riverboatrat
Visionary
Silver Level
sure it takes some bit of luck to get the hands, but you can get AK 5 times in a row, and each time you miss the flop, a skilled player with a worse hand is gonna pick it up and put you off your hand.
sure it takes some bit of luck to get the hands, but you can get AK 5 times in a row, and each time you miss the flop, a skilled player with a worse hand is gonna pick it up and put you off your hand.
M
marble
Rock Star
Silver Level
i joke around a lot, but once in a while i may give some serious advice....this is one of them. please don't take it as offense.
i hear people talk about swings and variance often, it can be misleading. don't blame it on variance that you're losing money. sometimes there's no magic word like "variance" that is going to save you and turn a losing player around in the long run. you see, it only works if you're a WINNING player.....meaning that on average you play better than your competition. a lot of people think they're good in poker and make the right decisions most of the time, i know.......so when they lose, they think that it's only a matter of time till things get better because of a bad swing. wrong formula.
note that if there's a losing player that hit the good side of his variance, can be misleading also. <--------this is the drug that attracts most donators.
i don't know whether or not you win money in poker but you may have to change the way you play a little bit.
so i don't sound like an arrogant *****.....i too lose often and donate a lot to poker players.
-m
BrentD22
Rock Star
Silver Level
I got into an arguement about a guy going all-in with AcJc - he was UTG+1 and went all-in. This was a 9 person sit-n-go and he only had 1200 in chips left and I had knocked out the 1st 4 people (starting chip stack 3000) I now had over 15000+ in chips with 5 players left everyone folded to my in the BB with 4c5c. I called... He was like WTF man what a stupid call. Oh the blinds where 200-400 - The way I looked at it was that I was most likely a 60-40% dog, but I had a huge stack and I could knock someone out of the tournament and I already had 400 in the pot I only had to call 800 to win 3000 in chips (the UTG did call 400, but was obz folding even if I folded or called).
I felt like I had good odds to call and I could knock off another player + pick-up some chips. He said I was an idiot for calling and that I was ssooo lucky.
What do you guys think luck or skill? I believe I took a chance and gambled, but I also didn't do this blindly and without realizing the implications. I would still have PLENTY of chips and only double up the idiot anyway if I lost which was no big deal to me. Winning however would have taken out another player and make my stack that much bigger all for 800 chips out of my 15000+ chips stack.
We then had a discussion about luck and poker. I said he was lucky he wasn't dominated by AQ or AK and he said it was such a small chance anyone had AK or AQ and I ask why? The deal is completely random. I understand that if he has an ace there is only 3 left in the deck. I said I may have won with a 40% chance of winning, but I said again he was "lucky" that someone didn't have AQ or AK and I believe that is where luck comes into poker.
When you go all-in with any hand other than AA pre-flop you are taking a risk that you are an underdog. When you are called by a hand that has a lower % to win pre-flop and you don't have AA you where lucky you didn't run into a better hand. Does this make sense?
I felt like I had good odds to call and I could knock off another player + pick-up some chips. He said I was an idiot for calling and that I was ssooo lucky.
What do you guys think luck or skill? I believe I took a chance and gambled, but I also didn't do this blindly and without realizing the implications. I would still have PLENTY of chips and only double up the idiot anyway if I lost which was no big deal to me. Winning however would have taken out another player and make my stack that much bigger all for 800 chips out of my 15000+ chips stack.
We then had a discussion about luck and poker. I said he was lucky he wasn't dominated by AQ or AK and he said it was such a small chance anyone had AK or AQ and I ask why? The deal is completely random. I understand that if he has an ace there is only 3 left in the deck. I said I may have won with a 40% chance of winning, but I said again he was "lucky" that someone didn't have AQ or AK and I believe that is where luck comes into poker.
When you go all-in with any hand other than AA pre-flop you are taking a risk that you are an underdog. When you are called by a hand that has a lower % to win pre-flop and you don't have AA you where lucky you didn't run into a better hand. Does this make sense?
BrentD22
Rock Star
Silver Level
Your joking, but you have a point sorta. I've noticed that I get badbeat on the weekends more than weekdays. Why? More time, more players, more lucky ass fish on the weekends to bad beat tight ass players like me.
