How to deal with a lucky guy at the poker table. Poker and luck: how to approach their relationship correctly? What to do when you have no luck in poker
The article contains a short dissertation on the topic of banality. You might think it's a little silly at first, but don't judge it by its cover; After reading, you will learn a lot of interesting things.
The mathematical truth about poker
Banality: You have no control over the cards you are dealt.
I know that everyone who has played a little poker is aware of this statement - but not many act on this statement.
Most players complain about their bad luck, about the terrible cards they are dealt; they fall into hysterics after long hours of useless flops, as well as after terrible journeys from all sorts of noobs who call only on a kind word.
You need to rise above all this if you want to become a full-fledged, stable and successful player.
Do you have carts; you have to act them out; so you need to learn how to play them as efficiently as possible.
Quit the game when you know you're beaten. Smile as wide as you can when your opponent catches his two outs for the third time that night.
And of course, be reserved when you hit a strong hand.
We get ours
Since this is so obvious, you wonder why this article is considered strategic.
Well, I want to talk a little about luck, what it means to "get yours" in regards to the cards you're dealt, and how to understand what poker fans say: "Distance will fix everything."
In an interview, Gus Hansen was once asked what the role of luck is in poker.
He replied that in any given gaming session, luck accounts for approximately 90% of his final score. After a month, luck is 10 or 15%, and after a year, this value, according to him, drops to 2-5%.
I would say that this is quite natural.
And this is not only logical, but also true - all professionals have a similar opinion on this matter: luck is leveled out over a long period of time, giving way to skill. Otherwise, poker specialists simply would not exist in nature.
After all, no one talks about professional craps or baccarat players (and there is no need to quote here from pompous books and booklets - there are only beautiful words and fairy tales).
They simply do not happen, because the mathematics of these games does not allow this to happen.
The whole truth from a mathematical point of view
In my opinion, the mathematical component of poker is much more complex and interesting than all other aspects of it.
The truth is that there are players who have actually been luckier than others, and there are also players who have been less fortunate than most.
It is true that as the number of hands increases, the element of luck decreases, but does not disappear without a trace. In fact, he remains and continues to have an impact.
Let's take a different approach: Let's say there is a distribution of the long-term expected value (EV) of every hand played from every position under the influence of all possible factors.
This distribution will be completely unpredictable and wonderful with many crazy hands and results.
But this is just a mathematical certainty, which is a bell-shaped normal distribution curve.
The hands with the worst odds will not appear here often, mainly because they will be played quite rarely, and on the chart they can be found in the left “tail”.
The hands with the highest expected value will also be rare (since they require the right situations to pay off). They will be represented on the very right side of the curve.
And hands with average results will occur most often and their part of the graph is the center of the curve.
So-called " computer hand"or break-even hand (Q-7o) was determined after numerous simulations of completely random hands using a special program.
Each player who sits at the table will be dealt hands from this distribution and, according to the theory, they will receive the “same” hands.
In a real game, such equality can only be achieved with an infinite number of hands.
To be honest, I don’t have time to wait for this moment, and it’s unlikely that you have it either.
Luck distribution
So, follow the thought? Now comes the fun part.
If you imagine each player's luck distribution (i.e. the expected value of the hands they were dealt) in graphical form, you end up with another normal distribution, and therefore another “normal” curve.
And when you draw this curve, you will find an interesting thing:
some players are below average size, others are higher, and small group players will be significantly lower or significantly higher.
Simply put, some players will be “luckier” than most, while others will simply be “losers.”
And so it is! If this conclusion seems too strange to you, then simply transfer it to real life.
Someone gets hit by a truck or struck by lightning or some people suddenly find out they have a rare, incurable disease. And some are unlucky enough to live in the harsh conditions of Kamchatka or somewhere else.
Others go through life playfully: they have excellent health, live in Gelendzhik and enjoy the local flora.
The odds in this lottery are simply terrible; worst EV of all gambling games. But there are also those who have won jackpots of $100,000 three times. Yes, three.
