$1 Rebuy Donkament!

I had a great time at the $1 Rebuy Blogger Donkament on Friday, finishing in second place to IslandBum1 after rebuying about 15 times and sucking out repeatedly. I don't think any tourney has ever made me look like more of a donk, but I guess that's what it's supposed to do.

I want to review some of the more questionable plays I made that may have looked particularly fishy. I'll pick up with hands after the rebuy period ended because that's when actual "poker" was played:

Hand 1:

200/400 Ante 50
Seat 3: dino_burger (25,797)
Seat 5: smizmiatch (10,835)
Dealt to smizmiatch [Ac As]
smizmiatch raises to 1,200
Astin calls 1,200
BuddyDank calls 1,000
dino_burger calls 800
*** FLOP *** [9s 8h 7s]
BuddyDank checks
dino_burger bets 5,150
smizmiatch raises to 9,585, and is all in
Astin folds
BuddyDank folds
dino_burger calls 4,435
smizmiatch shows [Ac As]
dino_burger shows [9c Td]
*** TURN *** [9s 8h 7s] [4s]
*** RIVER *** [9s 8h 7s 4s] [Qc]
smizmiatch shows a pair of Aces
dino_burger shows a pair of Nines
smizmiatch wins the pot (24,320) with a pair of Aces

This is pretty standard, I think. I'm not going to fold what is likely to be the best hand when someone decides to bet out at the pot like that. It felt like exactly what it was -- a strong draw. I was fulling willing to take a coinflip in this situation.

Hand 2:

400/800 Ante 100 - No Limit Hold'em - 23:41:09 ET - 2007/11/02
Seat 1: DontKnow (9,970)
Seat 8: smizmiatch (19,732)
Dealt to smizmiatch [Kh Jh]
smizmiatch raises to 2,400
DontKnow raises to 9,870, and is all in

There was 2,100 in the pot preflop, putting DontKnow's M just under 5. After my raise, there was 4,500 in the pot. After his all-in bet, I had to call 7,470 to win 14,370 -- basically a 2:1 proposition.

Should I have folded here? I put DontKnow on any Ax, any pocket pair or any other playable hand. Against Ax, I'm about a 60:40 dog, against AK, AJ or KQ I'm a 70:30 dog, and against a lower pocket pair I'm in a race situation.

I decided there was too much money in the pot to fold, but I think it's close.

DontKnow showed JJ, but I sucked out a straight on the river, giving me a 34,000-chip stack and leaving me in great shape.

But only a few hands later, I got in trouble again.

Hand 3:

500/1000 Ante 125 - No Limit Hold'em - 23:49:19 ET - 2007/11/02
Seat 2: NumbBono (45,471)
Seat 8: smizmiatch (28,502)
Astin posts the small blind of 500
NumbBono posts the big blind of 1,000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to smizmiatch [7h 9c] on Button
smizmiatch raises to 3,000
Astin folds
NumbBono calls 2,000
*** FLOP *** [7s 6h Qh]
NumbBono bets 5,600

I thought he would bet out with a wide range, including straight and flush draws. I didn't think I was worse off than being up against a Queen. In retrospect, it's obvious that this raise was a mistake.

smizmiatch raises to 15,000
NumbBono raises to 42,346, and is all in
smizmiatch has 15 seconds left to act
smizmiatch has requested TIME
Astin: got awful quiet here
smizmiatch: crap,
smizmiatch: crappy way to go out

At this point, there was 47,752 in the pot, and I had to call 10,377 more. That's about 4:1 pot odds, and I believed that all of my five outs were live. According to PokerTracker, I had a 22 percent chance of winning the hand and I had to call 21 percent of the pot, so on its surface a call was correct.

I didn't have these exact numbers in front of me at the time, but I knew it was basically a toss-up between folding and calling. So I called.

