Do you believe in luck in poker?

Question

Now the word 'luck' is a little ambiguous. I mean, for instance, when people rush (ie, believe that since the last couple of hands were strong, the next one will have more chance of winning).

I am quite a rational person and have a good understanding of probability, but sometimes my good (or bad) luck seems so consistent it borders on a joke. "oh what a suprise (not), 8 3 off"... or... "that's the 4th high pair in half an hour".

I play backgammon too and sometimes it seems there is nothing you can do about your opponents dice. At other times you win but don't feel like you deserve it because you've been so lucky.

Is it all just random happenstance that by the law of averages sometimes gives the impression of a luck factor or is there something spooky going on?

I've heard that your state of mind can have an effect on outcomes. What is your opinion?

Answer 1

The laws of probability state that sometimes your cards will run good, and sometimes they will run bad. Most situations when the money goes in your opponent will have some chance of outdrawing you. Sometimes you get lucky and things just seem to go your way for a while, and other times things seem to go less well.

There is not some magical luck god out there handing out luck to those who want it. But as humans we like to look for patterns. So when we catch a few good hands and they connect well with the flop we like to think we are on a 'rush' of good luck. When we get our aces cracked we blame our luck for that too.

The most important thing is to play your game using the correct math, gut feelings, and intuitive reads. Once you start over betting hands that you once 'got lucky' with, you are heading down a dangerous path.

Answer 2

If you are a serious poker player then you will know that most poker players are in for the long run, in the short run it can be 100%. I have seen some of the biggest fish make final tables and win an event, but i don't see them consistently enough at final table to give them any real weight. Over the long run you can't out run the math of the game, but on a single hand, or a single event you can buck the odds and win. I have had aces cracked 3 times at one final table, and i have yet to shy away when i get them even today, i am willing to still put all my chips in pre-flop with aces because i know the odds and math say i will win out over time. Its either the card is going to come or its not, you can't play hands out of position, for the wrong reason, and hope to just get lucky all the time. In the end skill will win out.

Answer 3

The more skill you are, less luck you are going to need in the long run. That's the way it is. SINCITY say it all.

Answer 4

I'm stunned how often questions about "luck" come up. Below is a reprint of my answer to the direct question, "What is luck?" The words apply just as well to luck in poker:

I am dumbstruck by the number of perfectly reasonable and otherwise completely logical people who believe in luck. Some of my biggest arguments occur when I say that there is no such thing as luck. I get less heat attacking people's faith! It's almost as if people NEED to believe in this weird, mysterious thing called luck. Yet I say it once again, there is no such thing as luck. Here is the basic approach I take in trying to explain it to my kids:

When we talk about a force, we are talking about something that acts upon something else. Each action can be traced back to a cause, which is that force that is acting upon it. My broken nose didn't just happen. Either I slammed my face into a tree, someone drove a baseball into my face, someone plunged his fist into my face, or someone accidentally elbowed me in the face. Noses don't just break, without some force explaining the result.

Likewise, houses don't just topple, people don't just die, fires don't just start, cars don't just wreck. Some force explains the cause of everything.

It is in fact a scientific concept ... the idea of causality. These forces I am speaking of are the causes that produce the outcomes that we see on a daily basis. Hurricanes, floods, sunburn, intoxication, and bullet wounds are all effects of some cause. In the case of a hurricane for instance, it has a cause and is an effect, but then IT becomes its own cause of flooding, wind damage, etc.

Sometimes you can see and/or feel the force; other times we are left only with the results it caused. But we KNOW that even if we don't know the force that caused this particular result--WHO knocked over this glass?--we KNOW for certain that some force explains it! Some common examples of forces are ... wind (cause drifts, waves, wind chill), rain (causes moisture, growth, flooding, erosion), waves (causes pounding, erosion), hail (causes injury, damage to crops and property), gravity (causes weight, fatigue), barometric pressure (causes sink and lift in the atmosphere), a shove (causes sensation, pain, moves us backwards), and lightning (causes fire, strike damage, even death).

Some forces are understood by all and others are more mysterious. For example the forces of good (God the father, the son, and the holy spirit--AKA the trinity--and His angels) and Satan. Some people deny such forces exist, but everyone has felt the effects of some force of good or evil and simply put, people will swear to these forces! Examples of things people might say: "I had to help out that family. 'Something' just drew me to them." "I couldn't help it. I didn't want to kill her, but 'something' told me to do it."

We understand a lot about the world around us and as such we see forces or the evidence of forces EVERYWHERE. Examples abound:

Rivers run downstream ... because of gravity
Oceans have currents ... because of the sun, the rotation of the earth, etc.
The oceans have tides ... because of the moon's gravitational pull
Oceans have waves ... because of the wind
We have wind because ... of sun, pressure gradiants, etc.
The sun rises and sets ... because of the orbit of our planet
We have earthquakes ... because of lava flows, tectonic shifts, snags, pressure build ups, etc.
Things fall ... because of gravity
Things expload ... because of gas build up and ignition

When you consider the Newtonian laws of physics, you see acknowledgment of the importance of the concept of forces. For example: We read that a body at rest will stay at rest unless acted upon by some force (a propellant or accelerant). And the opposite of that is that a body in motion will stay in motion unless acted upon by some force (a roadblock, gravity, friction, or applying a break).

Forces. They are the cause behind the event. It's a basic concept. It's a concept that everyone understands and can explain in thousands of situations. But ...

When it comes to the idea of luck, EVERYONE who believes in it wants ONLY to point to the outcome (I won the lottery, I found $40, I met the most beautiful woman in the world) without explaining the alleged force behind it ... luck.

I ask people ... How does luck work? What causes luck? Can we predict luck? Can we control it? Can we alter it in some way? Can we concentrate it or dilute it? They RUN from me at once yelling "I don't know, leave me alone" and "You're stupid for not believing in luck!"

So, I ask ANYONE who wants to argue that luck is a real force that truly causes good and bad outcomes: Can you explain "the force" of luck as we can wind, fire, gravity, God, Satan, and a myriad other forces?

And until then ... I stand by my assertion that there is no such thing as luck.

I've been waiting patiently for years with no answer.