It feels like these people are somehow cheating, winning their life's "jackpot" over and over again.
If you are one of these lucky ones, then know that you are beating the worst gambling in the history of mankind, and even if you are a complete layman, you will definitely die “happy.”
So yes; you have to play the cards you're dealt, and you have to play them to the best of your ability.
You simply cannot complain about your failure because there is simply nothing you can do about it. In fact, if you try, you'll only hurt your game even more.
Cards have no memory
The truth is that some of you cry that you never have any luck, that there is some mystique in the fact that you never catch your three outs because you keep getting called by fish in the most ridiculous situations; well, you know you're right.
Reality bites. You're just out of luck.
Of course, you noticed the irony in the last sentence. The cards don't remember or know that you were brutally run over in a previous hand, or that you've been run over for weeks or months, all thanks to random numbers.
Your expected "luck" for today's session is statistically "normal", having an average outcome.
So go and play yours best game without any complaints. There's nothing you can do about the cards.
Levels of Thinking
This is very simple and at the same time one of the most challenging games on the ground. Although it is very easy for you to start playing Hold'em, you can play the game for 40 years and still be an amateur.
As you practice and learn the game, you will go through different stages or levels of thinking. This will happen in the same way as when learning something else.
For example, take learning to play the guitar. You start by having to stop and think about where to place your fingers. After some practice, you know how to place your fingers for certain chords, and you are already thinking about how to switch from one chord to another.
Once you learn how to do this, you need to learn how to hit the right strings at the right time. Each time you move to the next stage, you no longer need to think about the previous ones.
Poker is not much different from this.
We start from level zero thinking. All players start at this level. Think back to the first time you sat down to play Hold'em.
Level 1: Your own cards and board cards
At this level, all you think about is how strong your hand is.
You'll encounter players who only think at this level quite often in live play. There are several of these players on every online table. They are one of the the best people, which you may meet in your career as a poker player. Sometimes these players also turn out to be the most annoying.
Let's take this hand as an example:
As you can see, all 5 cards are on the board.
Throughout the game, Cow Girl, playing on the second level of thinking, makes bets. She is answered by Blondie, who is obviously a complete newbie to poker.
On the river, Cow Girl makes one last rather large bet and gets called by Blondie. Blondie shows
Cow Girl, who was bluffing, is shocked that Blondie called.
Blondie called, thinking that she had a pair of aces, and that, as we all know, aces are the highest card in the deck.
Once you gain enough experience in poker, you will most likely move on to the next stage.
Level 2: Your Opponent's Cards
At this level, you are not only thinking about your hand, but you are also thinking about your opponent's hand. You begin to anticipate that your hand is beat and fold certain combinations.
If in the previous example Blondie was at the second level of thinking, she simply would not be able to call the bet on the river. Any spade, any ten, any ace with a higher kicker, or any two pair or set would beat her hand.
In fact, the only thing she could beat in this case is a bluff.
Most players never progress beyond this level of thinking. Some players stay on it completely their entire poker life. Although most players progress partially into the third level of thinking, they still do not fully master it.
Level 3 - Opponent's Beliefs about Your Cards
At this level you start to consider what other players think about your cards. It is at this stage that the outcome of the game becomes less dependent on your cards. Until this stage, whether you win or lose at the table depends almost entirely on what cards you are dealt.
To fully master this level of thinking, you need to have good experience reading the structure of the board and understanding the moves your opponents make during the play. You notice the behavior of your opponents and draw conclusions about their cards. It is at this stage that you can begin to consider yourself a real poker player.
You still can't dominate the show HighStakesPoker on the GSN channel, but this level of thinking should allow you to win regularly against your friends.
It is at this level of thinking that you become capable of bluffing. You can think about your course of action and what conclusions your opponent's actions will lead to about your cards. You can take advantage of the fact that you have made your opponents think about your cards.