I never know when it's a good situation to make this kind of call in a tourney and when I should try to survive. I always fall back on my cash game knowledge that say if the pot odds dictate a call, you'd be wrong to fold.

smizmiatch calls 10,377, and is all in
NumbBono shows [Qs 8c]
smizmiatch shows [7h 9c]
Uncalled bet of 16,969 returned to NumbBono
*** TURN *** [7s 6h Qh] [3c]
*** RIVER *** [7s 6h Qh 3c] [7d]
NumbBono shows two pair, Queens and Sevens
smizmiatch shows three of a kind, Sevens
smizmiatch wins the pot (58,129) with three of a kind, Sevens
Astin: BOOOOOOOOM!

I didn't stop there. I had many more people to suck out on.

Hand 4:

FullTiltPoker Game #4049972626: Friday Nite Blogger Donkament (30642602), Table 3 - 600/1200 Ante 150 - No Limit Hold'em - 23:56:50 ET - 2007/11/02
Seat 8: smizmiatch (44,854) Button
Seat 9: Astin (12,600) SB
Dealt to smizmiatch [Kc 2h]
smizmiatch raises to 3,600
Astin raises to 12,000 (leaving 450 behind)

I had to call 8,400 to win 6,450. This is a time where I should have folded. What was I hoping for?

I saw Astin's push as a desperation move, and I incorrectly made the call. I wasn't ahead of anything, but that didn't stop me from getting lucky again!

smizmiatch raises to 20,400
Astin calls 450, and is all in
smizmiatch shows [Kc 2h]
Astin shows [As Kd]
Uncalled bet of 7,950 returned to smizmiatch
*** FLOP *** [Tc Ah Qh]
*** TURN *** [Tc Ah Qh] [5h]
*** RIVER *** [Tc Ah Qh 5h] [9h]
smizmiatch shows a flush, Ace high
Astin shows a pair of Aces
smizmiatch wins the pot (27,150) with a flush, Ace high
Astin: oh wow

By this point, everyone at the table hates me. That's what I get for playing like a donk.

Hand 5:

I finally paid for it when I thought the eventual winner was running a bluff. This looked like a good flop for me to rebluff at, but it didn't turn out that way. And who would fold to me at this point anyway?

My only defense is that my PT stats showed IslandBum1's flop aggression at 80 percent, and I figured he would frequently bet at an uncoordinated flop like this with air.

800/1600 Ante 200 - No Limit Hold'em - 0:10:44 ET - 2007/11/03
Seat 7: IslandBum1 (36,336) BB
Seat 8: smizmiatch (64,954) UTG
Dealt to smizmiatch [Qd Js]
smizmiatch raises to 4,500
IslandBum1 calls 2,900
*** FLOP *** [Kc 6s 3h]
IslandBum1 bets 8,000
smizmiatch raises to 35,000
IslandBum1 calls 23,636, and is all in
smizmiatch shows [Qd Js]
IslandBum1 shows [Jd Kd]
Uncalled bet of 3,364 returned to smizmiatch
*** TURN *** [Kc 6s 3h] [Ad]
*** RIVER *** [Kc 6s 3h Ad] [Qc]
smizmiatch shows a pair of Queens
IslandBum1 shows a pair of Kings
IslandBum1 wins the pot (74,272) with a pair of Kings

Wait, how did I not suck out???

Those are the major hands that got me in a position to finish highly. I also doubled up with KK.

Then with four players left, I got lucky again with KQ on a J-high flop when I misread my hand. I thought I had a Jack, but I hit a Queen on the river to luckbox my way to the final three.

In the end, I went out pushing A7o into K8o. IslandBum1's suited 8 was higher than my suited 7 to make a higher flush and take home the title. Congrats!

Anyway, I'd like to hear criticism of my plays and analysis. In particular, should I have made those calls in Hands 1-3 when I felt like I was being offered correct pot odds? When should players back off from a potentially +EV situation for the sake of survival in a tourney?

I won a tourney!

I took down the monthly WPBT event today. It was a pretty solid field. I only really got lucky on the last hand, when I hit a set of Queens on the flop against AA. The rest of the tourney I just tried to play my game and take all the chips I could. I guess tourneys don't have to always be donkfests.

