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A Thousand Words About Luck
A THOUSAND WORDS ABOUT LUCK
By John Vorhaus
Not long ago I was in Las Vegas. That's not news. I'm in Las Vegas every chance I get. One night while I was there, I was up too late (again, not news) wandering around the casino, and musing upon the nature of luck. Magpie that I am, and drawn to pretty things, I found myself drawn to, and closely examining, those famous luckboxes known as slot machines. Is it my imagination, or have they become more colorful, more garish, in recent years? And would this be because the designers of such machines know that the bright colors and bold designs are particularly inviting to those who would try their luck? I don't know; I can't say. I've never been attracted to the pull toys, except strictly observationally: I'm a magpie; I like the bright colors.
But that's neither here nor there. What is both here and there is the guy I saw a guy walking away from one of these brightly colored money stealers. He did not look happy. He had tried his luck and failed. That's not news, of course; that's the fundamental paradigm of Las Vegas, a two-part program that ultimately runs like this:
1. Try your luck.
2. Fail.
We poker players know all about this. We hold ourselves in smug superiority because we have figured out that poker is the only game casinos offer where you don't have to beat the casino (an impossible proposition, long term) in order to win. We pride ourselves in using skill as a means to maximize good luck and minimize bad luck.
But we're still at the mercy of luck, aren't we? And that includes all of us, from the cherriest two-buck punter to the most experienced poker pro. I mean, think about it: Somewhere out there, even as we speak, the world's sharpest tournament poker player is getting ready for his (or, increasingly, her) next match. He has everything he needs to triumph: skill, preparedness, good rest, concentration, character, stamina, heart... the list goes on and on. But the one thing he can't put on the list for sure is luck, and if luck isn't with him, his tournament life will end too soon, and all the skill in the world won't stop it.
We could codify this as a physical law: When skill meets luck, luck wins. Either you're lucky in a situation or you're not. And yet, it's no secret that the best poker players rise to the top of the big tournaments over and over again. They must know something about luck... how to manage or neutralize it or make it work for you. Thus, the question arises: How do you leverage luck?
I can think of several ways, and I've seen great players practice them all.
1. Don't press your luck when you don't need to. If it's early in a deep stack tournament, simply don't put yourself into position to need to get lucky to win. Especially in a deep stack tournament, skillful players should be able to find situations where the outcome is predicated on their skill (at bluffing, inducing bluffs, making reads, whatever) and not on luck at all. This is why you hear the top pros say over and over again that they won't get broke early with any hand but pocket aces. They are particularly chary of hands like AK, which look oh so pretty, but usually need to be on the right side of a coin flip in order to win a big pot. Pros hate coin flips early in tournaments. They don't want to need to get lucky to stay alive, not when simply not getting involved will serve the same end.
2. Plan ahead for the luck you get. There's a whole range of situations where certain "unlucky" cards will come off the deck -- unlucky in the sense that they don't help your hand. But if you have a plan for those unlucky outcomes, you can often turn them to your advantage. We call these cards phantom outs -- cards that would help your hand if you, in fact, had that hand. To use phantom outs, simply look at a flop that's two-suited or two-straighted and tell yourself that if a coordinated card comes on the turn you're going to bet it as if you own it. Against the right opponent (the kind who will put you on a draw and be determined not to pay you off) you can the wrong card into a ripe opportunity to capture the pot.
3. Take luck out of the picture. Make everyone fold. That way it doesn't matter what cards come next. This is why strong players play strongly: so the power of their bets, not the power of luck, determines outcomes. I find that when I'm really on my game I'm not particularly lucky -- because I'm playing so dominantly that I really don't need to be lucky at all. Remember: If they all fold, you don't need to get lucky to win.
4. Deal with it. Bad luck strikes. It happens to you, me, and every other poker player in the world, just like it happens to slot players and craps players and everyone else who gambles. But we poker players know that our decisions matter, and one key decision is, "What are you going to do next?" If you let bad luck turn into bad play, then you've multiplied and magnified its negative influence. If you can shrug off bad outcomes, and stay strong and stable, then you have a chance to minimize bad luck and see yourself through to victory.
In every poker tournament, indeed any poker game anywhere, some very talented players get very unlucky, and go broke, while some not-so-talented players get very lucky and believe for a while that they're better than they are. Eventually, like water, they'll all find their level. The strong players will recover and the weak players will go broke. In the long run, after all, everyone is equally lucky: It how you deal with the luck you get that makes the difference in the end.
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