Serious question Unlucky
Hello Dave and anyone that wants to post a serious reply.
I have been offered the same piece of insight from several top players that garner mucho respecto from me. This is advice that I consider thought provoking, especially in light of the amazing string of it I am manifesting.
This advice is "Get less unlucky" or "get more lucky" either way. This has been simply put to me by seperate players whom know not each other yet have done very well at poker. Put to me in a very serious context of conversation.. They want me to know this.
We all understand poker math, probabilites, and the general meaning of the term luck in poker. But is that all there is too it? That is my question. What do they mean by that... and how does one go about being less unlucky?
I understand the numbers and the long run principles obviously, as do the advice givers. What I am asking, and they are saying, goes much beyond that. Luck itself as a concept, is very encompassing thing. One could argue lots of stuff is luck, not just numbers in poker. But could someone argue that no, its not luck? Hell yeah, many people have beliefs that are quite unique, and often perplexing, but nevertheless may actually make sense.
Poker/ Luck concepts are manufactured from a biased point of view, re-inforced by the poker-intellegensia community. Its Backed up by math as an explanation, and dismissed as that. MAybe something more should be examined...
as
How does this account for those fleeting "lucky" feelings that are so often accurate occuring at the table?
Because I believe I am unlucky I am?
Thanks if anyone cares to share on this one. I am interested in particuarly on advice to be "less unlucky" if you have some ideas. thanks your all :diamond:
I have been offered the same piece of insight from several top players that garner mucho respecto from me. This is advice that I consider thought provoking, especially in light of the amazing string of it I am manifesting.
This advice is "Get less unlucky" or "get more lucky" either way. This has been simply put to me by seperate players whom know not each other yet have done very well at poker. Put to me in a very serious context of conversation.. They want me to know this.
We all understand poker math, probabilites, and the general meaning of the term luck in poker. But is that all there is too it? That is my question. What do they mean by that... and how does one go about being less unlucky?
I understand the numbers and the long run principles obviously, as do the advice givers. What I am asking, and they are saying, goes much beyond that. Luck itself as a concept, is very encompassing thing. One could argue lots of stuff is luck, not just numbers in poker. But could someone argue that no, its not luck? Hell yeah, many people have beliefs that are quite unique, and often perplexing, but nevertheless may actually make sense.
Poker/ Luck concepts are manufactured from a biased point of view, re-inforced by the poker-intellegensia community. Its Backed up by math as an explanation, and dismissed as that. MAybe something more should be examined...
as
How does this account for those fleeting "lucky" feelings that are so often accurate occuring at the table?
Because I believe I am unlucky I am?
Thanks if anyone cares to share on this one. I am interested in particuarly on advice to be "less unlucky" if you have some ideas. thanks your all :diamond:
Comments
That says it all.
Call it attitude, karma or whatever you want. If you don't have "that" edge, you'll be watching from the sidelines every time. IMHO, you have to live right and play right to get lucky. Its been said before and it is worth saying it again, everything in your life needs to be in balance to play your best game. Have a winning attitude whether you're winning or not.
People are always talking about having to call because of pot odds etc... but what are good are pot odds if they put you on the rail. Just because the pot odds say you're getting good odds for your money doesn't mean you're going to win.
We want the dead money in the games; we just have to accept the fact that sometimes the dead money is going to win.
Honestly, everyone is going to get lucky sooner or later, it’s all about how much you can make when its your turn.
Good Luck (no pun intended)
A quick answer, YES!
You have heard the saying you make your own luck, competence breeds confidence. "Whether you think you can, or think you can't, your probably right" Henry Ford.
I am not a pro player, but what I have learned in all other aspects of life applys to the tables.
Are you getting defeated by your 'bad' cards? Are you going on Tilt when you see the jackass across from you has caught a/a, k/k, even flopped a str in the blinds with 8/7o, is it eating you? He is a tourist, now he has confidence and he is beating you?
- why not be thinking woohoo, this guys is going to go down hard when I catch him? The table is going to pay good!