I enjoyed playing with Mattazuma, Schaubs, stevenwe, Patchmaster, StatikKling, Kameelah, bdidde and columbo. (Screenshot linked from Mattazuma's site -- please let me know if you that's uncool.)

---

I got an interesting comment from Ryan to a post I wrote about Casino Arizona recently:

I need help. I play daily at Casino AZ. I recently left medical school and a 100K per year job so i could move out west to be with my sick father. I am readig/studying/playing poker non stop when i am not with my mom and dad so that i can spend more time with them later as opposed to the rigid schedule of a 9 to 5 job( or Dr.) I'm doing well... but could be doing alot better. I havent been able to find any postings or books on the particularly unique type of poker they play there. 5/150 is a semi spread limit/no limit game. I have a good undertstanding of it but i would really like some help/tips from all of you pros on how I could improve my game at this level. I could go to vagas and play true no limit but that would defeat the fact that i need to be close to my family right now in this very tuff time. I work hard and dont quit, and really feel poker is my calling. SO any tips would be greatly apprecated. Thanks for you help in advance.

The Casino Arizona 5/150 games come in two varieties -- one with a $350 buy-in and another with a $1,000 buy-in. The $350 buy-in game has 3/5 blinds and a $150 maximum per betting
action. The $1,000 buy-in game has 5/10 blinds and the same betting maximum.

The cap doesn't isn't very relevant in the $350 buy-in game because one max bet and another max raise will get players essentially all in unless they've built up a deep stack. I didn't play the $1,000 buy-in game while I was there, but I imagine the cap plays a bigger role, making me think the game would need to be played with more of a pot limit-type strategy. That means players will more often have pot odds to call with their draws and there will be more suckouts. But the cap also minimizes losses when those suckouts occur, so it goes both ways.

The real difficulty in trying to play this game full time will be making significant money off of it. Yes, it plays loose, on par with almost every live game I've ever sat in. That's a good thing, and I believe these games are beatable.

But the problem is the slow rate of play, the rake and the jackpot drop. I'm not sure what the rake is (probably 10 percent of the pot with a $5 max per hand -- please correct me in comments if I'm wrong). The $1 jackpot drop is taken out of the blinds, so even if everyone folds around and the blinds chop, they still lose $1 from a pot that no one even played. That's pretty ridiculous.

So if you anticipate playing 30 hands an hour and winning three of them, you'll probably pay somewhere between $12 and $18 an hour in rake and jackpot drop. If you're beating the $350 buy-in game for 10 bets an hour, that's up to $18 taken out of your $50 winrate, which is significant. The rake wouldn't appear to be as damaging in the $1,000 buy-in game if you're a solid winning player -- $18 or so out of a $100/hour rate. Even these figures are optimistic however; I'm not sure how feasible a 10 bet per hour winrate is. Five bets per hour may be more realistic, which means the rake's cut of your winnings would be much more damaging to your profitability.

Ed Miller wrote about this topic in a recent post.

My primary advice would be to supplement live poker with online poker. Live poker is a tough grind, and you can play so many more hands online, thus improving your hourly earnings. I wouldn't want to try to make a living at live tables at the stakes Casino Arizona spreads.

I'm sure Ryan would appreciate any other advice commenters could contribute.

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Here's a fun hand I (mis)played at 2/4 today where I won a nice 400-bet pot with a mere pair of 5s. I put my opponent on an overpair, so I gave myself up to 18 outs -- nine for the flush, two for trips, three for two pair and three for the gutshot.

The problem is that I miscalculated the pot odds. The pot was $604, and I had to call $480 on the turn, which means that even 18 outs weren't enough. I should have folded, given my read.

Fortunately, I'm a lucksack. My flush outs were no good, but my little pair of 5s held up!

