Luck in tourneys

I just placed ITM (7th / 400 in a freeroll) for the first time tonight after playing for about 3 months.

But I got saved by the river twice along the way. In HoH, Harrington says in every single tournament he's done well in he's needed a 'miracle card' at some point.

I'm curious to know how you all relate to DH's comment as well as my experience.

Is it possible to consistently finish ITM without taking a big gamble at some point during every tournament?

Possible to finish ITM? IMO, yes. Easily. Tight conservative players do it all the time - but 95% of the time they don't make enough when ITM to actually make the tourney worth their time.

Possible to final table and/or win? Yes, but it's much tougher. You need to play your table very well, and get aggressive in the right spots - not only that, but you have to be lucky in another sense. By that I mean that your premiums aren't beat by better premiums (or worse hands) and that when you make steals, people aren't sitting behind you with premiums (better explanation: 'the hidden luck factor' in the harrington series).

Though when a quote like "I haven't made a final table without hitting the perfect card at the perfect time" comes from someone like Harrington, it does make you think though :/

Gotta agree with DH here, luck is all important in a single tournament. Even when you get all in pre-flop with AA, after that withir your hand holds up is luck. You make your own luck in poker, you give yourself edges that pay off long term, not necessarily over the duration of one tournament, where one "unlucky" card can cost you all of your chips.

Is it luck when your AA finds KK sitting in the BB ? Is it luck when its the opposite way around ?

Yea luck plays a huge part IMO. End rant.

good reply chuck.
and well done on your ITM finish bud.
My best result in a freeroll was 1st in a 2000 player one, took me 6 hours to take it down, and I had mountains of luck, premium hands at the right time,miracle cards when needed, people folding when I was running a bluff. If you dont need luck to win a tourney then you're lucky(if that makes sense) or very very good.
One thing I'm trying to do now in MTT's is to make sure I'm the person getting my chips all-in, rather than blinds/other people etc forcing me all in. What I mean by that is if I've got the nuts then obviously I wanna get all my chips in by the river, or a premium hand like AA PF rather than my stack getting so low that I'm forced to call an all-in

The best finish in a freeroll that I am the most proudest of was finishing 54 out of 10,000 entries. And yes, luck does have a big part to play in that.

It`s possible to scrape into the money in most tourneys without ever hitting a really good hand. That`s just frustrating though because, as Chuck says, if your play is solid enough to do that consistently, you`d earn as much or more with far less time and effort in a ring game or SnG.

To make some serious money, you need to play sound poker and you need the cards on your side. I agree entirely with Harrington on that, and I seem to recall Doyle Brunson saying something similar.

Ive never made it into any worthwhile cashing senarios without putting all my chips at risk at least once in a tourney. You gotta do it and make the cash while u got the cards. If you flop A 2 5 rainbow and ur holding AA, and your opponent bets all his stack (assuming your even in chips/ hes got more) would you lay down? no you wouldnt.(i hope) lol

As a point of interest, here's the actual quote from HoH:

"Remember this. In order to reach the final table of a big tournament, it's not enough to get paid off on your monster hands. At least once or twice during the event, you're going to have to come back from the dead. You're going to be all-in against someone who has you beat, and you're going to catch a card on 4th or 5th street that miraculously keeps you alive. I've been to a lot of final tables, but I've never been to one where I didn't have to hit a perfect card somewhere earlier in the tournament." [Harrington on Holdem Vol I, pg 66]

If this is the case, then even the best will only make the final table occasionally (reflecting the odds of the getting a miracle card once or twice per tournament).

For the rest of us, we need strike to gold a little more often, I suppose.

my best result in freeroll is 4th outta 12k and to get that e/1 needs luck you cant do it without winning races and outdrawing monsters

I think there are also some factors we've omitted so far that have a huge effect as to how much luck plays in a tourney. Deepstacks for example have really high-M blind structures, and therefore the more skilled players have an advantage since there's not as much gambling going on. The number of entrants should also have a big effect.

Luck is gambling, no matter what it is. Poker takes a lot of skill but in freerolls with people calling with any hand it takes luck. Not to many are so good where they don't need to use any luck at all and just play on skill.

A good combination of luck and experience is the only way to make good money at poker. Anybody thats says it different hasnt played much. If somebody like me would play somebody like Phil Helmuth I would only give him a 50/50 chance of winning if he doesnt get any luck hands.

DISCLAIMER: (Odds are not scientific, I would actually make Phil Helmuth cry if we ever played)

So would I, but only if the table was on his foot.

With tournaments it's easy to lose sight of the long run, which I think is why luck becomes such a factor. If you are playing ring or SnGs then the sense of the long run is easier to keep in mind. Ring particularly (and SnGs to a certain extent) enables you to accept the AA that gets beat by KK and also accept the reverse situation with equal equanimity because in the long run AA wins exactly as often as it should and the player with a winning strategy comes out ahead.

However in tournaments, the long run is incredibly long and possibly never really evens out. I lost heads up a couple of years ago in a Party $33 MTT where first was $7k and second $4k. I went all in preflop with KK and the other guy called with QQ and hit a Q on the flop. I'm sure that my KK has beaten QQ exactly as often as it should but I'm never going to be Heads Up playing for that kind of cash enough times for the long run to take care of that particular beat (and yes I cried like a baby despite the 4k).

Obviously this is a product of the fact that chip EV and $EV are not the same in tournaments. I think it also means that a player with a losing strategy, approach or gameplan can be a $ winner over a long period and similarly a player with a winning strategy can consistently lose. I know that when I started playing and had two very decent wins that they were based on an approach to poker that had holes in it you could drive a bus through - essentially I got very lucky. I also know that in the last six months I've probably had the most solid gameplan since I started playing and have had a pretty dry time of it.

I'm drifting away from the topic but in the long run better to be a player with a winning strategy and trust in the end it will work out, but in the context of any single tournament I absolutely agree that somewhere along the way a dose of good fortune is going to be required.

+rep for that reply.