Pothole
Legend
Silver Level
You can twist statistics to make them get your message across anyway you like, eg 20% of fatal road traffic accidents are caused by impaired drivers, therefore 80% were sober, it stands to reason statistically it's safer to drive drunk? ( I don't think so ). As for the luck factor, just think about the unlucky fella in British Columbia yesterday, walking down the street and gets killed by a helicopter crashing. Makes a runner runner suckout seem pretty lame.
zachvac
Legend
Silver Level
Actually that is a logical fallacy. If 99% of the drivers on the road are sober and 1% were impaired, that means that a disproportionate amount of impaired drivers caused fatal accidents. I get the point of twisting statistics, but this is just a logical fallacy, using data and making a claim when the data doesn't support the claim. But I do get your point kind of, although I still don't think any of this applies when all the numbers are literally being made up.
lol yeah, pretty sure life is 80% luck, 20% skill
C
cparker
Enthusiast
Silver Level
MR TOYMAKER
Enthusiast
Silver Level
Luck you say. Very slipperly slope for anyone one who wants to have a true certainty. It belongs on that shelf with God discussions,politics and UFO's. My point is what is luck? Can you have bad or good luck? Are some people luckier than others. I mean can you be lucky in love and unlucky in poker? Now this is my humble opinion, Skill allows you to exploit your luck to maximize your profit or minimize losses over long haul. Skill will keep you alive in a MTT when shortstacked and card dead. Skill will produce consitence proveable results (stats) over the long haul. Luck many times ,I thought I was just lucky, but after careful examination I found however a slight improvement in my game that help me make the right decision based on experience. I cant totally say that happens all the time either. Sometimes my skill just gets me there to be either lucky or unlucky? I want to beieve that our state of mind ( assholes aren't luckier I HOPE) determines our luck factor. That all players have equal amount of it. Now Guys this is just my humble opinion.......I'm just saying......
4
4999Perish
Enthusiast
Silver Level
Here is my 2 cents.
If all players only play "the cards" and not each individual players ability at the game then yes it is all luck, you cant know exactly what cards will be dealt.
But, if you are playing against individuals who have, and we all have,
quirks, tells, emotions, and not just "the cards" and can read these
shortcomings then I would have to say that 90% skill, 10% luck is my
call.
Keep up the good work everyone.
4999Perish
If all players only play "the cards" and not each individual players ability at the game then yes it is all luck, you cant know exactly what cards will be dealt.
But, if you are playing against individuals who have, and we all have,
quirks, tells, emotions, and not just "the cards" and can read these
shortcomings then I would have to say that 90% skill, 10% luck is my
call.
Keep up the good work everyone.
4999Perish
zachvac
Legend
Silver Level
more like skils=70% Luck 30% Ithink
Graver69
lol, define what you mean. We can't get anywhere with people just spewing out numbers that have no meaning whatsoever. Did you know poker is also 70% gold, 20% silver, and 10% bronze?
nevadanick
Back to work ... zzzzz
Silver Level
Excellent. In a nutshell ... AA winning 75%, over 1 million hands (in YOUR hand). You wake up to AA 6 times a day. You need Tracker to record 166,667 days of (your) AA hands. that's only 456 years (and 7 months). You will only face losing your AA for 114 years (and 2 months), in whatever 'variance' order they come.
In defining 'luck', the parameters aren't there for an exact definition, IMO. What i do believe is that 'luck' factors in most in poker when playing NL games and betting all-ins PRE-river card. Unless you have a superuser account, there is NO WAY to know what is coming from the dealer next. Betting on unseen cards is the 'luck' factor.
Call it 'variance, that's poker, coolers, or..?' if you want, but when a player goes all-in against an unfinished board, it's nothing more than finding out what Lady Luck will do to you TODAY.
AlexeiVronsky
Rock Star
Silver Level
Ok, I'm defining luck as a deviance from the expected. Lets say you're in a situation where you expect to win 36% of the time (ie. hitting your flush draw,) and you win, you got lucky. Lets say that you're in that situation a thousand times and you win 357 of them, that's slightly unlucky, but well within a standard deviation. Now if you were to win 450 of them on the other hand that would be phenomenally lucky, but considering the huge number of poker hands people play I have little doubt someone experienced this in their lifetime. If they were to have that situation 100,000 times and won 50,000 of them there'd almost certainly be cheating involved, just because the chance of that occurring is so incredibly small. So fewer hands means greater impact of luck, more hands is less luck, to say how much luck is a factor without defining over what period of time, and the skill differential, to say any particular value for luck or skill is meaningless.
For those interested a bit more there was a good article on probability in Scientific American a few years ago, (not exactly about poker however) that's online now at Miracle on Probability Street by Michael Shermer. When you hear about people's successes or failures at poker, people are much more likely to talk about improbable events so it seems like they happen a lot more often so you get a magnifying effect in that way, not to mention poker players, *gasp*, lie, so I'm guessing luck seems like a much larger factor than it really is in poker especially over the long term.
For those interested a bit more there was a good article on probability in Scientific American a few years ago, (not exactly about poker however) that's online now at Miracle on Probability Street by Michael Shermer. When you hear about people's successes or failures at poker, people are much more likely to talk about improbable events so it seems like they happen a lot more often so you get a magnifying effect in that way, not to mention poker players, *gasp*, lie, so I'm guessing luck seems like a much larger factor than it really is in poker especially over the long term.
zachvac
Legend
Silver Level
Actually, how about just a thousand, that means you'll have 700 hold up all but a significantly insignificant amount of the time (ie if 700 or more didn't you'd have proof it was rigged), and at least 725/1000 hold up 96.6% of the time. So that's a factor of a thousand, so instead of the 114 years, that's about 6 weeks. Much more realistic. So yes going all-in with cards to come is certainly going to suffer some short-term variance. But if you go all-in preflop with AA you are going to win more than you lose, and if you play a significant amount of time (I see AA an average of much more than 6 times a day, actually more than twice that on my average day of 3k hands). So if I play for about 3 weeks I'll have a 97% chance of winning at least 72.5% when the true average is 75%. That's not bad. Alternatively though, know that variance goes the other way. Some players will win with AA 85% in a week sometimes, but if you play long-term, you will win getting your money in good. And short term, you have a better chance of winning than losing if you get your money in good.
