It’s The Luck of the Draw

No matter how good you are. No matter how much you practice. No matter how often you read $30 books written by pro players, no matter what 2 cards you have…It ALL comes down to luck sometimes.

I hear it over and over again at the tables…”Man that guy sucks…But he sure is catching good hands.” I’ve caught myself thinking this too. Maybe you have also.

It’s a very funny thing to hear in no limit Hold’em because often people will ridicule the play of other players that are doing well at the table. I’m not saying that calling a large bet pre-flop with Q 6 off suite is smart play. But when you hit the flop like 10, 6, 6 you are always getting paid off on a big over pair. Is it smart? Is it the right decision? Well that all depends. A lot of players go with a gut feeling. Some players take these risks just to capitalize huge when they hit it. Is this inherently bad play? All of this is situational. Poker is a game of situations. The beauty of poker is that your opponent can have any 2 cards in the hole…and so can you.

Think of it this way. Most of the time this player is going to miss this flop huge. But occasionally he will call this against pocket Ace’s and win a large pot. It all depends on the timing and luck.

The best you can do is get your money in the pot with the best hand, cross your fingers and hope for the best. We all have bad beats. We all get sucked out on and in contrary we all give bad beats and we all suck out on other players. Having pocket Ace’s lose to a 5 7 off suite hurts. It always will. But if you don’t think poker is just total randomness than you will never feel good about it. It will hurt more when you lose and you will feel falsely superior when you win.
It is all random. Take a deck of cards and deal out 2 cards in 5 places. Just like you were dealing Hold’em to 5 players. Deal them face up. Now deal out a flop, turn and river. With no influence by players see what 2 cards win. Now do it again and again. See if the best pre-flop hand wins every time. You’ll soon notice it does not. Makes you think twice about slow playing those Ace’s huh?

Time and time again you will see hands like 5 7 win, 2 4 and even K 3 wins a few of them. Now you see it is all random. Now you have to adjust your game to that. You need to put your player on a hand and you need to force your player off hand too. Take this and read my “All about the Tells” article and combine them and you’ll be one step ahead…


Don P. - Straightflop.com

BACK