When you have a/q and the flop comes kk/2 are you thinking 'shit, first decent hand in an hour and someone has trip kings'?
- what a great bluffing hand, I could win this now and I have shit!
You catch, AA and the flop shows straight, you think your beat before the betting starts?
- wow what an oppotunity to make huge value bets!!!
All of those things are 'luck', you know the numbers the probabilties, but it is the grey little areas where you make the luck.
I think one great example this week is on CBC's Making the Cut, where they have young hockey players shooting for a chance to make it in the big leagues. There was a direct correlation between the players demonstartion on ice and what the psy-op coach had to say about how they thought about themselves. Players who were always catching breaks, getiing lucky and being in the right place at teh right time, were previously shown to have higher confidence in the psych testing.
I hope this is what you were aiming at and that it helps...
If Im off the mark, it will help someone!
I'm no psych major, but our brains like to take random dis-associated events (like the flip of a coin) and try to make sense/patterns out of it. It's the roulette syndome. The ball falls of black for 10 spins in a row so it must come up black the next time.. In poker, it's the unbeatable feeling you get if you win a few pots in a short time..
Thats because they're talking about LIMIT poker. While pot odds are just as applicable to NL the difference is that in limit pot odds give you a reason to call, in NL pot odds give you a reason to fold.
People who have confidence 'seem' to be more lucky.
I had lost total confidence in my game (with good reason i was as very loose and passive) ... then i re-tooled my game. I regained my confidence and the 'luck' seemed to be with me. The funny thing is confidence can also mean saying 'i am confident that i don't know how to play this hand out, so i'll fold'
So that means folding a bunch of hands even on the flop that maybe i'm leading. The result is that when i do get a hand i'm confident in, i'm not going to get unlucky, most of the time.
I try to eliminate situations of self doubt. I try to play poker like george bush. I make my read and my decision and go with it, with zero doubt. If at the end i was wrong, it was because of bad intel and i go forward knowing i made no mistake. while not a great way to conduct foreign policy, it works for poker
People who feel unlucky are placing more emphasis than usual on their memories of bad events than on their memories of good events.
Those to tell and dwell on bad beat stories are naturally going to feel that they are more unlucky than they actually are. You write your own poker history in your mind.
Focus on the positive and purge the negative. This attitude need not apply only to poker.
Avoid rationalizing your poker losses and defeats on bad luck. This sort of explanation is like a cozy pillow to which you add bad beat story feather upon bad beat story feather. When the pillow gets cozy enough, you may very well never wake up so that you might be able to discover any leaks your own poker game may truly have.
I don't believe in luck, and this, I think, is a *tremendous* edge.
Everyone has the power to make themselves lose at poker, and far too many use this power.
Become one with the rivered set of dueces. Embrace the poor play of your opponents, but let it be their own to execute and your own to observe.
Learn to love the bad beat.
ScottyZ
If you can create your own lucky bounces then the cards just might fall for you. Remeber 22 is still ahead of AK, but are you williong to put your chips allin with this hand? Math says you should but can anyone do this all the time?
If you feel your out in front, take charge and create the lucky bounce. Sure maybe an A hits but a 2 might come.
Sounds bad, i know. but this I think is what they are talking about. IMHO.
Actually, that is definitely part of it. I'm not a psychologist myself, but I do have a friend that is. She has told me that it's well known in psychology that people are better at inductive reasoning (making good guesses based on a complex collection of clues) when they are in a good mood.
Following a system in hold'em is a deductive reasoning function, and a disciplined player should be able to do that in any sort of mood. But creative, excellent play requires that you have a read on your opponent: Will he fold if I bet now? Is he slow-playing, or is he on a draw that didn't hit? Getting a read on your opponent is definitely inductive reasoning, and when you're in a bad mood (which you probably are if you're "feeling unlucky"), you are probably not doing this as well as you can.
I've definitely noticed this effect in my own play. When I'm in a good mood, I always seem to bluff at the right times, catch other people bluffing, and fold whenever I'm behind. When I'm in a bad mood, people ending up showing down against me with hands that never occured to me they might have, and it feels like another "bad beat", even if I was behind right from the flop.