It is true that people will bluff while still in the second or first level of thinking. This happens for several reasons:
- People see a lot of bluffs on TV, so they want to do them too. They perceive the use of bluffs as a sign of poker competence.
- Everyone knows that poker involves bluffing; in fact, bluffing is the first thing most people associate with poker. For many people, poker is a game of pure bluffing. Therefore, beginners think that bluffing is necessary component games.
Unlike the bluffs of more skilled players, these bluffs are not calculated maneuvers with a high probability of success. They are just shots in the dark, actions taken purely on the basis of emotion.
Maybe you remember the hand from the first article about levels of thinking:
Same scenario. Cow Girl bluffs the river using level two thinking, and Blondie calls the bet using level one thinking.
If Cow Girl had been thinking and playing at level three, she would have realized that her opponent wasn't thinking at all about what cards she had. In other words, Cow Girl would follow one of my golden rules of poker:
Never bluff against an answering machine.
We'll explore the basis of this rule below, in the "Your Level vs. Their Level" section.
Level 4 - Deception and Circling
Very little poker players completely moves to this level. All strong players have one foot at Level 4, but it is difficult to go completely to it.
Deception
You deliberately play in such a way as to confuse your opponent. Lure and capture are several techniques of this level. Many strategy articles focus on this aspect of this level of thinking.
Moving in circles
Circling is one of the most advanced and most rewarding components of no-limit poker.
If strong player gives you signals that he has big hands, but gives you this information in a way that makes it seem like he's deliberately trying to give you the impression that this player will usually have a weak hand. As Mike Caro so accurately said:
Weakness means strength, strength means weakness
What if you believe that the other player knows that if you read this move, you would understand that his show of strength means weakness? Then his actions that signal a strong hand will actually give you the impression that his hand is strong.
You can see where the circular motion begins to form. Does he have a strong hand or not? He is bluffing or pretending to be bluffing when he actually has a strong hand. Or is he bluffing, thinking that you will think he will demonstrate a bluff with a strong hand?
Your level vs. Their Level
You must change your play depending on your level of thinking and, more importantly, the level of thinking of your opponents.
If you never think about what level other players are thinking on, then it will be almost impossible to understand how they are trying to manipulate the game.
Each player tries to manipulate the game and the odds in their favor. The way they do this is directly related to their level of poker thinking.
The biggest mistake in poker is trying to bluff the answering machine. Some people just won't fold no matter how bad their call is. Never try to bluff these people.
Even though you're playing at a higher level, that doesn't mean other players will understand everything you do. poker table. You need to play at a level that makes sense to them.
If I were playing the same hand against different players, I would play it differently depending on the level of thinking of my opponents. The same action I would take against a regular drunk casino patron would not work against Phil Ivey.
The strong professional players you meet at the table will constantly change their game. You need to take this into account. If you ignore their constant adjustments in the game, you will make mistakes in the plays.
If another player considers you a strong opponent, he will not play against you the same way as against a weak player. The information you get from watching his previous hands won't be entirely applicable to the style he plays against you.
If you're worried about your poker mentality after reading this article, remember this: all players start at level one and work their way up. high levels. Even the best players were at your level at one time.
The best thing you can do is know the level you and the rest of the players at the table are at. The more you play, the faster you will begin to move forward and expand your arsenal of techniques.
It’s not for nothing that poker is considered the most popular card game in the world. Everything in it is the same as in life: you have capital, defend it in front of your opponents and wait for the right opportunity that will help you show your own strength. Professional players have long understood thatin poker it is the skill of the game that decides, however, you can’t get anywhere without a bit of luck in this craft.
How life experiences help shapethe right attitude towards luck in pokerand, on the contrary, how does a competent understanding of luck in cards help in life? This is what this article is about.
Modesty is not a vice. But not a virtue either
One of the hardest parts of poker isthe ability to endure a streak of failures, which, according to the law of dispersion, covers the player after a streak of success. Every player is faced with the fact that with the right strategy, he loses hand after hand just because he is unlucky.