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to smizmiatch [4c 5c]
3 folds
smizmiatch raises to $14 from the button
1 fold
JustCuts raises to $46 from the big blind
smizmiatch calls $32
*** FLOP *** [6c 9c 2d]
JustCuts bets $65
smizmiatch calls $65
*** TURN *** [6c 9c 2d] [5s]
JustCuts checks
smizmiatch bets $190
JustCuts raises to $743, and is all in
smizmiatch has 15 seconds left to act
smizmiatch has requested TIME
smizmiatch calls $480.90, and is all in
JustCuts shows [Ac Kc]
smizmiatch shows [4c 5c]
Uncalled bet of $72.10 returned to JustCuts
*** RIVER *** [6c 9c 2d 5s] [Td]
JustCuts shows Ace King high
smizmiatch shows a pair of Fives
smizmiatch wins the pot ($1,562.80) with a pair of Fives

Good things happen to me all the time

The river is kind. I love being on the other side of the suckout coin. All three of these hands were against the same deep-stacked loose player, who had nothing left by the time I was done with him.

This hand is the best of the bunch:

5/10 NL
Donk is SB: $3,050
Hero is BB $2,627
Dealt to Hero [ Jh, Jd ]
MP calls $10
Donk raises $25
Hero raises $100
MP folds.
Donk calls $80
*** Dealing Flop *** [ Ks, 5s, Tc ]
Donk checks.
Hero bets $200
Donk calls $200
*** Dealing Turn *** [ Js ]
Donk checks.
Hero bets $500
Donk calls $500 He really should have raised me here
*** Dealing River *** [ 5h ] Gin!
Donk checks.
Hero is all-In for $1,817.
Donk calls $1,817
Donk shows [ Qs, Ts ] a flush, King high.
Hero [ Jh, Jd ]a full house, Jacks full of Fives.
Hero wins $5,261 from the main pot with a full house, Jacks full of Fives.

Moving right along:

Dealt to Hero on button [ 7c 8s ]
MP raises $20
Donk in CO calls $20 Big mistake here...
Hero calls $20
BB calls $10
*** Dealing Flop *** [ 6d, 7s, 3d ]
BB checks.
MP checks.
Donk bets $50
Hero calls $50 I know he'll pay me off if I hit
BB folds.
MP folds.
*** Dealing Turn *** [ 8h ] Of course I hit
Donk bets $170
Hero raises $450
Donk is all-In.
Hero calls $750.
*** Dealing River *** [ Kd ]
Hero shows [ 7c, 8s ] two pairs, Eights and Sevens.
Donk shows [ Jc, Jd ] a pair of Jacks.
Hero wins $2,582 from the main pot with two pairs, Eights and Sevens.

That was nice. Now to finish him off...

Donk posts small blind $5
Hero posts big blind $10
Dealt to Hero [ 7h 6s ]
Donk raises $15
Hero calls $10
*** Dealing Flop *** [ 8s, 4c, 2h ]
Donk bets $10
Hero calls $10 I'm not going to fold a gutshot straight draw against this guy for $10
*** Dealing Turn *** [ Kd ]
Donk bets $40
Hero calls $40 I think I'll get paid off if I hit. He's steaming
*** Dealing River *** [ 5h ] Was it ever in doubt?
Donk bets $150
Hero is all-In.
Donk calls all-In for $495.
Donk shows [ 4s, 4h ] three of a kind, Fours.
Hero shows [ 7h, 6s ]a straight Four to Eight.
Hero wins $1,428.28 from the main pot with a straight, Four to Eight.

I run so good.

Confusion over Variance

Variance as it relates to poker is difficult to understand, both because the element of luck is hard to quantify and the mathematical function for variance doesn't provide many answers.

What does variance mean exactly?

In my mind, the term variance is used in poker to describe the amount of luck in any given game -- not the amount of swings. So when you say a game is high variance, that means the game's results are more likely to be determined by the cards that are dealt than by players' decisions.