This isn't anything new - pretty much every book I've ever read on poker includes some variant of "don't play in a bad mood". This is just a little bit of psychology that helps to explain why. I expect that there is a lot more to it, though, and this is just a small part of the explanation. The book "Zen and the Art of Poker" actually talks a lot about how mood affects your performance.
(rough translation)
Luck favours the prepared mind.
- Louis Pasteur
I read a fascinating article in Skeptical Enquirer about luck (I am a subscriber). To completely simplify the article...
Two groups are compared: People who self-define themselves as lucky ("lucky players") and people who are not ("unlucky players").
Couple of findings. Both groups are asked for their feelings on a hypothetical situation. They are in a bank. It is robbed. In the course of the robbery the subject is shot in the leg.
Lucky people tended to say "wasn't that lucky that I was shot only shot in the leg. It could have been the head."
Unlucky people tended to say "what bad luck to be in a bank on the day that it was robbed."
In other words... pescimist, optimist.
Second example. Each group is given a newspaper and told to read the articles. There will be test afterwards. The lucky people complete the task in 2 minutes. The unlucky people in 30 minutes. Why? On page two there is a full page ad that says "Stop reading, this is part of the 'test.' You should stop now and report to your instructor."
Theory: "Lucky" people are adaptive and look for opportunities outside the normal course of events. "Unlucky" people are rigid.
So... how does this apply to poker?
Dave's fundamental theory of luck as it applies to poker: Unlucky players tend to be rigid and unadaptive. They will tend to expect their opponents to play "by the book" and they will be bothered by it when their opponents refuse to co-operate and beat the "unlucky" player. They are, of course, suffering no more nor no less "luck" then anyone, but they don't care about math. They only care about having their aces cracked by some schmoe from Boise.
Lucky players tend to look for opportunities outside of "rigid thinking." They are foxes. Also, when they get beat by a weak player they think to themselves "How lucky to be in THIS game with all these bad players." They also suffer no more nor no less "luck" than anyone, but they tend to think, "I am from Boise, how can I bust that unlucky schmoe's aces."
So... Be lucky. Be adaptive. Have an open mind. Look for opportunities that are not "out of the book." And, when you are shot in the leg, thank your lucky stars.
I'd Like to thank everyone for the great responses. You have all provided some great food for thought. In a general sense, you all have put out great advice! For the rest of my life I will thank god if I get shot in the leg!
IT is true, i must remember, that even when you have the best of it, sometimes you just gotta fold. If u know you are gonna get rivered, u probably will.
"Getting a read on your opponent is definitely inductive reasoning, and when you're in a bad mood (which you probably are if you're "feeling unlucky"), you are probably not doing this as well as you can."
IS great thinking... so true!
I am usually frustrated when someone sucks out on me with a 5 outer on the river, but I am also gracious. This person pays my bills in the long run.
I should have mentioned in my first post that when I got this advice, it was from very awesome players... All Aces calibre players...
They know im really good, which is why they even bother talking to me. I dedicate about 8 hours a day to poker in some way shape or form.
Its not about me whining about my bad luck, but trying to figure out how to outweigh it with the good..ALways!
So far this year (start Jan 1st) I have won every month except for one, and in that particualr month, it felt like every draw hit against me, my everydraw missed, and my every big hand got cracked (well like 3/4's of it). Yes this has affected my play, to be honest, in a more aggresive/loose way, not tight/passive. I am trying to make a little too much happen. I realize that when i call a raise with TJo and the flop is JJ2 capped bets, turn X capped and River A, I can't blame it on luck that I lost a huge hand to a guy that had AA in the hole...
in this month thankfully I only lost slightly more than 2k.
It learning to accept this bad stretch and moving on. I like Scotty Z's idea that there is no luck... I think thats another very good way to approach poker.
Although id rather want to know how to get that 'luck' that Gus Hansen projects!
Well enough rambling, I am gonna reread all this thread and post something more coherent if i can.. either way THANKS EVERYONE FOR THE AWESOME OPINIONS !!