However, keep in mind: nowadays people are envious, which forces the lucky ones not to talk about their luck.People are embarrassed to say that they are lucky. They understand that others may be in the opposite position.Modesty and sympathy are good, but only until we begin to blame ourselves for our losses, which, alas, we cannot influence.
Unlucky in poker? And remember how it happens in life!
Match gaming session with your own life. Most likely, you will have good aspects: a profitable position, and/or true friends, and/or a beloved spouse, and/or financial well-being, and/or good health. However, be able to see the other side: perhaps as a child you were bullied by your peers, or you were fired from your job, or you happened to be robbed.
Poker, like life, is painted in black and white.And there is no point in calculating which color is represented more densely: in life there is both. And period.
We can only play the cards we received
Another noble feeling, which, unfortunately, is useless when playing poker -natural sense of justice. We are aware that some people are born “in the dark,” while others are fatally unlucky. Just rememberDan Bilzerian , who can easily be classified as the darling of fate!
However, what's the point of thinking about how lucky your opponent is if your primary goal is to win the hand? No matter how weak your pocket cards are, they are yours; you cannot exchange them, but you can play them correctly.
And a confident game can outshine an opponent with a pair of kings or aces.
Do not strive to restore universal justice, and envy will leave you
Overcoming the desire to restore justice in reality or at least in your head helpsget rid of petty envy. If someone (especially an acquaintance or friend) has dragged a serious online tournament, and you did not even participate in it, do not rush to envy him.
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Look at the situation objectively: you did not buy a ticket to the competition, did not go through the field of opponents (which consists of several thousand, or even tens of thousands of players) and do not know how this victory was given to him. You don’t know because you haven’t been in his shoes specifically in this tournament at this particular time in these particular conditions.
Two aces are not a guarantee of victory This understanding also helps in life.
Understanding the role of luck does not mean blindly giving in to its will
Don't forget that luck and bad luck, upstreak and downstreak in poker are determined by yourdispersive nature. However, awareness of the dispersive nature is precisely what protects us from passively falling into the will of Chance.
If you see a streak of success or failure behind you, does it make sense to adjust your strategy? And it’s even more worth monitoring such waves from your opponents. It is no coincidence thatthe ability to see the wave of your own luck leads to stunning successthat the poker prodigy accomplishedFedor Holtz , winning high roller tournaments in the summer and fall of 2016 one after another.
Recently, 53-year-old Vietnamese-American Hong Li entered one of the World Series of Poker Crazy Eights 8-Handed No-Limit Hold'em events with a buy-in of $888, taking with him $888,888 and a bracelet. Remarkably, this was not only his first time cashing at the WSOP, and not only his first appearance at the WSOP itself, it was actually the first time he had ever played in a tournament of this magnitude. Lee himself is the father of five children and the owner of a small nail salon where his whole family works. This victory almost certainly gave him more money than he could earn in the rest of his life.
Stories like this never cease to amaze us, and what’s even more surprising is that they happen every year. Last year, that lucky guy was another working-class Vietnamese-American, Christian Pham, who stunned the poker world with his win in the $1,500 2-7 No-Limit Single Draw event. This was his first experience playing this type of poker, and he registered for the tournament itself by accident.
The concept of "beginner's luck" is as old as poker itself, and the idea that any player can be luckier than another is ridiculed by almost all serious poker players. If you polled such players as to why stories like these keep popping up year after year, most would cite variance, weak field in low-cost events, and confirmation bias among those observing the events. But could there be something more here?
Of course, it is foolish to believe that a beginner will have more or less luck in a particular situation than an experienced player. If a player has eight outs on a flush, it will hit him a little more than 17% of the time, regardless of whether he is a beginner or experienced player. However, there are several reasons why a player without any experience has a better chance of winning the event than a player with basic set knowledge.