Here are some definitions of variance:

1. Variance is the statistical measure of dispersion, or just how widely your results will be distributed. When variance is high enough, a small advantage may be of no use during your lifetime. When variance is low enough, a small sample will be much more likely to reflect your real advantage (or disadvantage). In other words, variance describes just how long the long haul is. In poker terms, high variance means that a small number of hands will not be very representative of your long-term expectation.
--Seriouspoker.com

2. The distribution of your results over a a set of hands or sessions, or the swings in a positive or negative direction of cash flow.
--Mike Caro University.

3. If operatorname{E}(X)"> is the expected value (mean) of the random variable X, then the variance is This definition and equation is meaningless to me, but I like weird-looking variables.
--Wikipedia

As a poker player, I want to know which games maximize my skill edge over my opposition.

I asked the question, "what type of game has 'more' variance between no limit, limit and tournament hold 'em?" in the 2+2 Beginners forum. The responses to that thread, Variance: NL vs. Limit vs. MTT, back up my beliefs.

I only got three responses, but they were in agreement. Multi-table tournament hold 'em seems to have the highest variance, followed by limit hold 'em and no limit hold 'em.

While no limit seems to be "high variance" because you may have to put your entire stack at risk at any time, in reality the ups and downs aren't too extreme. No limit provides the best opportunity to get the most money in with the best odds. It's the game that will separate a fish from his money the quickest. It has fewer suckouts than limit or MTTs.

For a closer look at how to attempt a poker calculation of your variance, I found this article titled, "How much bankroll do you need?" in a search.

I also enjoyed a Mike Caro article published in Bluff magazine a few months ago, in which he argued that your luck may not even out in the long run, contrary to popular belief. Check it out here: "The importance of luck in poker."

Advance to Go, do not collect $200

Poker is a funny game, and by funny, I mean it's swingy.

I started out this month on a +$5000 run, then went down to -$2,000, turned that around and worked it up to +$6,500, and now I lost that and am back to even.

I've never dealt with dollar figures this high, but I don't think I'm handling the swings any better or worse than I normally do. That is to say, I get easily frustrated and go on tilt, but I'm not going to start playing like an idiot. Fortunately, I'm pretty good about quitting if I start to tilt.

I don't want to write too much because the ups and downs are such a large part of the game. I know this. But even after playing for a few years now, variance and luck continue to be difficult to grasp on an emotional level. I'm sure that reflects some immaturity on my part, but I do my best to be rational about it.

I keep thinking about the idea that the caliber of player you are is determined by how well you play when you're not winning. It's easy to go all in with the best hand and win a lot of money if someone else calls; it's a lot more difficult to fold a set to a flush on the river or lay down a flopped straight to a flopped flush.

Experts say you should always bring your best game if you're going to sit at the tables. This is hard to do when I feel good but my reads are off, or when I think I'm playing well but I lack confidence because of recent losses.

So I think the smart thing to do is to stabilize my surroundings. If I play in games where I feel the most comfortable and have a greater edge, I'll have a better chance of winning (duh). That means I'll call off my first attempts at 10/20 NL until I grow my bankroll to higher levels. I'll concentrate on my strength, which is no limit games. I'll play shorter sessions in hopes of staying fresh. I'll quit when I'm ahead. I'll return to my tradition of sleeping easy and waiting until the morning to check on my results.

Basically, I'm not going to push quite so hard.

Maybe this is superstition, but I believe there's a time for pressing your luck and a time for regrouping. I don't know how to tell the difference except by "instinct" and "feel."

Chasing

My head hit the pillow around 1 a.m. early Sunday morning. Finally, sweet oblivious rest.

Earlier, I had woken up optimistic about a productive day of poker, cleaning, shopping, biking, caffeine, alcohol and warm January sun. I did it right -- I drank some yerba mate, cleaned up the apartment in the morning and got ready to run some errands.

My week had been tiring and frustrating. My poker play was lackluster, Neteller's withdrawal from the U.S. market got me down, I couldn't get a date with this girl I liked and my bike had been stolen. Fortunately, I immediately bought a new bike, and that would be my means of transportation for the summer-like Honolulu Saturday.

