The Sisters Brothers

I'm reading a really terrific novel right now called The Sisters Brothers by Patrick DeWitt which has not been published in Canada yet so don't go looking for it unless you are reading this post after May 2011. The book is a western of sorts (in much the same way Oakley Hall's Warlock is a western) but is really just a story that happens to be set in the western American frontier. It tells of Charlie and Eli Sisters, hired killers who head into California at the height of the gold rush with instructions to seek out and kill a man. Eli, the narrator of the book, feels a sort of electricity as they enter into the gold mining territory and describes it as follows:

This perhaps was what lay at the very root of the hysteria surrounding what came to be known as the Gold Rush: Men desiring a feeling of fortune; the unlucky masses hoping to skin or borrow the luck of others, or the luck of a destination. A seductive notion, and one I thought to be wary of. To me, luck was either something you earned or invented through strength of mind. You had to come by it honestly; you could not trick or bluff your way into it.

Which sums up as neatly as anything what I think the proper approach to luck should be. I am glad for the further evidence to support my argument that reading good fiction will make you a better poker player

Luck revisited

I know I wrote a post called The Final Word on Luck and so you might expect I had said all I wanted to say on the topic. But I'm not sure I want to leave it there. I said I don't believe in luck, but that's not entirely true. Of course I believe in the existence of luck, I just think you should put your faith in your skill instead.

I have just finished the fantastic poker memoir For Richer, For Poorer by Victoria Coren. A passage in the book perfectly describes the proper relationship one should have with luck:

At the card table and off it, luck is a bucking mechanical bull, but you can learn to keep you bum in the seat. As soon as you start putting your faith in the bull, rather than the bum, you are sunk.

Exactly. I love that she points out that this this true away from the card table as well. Everyone please go purchase a copy of Victoria Corens' book. It is great.

What does it mean to put your faith in the bull? If you are play Q7 offsuit because you have a feeling you are going to hit a full house on the flop, then you are putting your faith in the bull.

Try to understand the motives for your actions - if you have a good reason, not just a hunch, for making a particular move, then you are putting your faith in the bum. Being able to discern the difference between the bull and the bum means being honest with yourself.

The final word on luck.

In my last post I cautioned against thinking too much about good luck and bad luck. One thing I forgot to mention was that when you allow yourself to believe that luck is more important than skill, you then you give yourself an excuse not to put in all the hard work that is required to become a winning poker player. After all, why should I bother to calculate double-reverse pot odds when it's all just luck anyway? Why should I look for tells in my opponents when it's all just luck?

Such thinking is not only lazy, it's dangerous. I think many of those who have fallen victim to gambling addiction have this mind-set. After all, honing a skill, in even such a volatile endeavor as poker, is an act of imposing your will. By giving yourself over to luck you are relinquishing control, and the unknown becomes intoxicating.

This is why I hate luck. Luck seduces the vulnerable with small runs of winning and then lets them throw away their retirement and sometimes their lives.

To hell with luck.

Luck - and how to avoid it

I don't believe in luck, but I do believe remarkably unlikely things happen quite often at a poker table.

I have been in a tournaments and have gone all in with pocket jacks, only to be called by pocket queens (How unlucky for me!) and then hit a third jack to win (Gee, how lucky!). I've have seen people bet large amounts with garbage hands, get called by pocket aces, and still win with unlikely flushes or straights. I have seen people hit the one card they need to make a straight flush on the river, after foolishly calling an all-in bet. How can I say I don't believe in luck when I've seen such things?

Well, let's not call that luck. Let's call it probability. If you play enough hands, then you will see some strange things, and it is human nature to remember the strange hands and forget the common ones.

Let's use the following example. You are in a no limit hold 'em tournament. You are sitting in middle position and have been dealt Ah As. Whoopie! Everyone folds to you, and you make a raise of three times the big blind. You get one caller and everyone else folds.

Now you don't know it, but the guy who just called you is holding absolute garbage: 5d 7c. He is down to half of his original chips and needs to do something soon. He called because he has been watching you closely for the last three hours and believes you are the kind of guy he can bluff off a pot, and that's exactly what he's going to try to do. You don't know this, of course.

The flop comes down Kd 2c 9d. You have to act first (a disadvantage, and another reason your opponent choose this moment to set up his bluff) and you just check, hoping you opponent caught that king. Your opponent pushes all in, you call, and your opponent knows he is dead meat. You both turn over your cards. You gleefully watch as the dealer flips over the turn - a 8d.

Wait just a second- there are three diamonds on the board. You don't have a diamond, but your opponent does, so if another diamond comes on on the river...Just as this disastrous possibility dawns on you the river comes down: queen of diamonds. Your opponent has a flush, beating your pair of aces.

Now you are mad. You did every thing right, your opponent did everything wrong, but he won because he was extremely lucky. This is what they call a "bad beat".You may even decide to start gambling with weaker hands, hoping to get lucky yourself. If you can't win with skill, you might as well take a chance too, right?

Wrong.

The chances Ah As will beat 5d 7c is about 86%, so you expected to win in this situation. When you expect to win, you are not surprised when you do win. However, 14% of the time a garbage hand like 5d 7c will beat your aces, and when this happens you will remember this incredibly bad beat. You will complain about it and make a big fuss about how unlucky you are. You tend to forget about all the times you have won with AA, and you tend to remember the times you have lost with AA. This is because people forget about all the times the expected happens and people remember all the times the unexpected happens.

Let me repeat that: People tend to forget the times the expected happens and people tend to remember all the times the unexpected happens. There are people who claim that they almost never win with AA, which, of course is baloney. They just remember all the times they lost with AA and have forgotten the times they have won. This gives them the false notion that poker is just a game of luck.

It works both ways: people remember the times they got lucky as well as when they were unlucky, and this makes people more likely to believe that poker is mostly luck. People who are on a lucky streak also tend to play mediocre hands, figuring that luck is more important than skill. People might play weird hands like Qc 9h no matter what the situation because they are convinced it is "their lucky hand".

The best thing you can do is to recognize that "bad beats" and "lucky streaks"are just part of the game. Stick to letting the odds determine your decisions and in the long run you will come out on top.