You'll be out of luck if you don't try
The first reason that beginners have more luck than average players is that the former simply find themselves in more situations where they can be led. Beginners do not know how to evaluate value hands, so they are often shown behind. Paradoxically, this is also common for experienced players who often float or bluff with little showdown equity, and therefore see more streets with hands that average players tend to fold. In both cases, players have a better chance of making it than their opponents, although the real point here is not a higher frequency of hits, but more “attempts.”
When a player has an advantage over his opponent, he should reduce the variance, but people often forget that the opposite is also true. When you are outnumbered in experience, best strategy there will be one that depends more on the luck factor. For example, imagine you are playing heads-up with even stacks and flopping a flush draw. Your opponent is all-in, if you fold you will have 40% of your chips left. Beginners love flush draws and call without understanding their chances. A player with little experience, knowing that the probability of hitting a flush is 33%, will understand that this is worse than his 40% chance of winning if he folds. An experienced player evaluates his advantage in this case and other factors. If he is playing against a better heads-up player, then depending on his stack depth, a 33% chance of hitting a flush may look better than his odds of winning with a chip edge of 40-60 against him.
So, whether he realizes it or not, a beginner can actually increase his ROI by choosing more dispersive play lines, even if those lines have a negative chip EV. In Lee's case, he knew exactly what he was doing, starting with the fact that he came to Las Vegas to "try his luck" and knew that he would have to cheat to beat more experienced opponents. One might question the wisdom of entering a tournament with this starting setup, but once you're there, that's what you need to do. Similar examples can be found in other activities, be it a less experienced fighter fighting to the limit of his ability, or a little brother pushing all the buttons while playing a video game with his older brother.
Predictability is worse than recklessness
Thanks to high variance lines, beginners have a better chance of winning a tournament than average players, but the latter tend to have an advantage in regular hands. A beginner can play any way he wants with any hand. On the one hand, this makes them quite easy to beat by simply playing the odds, but on the other hand, it is very difficult to be absolutely sure how you stand against them and when your value bet or bluff will be successful.
At the same time, a little knowledge can be disastrous, and players who have just begun to learn the basics of the game can be much more predictable and therefore easier to beat. For example, you are facing a player who recently read about semi-bluffs and began to actively use them in his strategy. He check-calls a flush draw flop, and the turn comes with a third card to the flush. You can safely expect him to not have a flush and even bluff him by barreling the turn and river. As a newbie, on the other hand, this situation may have absolutely everything going for it, making it more difficult for you to make a decision.
Seasoned players know the need to sometimes choose stupid lines to make them difficult to read. In Chinese martial arts there is a style known as Zui Quan or "drunken fist", which involves strange, clumsy movements that somewhat resemble the staggering of a drunken person. Although this is all a carefully learned technique, the bottom line is that a drunken bully can be very dangerous due to his unpredictability and suppressed self-preservation instinct. It's the same in poker. While an experienced player is a master of Zui Quan, a beginner is actually a common drunken bully. He, like everyone else, can hurt himself, but you have no idea what will go through his head when you play against him in a hand.
Don't doubt your intuition
Some may disagree here, but a well-developed intuition is one of the most important skills of a poker player (especially a live tournament player), and even more important than any theory. I've been boxing for a few years and have a well-honed technique, but I'm not sure I'd want to spar with a guy who's been fighting on the streets his whole life without any training in fighting technique. Of course, my movements will look nicer until he misses the first blow, but then his practical experience and reflexes will most likely take over.
Not all of us have developed reflexes when it comes to fighting, but almost all of us know how to distinguish between truth and lies, because we have been dealing with this from the very beginning. early age. Beginners, without any other skills, rely primarily on this instinct. They don't know how their hand stacks up against their opponent's range because they don't even know what a range is. Instead, they make decisions based on intuition. If they think their opponent has a strong hand, they fold; if they feel it's a bluff, they call.
