady Luck get a look in.

It works for me beautifully - you never hear me moan about bad beats.

No One moaned about bad beats, I mentioned "Luck" meaning Good OR Bad Luck

[AndrewT]

I'm not exactly sure what people mean by 'luck'. Poker is a game of chance, where little is certain and events are determined by probabilities. Sometimes something happens. Another time, in identical circumstances, something else happens. This is the nature of the game. All random events are unconnected. Ascribing undue importance to some perceived correlation between unconnected events is not going to help anyone in their game.

There'll be some change in a player's demeanour based simply on the fact that a series of random events have ended in one set of results rather than another. Spectators will tip a player to do well on account of the fact that 'he's due'. Somewhere, every day, many times over, a mouse or mug is hurled against the wall in frustration. Somewhere else, someone is walking with a strut and giving it the big 'I am' simply because he won five races in a row.

This is exactly how religion started. Thousands of years ago, a man decided that the fact he could never win a hand with AK meant that some mystical force was against him, so he sacrificed his son to appease this mysterious entity.

[action man]

This is copy/pasted from my blog   www.ricktrigg.com

not on the exact same track as the topic and its a few years old lol.
Have You Got Lucky?

it is important after a win in an Multi-tourney or Sit & go, to evealuate your game, and realise the pots which you won, could have gone the other way.
On very few occasions is it possible to win a, say 100 runner tourney without winning at least one coin flip (50-50) and a lot of the times you may be forced to put your chips in with say KQ v A10 where u are a 60/40 dog.
Often it can be easy after winning a tournament to feel like you have played very good poker and have deserved your win. At times like these you have to remember he times you have been lucky in a single pot and realise that this won't happen in every tourney. My own opinion is that you have to have luck on your side to win a tourney. The differnce between the good players and just the average players is that the good players give themselves the best possibe chance to get lucky by only getting involved in very few showdowns per tournament, this way they may only have to win say 3 coinflips per tourney as opposed to other weaker players who may need to win a lot more, due to their inabilty to steal pots and become more aggressive in the latter stages. I have seen many players who at one time were winning tourneys left right and centre, and they were last seen entering $2 bonus freerolls.

It is very naive to disregard luck in poker. But for a good player the luck comes, by why that they may be lucky not to get unlucky....

Ie they will go into a pot with AK v AQ in a showdown obviously the AK is about 73% favourite but if you are involved in 4 of these coups, you are favourite to lose your stack by the 4th time...

They say that good players don't understand how much luck is in the game and bad players don't realise how much skill is in he game. This is probably right, however bad players often endeavour to learn more about the skill in the game. It is also important for the good players to not learn but understand luck and don't get blinkered into thinking you are invincible, and never forget the times when you get lucky as this will help you take the beats that other players inflict on you.... because as they say "what comes around, goes around".........

[tantrum]

Professor Richard Wiseman wrote about luck and 'lack' of it