After buying a bike seat lock, grabbing fast food for lunch, spilling my drink all over the place and going grocery shopping, I was prepared to log in and win some money. I decided to sit at a couple of 10/20 NL tables. After all, the games won't stay this good for long, I have the bankroll and I was feeling good.

First on Full Tilt, while I was scoping out the games, I found a nice and loose 5/10 NL game. It didn't take long for me to lose my first buy-in. Bad beat story short, I flopped a set of 9s and then got busted by a player on the button who turned a straight off 53s. Wunderbar.

Then I clocked into PokerStars and sat at a 10/20 game. This time, I flopped a set of 3s, bet it out on the flop and turn and lost to a turned overboat. Brilliant. I tilted off the remaining $250 in my stack and signed out.

How embarrassing! That hand reduced my PokerStars balance to $170 with no way to redeposit. I was down $3,000 that I had lost in two hands and a few minutes. The rest of my bankroll is tied up in other sites, but I hate it that my Stars account shrunk to such low levels.

After those beats, I figured I was done with poker for the day. It would be foolish to risk further damage by chasing losses. Not playing was the most +EV decision. So I biked to the mall, bought some new work shoes on sale, watched TV, cooked my crazy pasta and then biked to a bar in China Town to get some drinks.

Unfortunately, I had forgotten to bring my new, bulky bike lock with me. I was used to my lock being attached to my old bike, but I haven't figured out how to hook up the new one. I had no choice but to ride my bike back home. By the time I got back, I decided to forget about the whole bike-riding idea and just drive instead. I'd pay for parking. Whatever.

A word about my crazy pasta: it's delicious, but there's no way I could talk to women after eating it. I mixed in bow tie pasta, shredded garlic, garlic pepper, onions, green peppers, spicy sriracha sauce, mushrooms, mozzarella cheese and olive oil. This stuff is very strong, and it will leave you with horrible breath no matter how much mouthwash you use. I love it.

I had a couple of drinks, tried not to offend anyone with my dragon breath and got home safely. I turned out the lights and flopped down on my mattress, ready for the day to be over.

But then, as I was lying there face-down, I realized I wasn't ready for the day to be over. I was wide awake! And not only was I alert, I was thinking clearly and felt motivated. "Fuck this," I thought. "I'm going to log on to Bodog right now and get my money back!"

So that's what I did.

Over the next hour and a half, I found some nice and terrible players populating all the 10/20 games. I doubled up once when I got all in on a 884 flop with KK vs. TT. A few hands later, I lost most of a buyin with a flopped set of 7s vs. a turned set of Kings.

Eventually, I got up to a little over $1,500, and I could almost taste it. One more double up now and I'd have made up for my earlier losses. But if I lost $2,000 at this point, I'd be worse off than when I started.

I was dealt AQs and called a late position raise from the small blind. The flop came down AQ2. Woot! I had top two pair! There was only one problem -- all three of those cards were hearts, and I only held diamonds.

I checked. My opponent bet $70 into the $140 pot, and I check-raised him to $400. He called. The turn brought a meaningless 7 of spades.

I made my decision. I was going for it -- All-in for $1,526. My victim thought for a second and then called with AJ, and he had the Jack of hearts. I held my breath for the river, which was a beautiful 5 of diamonds. He missed his flush, and I had doubled through!

I immediately logged off, self-satisfied with my $600 profit for the day. That's a lot better than a $3K loss.

This time, when I got into bed and pulled up the blanket, I think I was out within five minutes. Maybe my crazy pasta is good luck.

Does luck exist? (pt. 2)

Objectively, there's no doubt that under fair conditions with a random shuffle, each hand is an individual event. Cards have no memory. The last hand is ancient history that has no bearing on the cards that hit the board this hand. Just because you won the last hand doesn't mean you should play your rush, because there's no such thing as a rush except in retrospect.