Obviously, no one can rely solely on intuition because opponents are not always that easy to read. However, most of us have a feeling from time to time about what our opponents are trying to do, and both beginners and experienced players listen to this instinct. Beginners - because they have no choice, and experienced players - because they know that their intuition is correct. Sometimes we doubt and are inclined to make decisions that, according to our knowledge, are considered wrong, but our intuition tells us that they are correct in this particular situation.
The hand Lee won the tournament with is a prime example of this. He limped with a pair of deuces, called the raise, and the flop AT4 with two diamonds he called again. The eight of diamonds came on the turn, covering a possible flush draw, and his opponent Michael Lek checked. Lee bet and Lek shoved.
Most of us probably wouldn't have played the hand the way Lee did, even up to this point, but against a check-push on a board like this, the vast majority of players at any level would fold their deuces. They don't hit anything other than a complete bluff, and even if they are ahead, there's a high chance that the opponent has a flush draw and two overcards, which deuces don't have a very good chance against.
Lee's logic was different: His opponent was all-in, and if he called and got lucky, he would win. Meanwhile, his intuition told him that his opponent would not check-shove the flush, but, on the contrary, would try to play it more slowly. Most of us realize that even many of Michael Leck's bluffs are stronger than Lee's hand, but Lee believed his opponent didn't have a super strong hand and that was enough to call. And he was right. Lek had Q-J with a gutshot without a flush draw. None of his 10 strikeouts hit, and Lee won the tournament.
Be that as it may, it was very bad game, but Hong Li read the hand well, and if he was an experienced professional and had something like a ten, we would call it a great call. In the end, he owed his victory not to “beginner's luck,” but rather to his understanding of his situation, coupled with good instincts and well-timed naivety, which worked in his favor.
Luck factor in poker
Before becoming a professional poker player, a beginner has to go through a difficult and thorny path. One of the most difficult tests, which only a small number of players manage to pass, is called “ downstreak"or a streak of bad luck.
Poker absolutely math game. Many novice players do not understand this well and begin to measure the quality of their game by current results. This is not the right approach. Imagine you make a bet with your friend that if it comes up heads, he will pay you $10, otherwise you will owe $10. In this situation, you cannot predict the outcome of the game. There is a 50% chance that you will be a winner and a 50% chance that you will be a loser. However, if you play, for example, 100 games, most likely the number of wins/losses will be almost equal. How more games you play, the less luck will influence your results, giving way to mathematics and probability theory. In poker we see exactly the same picture. When you go all in preflop with pocket aces against a pair of kings, your probability of winning is approximately 82%. There is an opinion among beginners that if they lose in a situation where they “should have won,” a universal injustice has occurred, “I have no luck in poker.” In fact, it is more than natural. With an 82% chance of success, you are guaranteed, on average, to lose 18 times out of 100, and this will be absolutely fair. It is very important to understand that this is dry mathematics and part of the game, and not a universal conspiracy. When you sit down at the poker table, you should always be prepared to lose best hand, without defeats there are no victories. But losing a big pot is not the worst thing that can happen to a beginning player; it is a much more difficult test when it happens systematically. On poker slang it is called " downstreak"or simply" losing streak».