ALSO, realize that winning with AA is also variance, as the true mean is 75% and you won 100% of the money.
R
Ranny
Legend
Bronze Level
What a good tournament player is capable of doing is stack building. So when they lose their percentage hand (suck out) they are better able to absorb the loss. Poker is percentages and position, I was the reason I liked the 45c hand earlier in the thread, 60/40 ish 800 into 3000. its a call all day but only if you can afford the chips. i deviate from percentages dependant on my stack at time.
Just remember in tournaments chips are ammunition, nothing else. The weakest players will win a big pot and be unwilling to commit chips after, afraid to lose them.
Cash games are totally different of course.
Just remember in tournaments chips are ammunition, nothing else. The weakest players will win a big pot and be unwilling to commit chips after, afraid to lose them.
Cash games are totally different of course.
odinscott
Legend
Silver Level
I get what you are saying and I actually am winning, though not today...
My post actually has alot more in common with your post. I think that there are two things in poker that make you lose. Bad playing (also counting making a mistake) and bad luck. You can correct the 1st one, but the second there is nothing that you can do.
I do believe that overall the best players do the best in tourneys (where I think alot more luck is involved). Especially over the long term (how long is that though? lol). But my point with variance is that it is simply bad luck.
If I am second chip leader on my table, late in a tourney - then get sucked out on two hands right in a row (happens to me all the time, when everyone starts shoving every hand), now I am crippled. I got my hand in with the best of it, but the lower percentage hand won. Eventually a few hands later I am out and they are in. That is why I think that luck plays a great deal in the immediate future, especially in MTT though in STT and ring games as well.
I agree with this post. Tourney play is about gathering chips and holding onto them in order to survive. At least to the FT where you can usually get back to playing regular poker a bit (not shove shove fold fold). The short stack probably is always going to shove but you know what I mean.
The only problem with that is, bad luck will still knock you out of alot of tourneys. Even if you wait for the best time to get your money in, if you do it over and over, you are eventually going to either get a giant stack (if you were lucky in this tourney) or get knocked out (if you werent lucky).
The thing about MTT strategy is that it is designed to take luck account and give you better odds. That doesnt mean that alot of the times the best player wins the tourney. As a matter of fact on a case by case basis the best player probably doesnt win the tourney. They surely win more tourneys than the lesser player overall, but on a case by case basis the winner was the guy that was luckier that day.
To me MTT poker is about as high as 40% luck, in the 2x turbos and such, where what cards you are dealt will quickly decided if you are going to make it or not. In deep stack 30 min blind type tourneys luck is cut back to probably like 20%. I prefer the latter, but sometimes playing for 9 hours straight doesnt fit in my schedule.
Ring games are another story. I think that they are probably something like 25% luck in the very loose games and only like 10 or maybe 15% luck in the higher stakes/tighter games. The difference with the blind staying still and being able to come and go as you please makes alot of difference. Also lets say that you are buying in with 20 dollars. If it is a 20 dollar tourney, you only lose it once. If it is a ring game, you lose the 20 over and over which alot of the time makes the ring game player play alot tighter/smarter.
I dont mind when I sit at the 10 cent 180 man turbo and someone is playing around and they shove hand after hand. Or like a table I was at the other day, 6 of the players shoved first hand. It kept going like that for like the first 10 hands. lol I watched players sit shove get knocked out, lol.
That is fine with me. But when I was trying to get into the turbo takedown today (playing with my precious FPPs that I like more than money) and the table turned into a game like that, well that just sucks. I usually wait until I have a monster, but AK usually doesnt hold up when there are 5 people allin already. If I get lucky and it does (and yes I mean get lucky, better starting hand or not if it wins I got lucky if there were already 5 guys allin lol), but if it does hold up, usually in the next 10 hands that I play I will lose a few big ones and get knocked out. TBH in the takedown sat today I made it to 3rd before villian got runner runner which friggin pissed me off even more, but you get my point.
BrentD22
Rock Star
Silver Level
I mix up my play a lot when playing cash games. In cash games I play a lot of hands very aggressively. I tend to "get lucky" more often than others, but I also fall pre to more "unlucky bad beats". It's what makes sense if I play 3 X as many hands as someone else at the table.
C
custo80
Visionary
Silver Level
Perfect summary right there.