Cards show no favoritism and obey no master. Two bad beats in a row doesn't make the game rigged. Streaks happen, but their beginning and end can only be observed after they're over.

Luck is an illusion created to explain variance, that element of chance that sometimes causes good players to lose and donkeys to prosper. Over the long run, there is no such thing as luck. Over millions of hands, the best players will win the most money and the worst players will go bust.

I don't see any valid argument against the above statements.

Larry W. Phillips, the author of "Zen and the Art of Poker" suggests that when your luck is running cold, you should take lower risk decisions. When your luck is running hot, you should play more hands in hopes of taking advantage of your good streak, he says.

I believe those suggestions are nonsense, as a couple of commenters pointed out. Making the correct decision and maximizing your EV is almost always the right choice, even if you believe you have some kind of psychic knowledge that a bad beat will smack you on the river.

However...

I also don't think parts of Phillips' advice are completely without merit.

While a poker player should always strive to make the correct move based on his read of the situation, the trend of a table can build on itself, creating an illusion of luck.

For example, if a player tightens up and plays passively after suffering a beat, he may give an opponent free cards by calling rather than raising. If opponents at a table see that a player was bluffed once, they'll be more likely to attempt aggressive bluffs again. If you show that you'll only raise the nuts, your opponents will quickly learn to back down when you raise. If you always raise in position, your opponents will know that your hand range is wider than normal and play accordingly.

Unless you suspect what your opponents know and can empathize with their motives, you might think that your bad luck is accumulating. In fact, luck has nothing to do with it. In these situations, opponents are attempting to exploit your weaknesses.

It does get difficult, though, when you don't understand what is happening. When your opponent detects a flaw in your game that you aren't aware of, it may appear that you are suffering bad luck because you can't find an explanation for what's happening.

As the beats build up, tilt becomes more likely. Once you're on tilt, you can't blame luck anymore because you're beating yourself.

This is when some of Phillips' ideas could be applied logically.

If you're losing, play shorter sessions. Perhaps you're up against tougher competition than you initially believed. Maybe you're distracted. Maybe the table dynamics don't favor your style of play.

If you're winning, play longer sessions. You're likely playing well and confident that you will continue to triumph. As long as you're in the correct mind-set while also making the right decisions, there's a good chance your wins will accumulate.

It may help some players to think of whether and how they should play in terms of luck. But a stronger, more constructive line of reasoning -- as well as an acceptance of factors that may be beyond your control -- allows you to put yourself in better situations.

Does luck exist?

"In my experience, there's no such thing as luck."

-- Obi-Wan Kenobi

___

"Luck in any card game is cyclical -- it comes and goes in a mysterious fashion. Sometimes the cards run hot, sometimes cold. Many players give no weight to this at all as a factor in the game. But if such events are cyclical, perhaps we ought to take a hard look at this as a factor in the game. It must be of some significance that in some games no matter how well we play nothing works, while in others it hardly matters what we do because we can't do anything wrong. It is unlikely that an effect of such magnitude would have no meaning within our own purposes in the game.

Since poker involves so many borderline decisions, often occurring one after another, it doesn't hurt to ask yourself from time to time (when trying to make up your mind about which way to go in a hand): 'How is my luck running?' Asking yourself this can be helpful in maximizing your good days and minimizing your bad days.

As noted, some players ignore this completely. They play each hand independently, regardless of how their luck is running. You see these players betting along nonchalantly, playing each hand by the book, despite being down a lot of money. They have not retreated despite the negative flow of events.

It can't hurt to monitor one's luck and the general trend of it: how hot or cold you are is a legitimate factor in the decision-making process. This is not just a question of academic interest. It has a direct bearing on your fortunes. Use this tool to answer some of the borderline decisions you make in the game.

If your cards are below average, but you've been winning with anything and everything, you might want to play more hands. Conversely, if you've been getting fairly good hands, but you've lost with all of them, you might want to fold some of these."

--"Zen and the Art of Poker," by Larry W. Phillips