Downstreak
Let's go back to our coin example. The fact that you have a 50% chance of winning does not mean that if you lose now, you will definitely win the next time you roll. Circumstances may turn out to be such that in 10 throws you will win only 4 times, or you will lose 3 times in a row, but then win 7 times, or even a case where your “heads” will not come up even once. All this is quite normal and understandable. Every novice player must understand: regardless of the chances of winning, luck can turn away from you over and over again. If you have a 50% chance of success, this does not mean that if you lose now, you are bound to win next time. Be prepared to lose over and over again. Your task is to make the right decisions and get into situations where you are the favorite. All! What happens next - wins or losses - does not concern you. You did everything in your power to win. If you manage not to break down during a losing streak, sooner or later you will be overtaken by a more pleasant “attack”, professional poker players call this “ upstreak».Upstreak
If there is a bad streak when you are unlucky, then it is logical to assume that sooner or later you will be rewarded for your torment, and the exact opposite will happen - a streak of luck. We discussed above that if you toss a coin 10 times, your side may not come up even once, however, the more we toss the coin, the more likely it is that the next toss will come up heads. Over a very long distance, the number of heads and tails is always equal, and if after 1000 throws you have lost 700 times, then it is quite fair to assume that sooner or later you will find yourself with the same margin of victory. The same thing happens in poker. You can't lose forever, sooner or later everything falls into place, the number of wins and losses becomes equal to the average percentage of success when you go all-in. All you have to do is make mathematically correct decisions, the rest is up to chance. Results in the short term are unpredictable, but if you make the right decisions, then over time everything will be exactly as it should be mathematically. Losing several comparisons where you were the favorite is not a reason to be discouraged; sooner or later you will end up in the “ upstreak” and you will find yourself in the place of the lucky one who is “always lucky.”Luck in poker
Upstreaks and downswings (downswings) are the reality of poker. There are no victories without failures. Everything is in your hands - you can either give up or accept and move forward. A large bankroll, thoughtful, careful play and, perhaps, a move to lower rates will help you overcome the downstreak - this will help minimize losses. Don't give up, go towards your goal, and sooner or later the theory of probability will thank you by rewarding you with an upstreak :)After spending a little time in any poker room, you are sure to witness complaints about bad luck:
“I lose all coinflips!” “Why did her aces survive, but mine didn’t?!” “I’m two thousand down and I can’t win a single pot.”
You will also come across people who try to attract good luck by performing rituals that actually have no effect on the result:
“Dealer, can I change the deck?” “Mix well, dealer, could you...? No, I mean very well” “I want to change the place... change the table... change the game.”
It’s even somehow awkward to talk about these complaints and stupid actions. No successful or experienced player would believe that seat at the table, the dealer, or a particular deck of cards could affect the cards dealt or the outcome of the session. (Of course, you have every right to ask to move to another table or change your place at it, but now I’m talking about those who are unlucky and who are simply trying to attract good luck.)
It should be obvious - but it should be said anyway - this behavior is not only stupid, but also shows that you are a beginner. Moreover, complaining about failure can negatively affect your results.
The following will happen: either good players will use your defeatist mood against you, or it will become the reason why you yourself will give away all the chips to your opponents.
Either way you will lose.
But this teaches us a good lesson - the importance of understanding and accepting the factor of luck.
Poker is without a doubt a game of skill. A winning player must be strong in the technical aspects of the game, including understanding the value of hands, draws, the importance of position, bluffing, and the like.
But you also need to realize that poker is a game of luck. Or as more advanced players say – a game of variance.
Jesse May, a famous poker commentator in Europe, talks about this in the novel “Shut Up and Deal”. Mickey Dane, grinder and main character His book, on whose behalf the story is told, explains poker as follows:
“Poker is a combination of luck and skill. People think that the hardest thing is to master a skill. But the trick lies in mastering luck. Understanding the luck factor is a philosophy that many people never realize. This is what makes poker different. This is what makes people play again and again.”
The last line is the easiest to understand. If all that mattered was skill—as in chess—no amateur would play, at least not for long. For this reason, you should not judge anyone weak game. If someone plays poorly and is lucky, it will only benefit you, despite the disappointment of such an outcome in the short term. In fact, the element of luck in poker is the source of your potential income.
There is one more detail: you must deeply understand the influence of luck - or variance - so as not to fall into the trap of a defeatist mood, remembering lost hands or losing sessions or even months.
Sometimes it's good to look back at the past to try to improve your game. Could you have played better in that hand? Could I understand my opponent better by looking at the hand played against me? Definitely.
But you shouldn’t bring up the past just to torment yourself and, as a result, start to play worse.
Luck is an integral part of both poker and life. Luck is like gravity - it's everywhere and you have to deal with it. To play good poker, you need to accept the influence of luck. And when you do this, you will be able to enjoy all the variety of poker.
