Ok, let's get right to it. Whenever you suffer from a bad beat (like I always seem to do) Why is it ALWAYS...ALWAYS... Almost everytime the river card that ****s you...You see the percentages that goes from 70% 90% 0% BOOM there it is; the river card and you've lost and you start to think "what did I do wrong?!"
Well, one thing to keep in mind is that IF you are ahead and going to lose than there's a 50/50 chance between it being the turn or the river that knocks your ass down. That being said, a lot of times it takes BOTH to beat you. Therefore, and I'm pulling this number out my ass, I'd say there's an 80% chance that if you're ahead on the flop and you're going to lose then you're going to lose on the river.
OT: The more I try to learn and study and come up with strategies the worse results I get. When I started playing online I did better in tournaments and in cashgames then I do now after years of playing. Maybe that's it you can't improve in this game, it's all about luck?
I don't mean to be offensive here, but are you sure you're learning how to learn? Here's what I mean with an extreme example. Let's say someone is just starting to learn Pot
odds. So they're sitting in the BB with 72o. UTG raises 5BB and so the guy thinks, "Imma fold this one". But then there are 7 callers and the pot is now 37 BB. He looks and says, well, I got better than 12:1 here because I gotta put $3 into a $37 pot. So, this guy has learned a skill, but hasn't learned how to learn the skill. He didn't take the time to find out when you should or should not apply
pot odds (i.e. comparing your odds of winning to the ratio of money bet vs. the size of the pot). Wow, this really is a perfect example. I Googled "Pot Odds Poker" and in a nice big paragraph it says,
"POT ODDS. Pot odds are defined as the ratio between the size of the pot and the bet facing you. For example, if there is $4 in the pot and your opponent bets $1, you are being asked to pay one-fifth of the pot in order to have a chance of winning it. A call of $1 to win $5 represents pot odds of 5:1."
However, you open up the article and one of the first few paragraphs is,
"Calculating your expected value is a two-stage process, involving calculating your "pot odds", explained below, and then comparing that figure with the odds you have of hitting one of your
outs."
So, clearly people who haven't learned how to learn poker are just going to see the Google paragraph and think, "Hey, I got this."
Now, granted, that example worked out a bit too perfectly. The point I was trying to make was if you learn something and don't observe the results of trying to implement it. Then, just because something is good advice AND just because you implement it correctly, does not necessarily mean it will work. The point I was trying to make is that you need to learn how it applies to specific types of players. The classic example is a
bluff. You can be the best bluffer in the world, but if the person you're playing against sees QQ and decides they aren't folding no matter what, then you "4 on the board" flush bluff it will be very costly.
Gl in your future games,,,
