What's Luck Got to Do With It?

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Turns out luck has a lot to do with it. I was a little disappointed yesterday after my (fifth) attempt to get past Day 1 of the Colossus tournament at the WSOP when I started to run amazingly well midday and built up my chip stack. Why would I be disappointed? Because it seemed to have more to do with getting amazing hole cards (the cards in my hand) and great community cards (the shared cards on the board) than my skill. While I think I played the cards well to optimize the chips I won, my winning had more to do with the cards I happened to get. Does poker all come down to luck? After a couple days of thinking about this, and several years before that, I’m convinced that there’s a huge luck factor. I believe skill also counts over the long term, but in any hand and in any game, luck may be the overriding factor.

Day 1

In the beginning of Day 1, I had been getting a good run of cards and built up my stack to well above average. Having an average stack is always good. As I like to point out, if my stack stays at or above average throughout the tournament, that means I win.

I started losing close hands after building my stack up in the morning, and after a few hours of play, my stack was down to about average, which as I said was fine. I then got pocket Qs. One player, who had been knocking players out with monster hands all morning, raised. I reraised. He reraised again. I shoved. He called with AK. He didn't improve, so I doubled up, maybe the first player to take chips away from him!

Later, when my stack had diminished somewhat, I got into a 3-way all-in. A short stack shoved. I shoved with pocket 6s. Unfortunately, a very large stack called my bet. I was up against the short stack with pocket 5s (not bad) and the large stack with pocket 9s (very bad). But I got a 6 on the river to win. In that one hand, I went from almost busted to giant stack. That’s when I started thinking about the luck factor. The odds were against me in that hand, but I got the card I needed, built a big stack, and was suddenly competitive again in the tournament. Had I done something right or just got lucky?

Then I got AQ and the board ran out KJ67 10, giving me the Broadway straight. I knocked out another player. I then had an even bigger stack, more than double the average, at about 140 big blinds.

I then ran card dead for a while and my stack started getting low, to about 20 big blinds. I’ve come to the conclusion that getting a big stack early in the tournament is good for mainly one thing, keeping you in the game when you go through that inevitable period with no playable cards. Then I got pocket 4s. A short stack shoved. A big stack called. I decided to gamble and also called, for about 3/4 of my stack. The flop was 469. I checked. The big stack bet about ½ my remaining stack. I shoved. He reluctantly called, sensing that I had a great hand, but he felt committed. With my set of 4s, I tripled up! Again, it seemed like luck was in my favor.

And yet again soon after that. I got 89 in the big blind. One player raised and two players called, so I called. The board ran out 4889A. One player with a decent stack shoved. I called. He had a very good hand—trip 9s with a J—but I had a full house. I knocked him out. My stack was huge at about 400K.

Then a short stack shoved. I called with pocket 10s. He had pocket 4s. I knocked him out, too. My stack was even better then at about 500K.

Shortly after that, I folded pocket Ks for the second time this tournament. Just like the other time, I raised pre-flop. A short stack called. The flop was AJ6. He bet big. I called. He might have an ace, but he might be bluffing. The river was 4. He shoved. I could only assume he at least had an ace or a set or at least two pair, so I folded. It’s so painful to fold pocket Ks, but I knew I had to do it. On a previous Day 1 in this tournament, I had seen two players with giant stacks go head to head. Both kept betting bigger after each round. On the river, one player shoved and the other called. The shoving player had a straight if I remember correctly. The calling player had a single pair—pocket aces. This player had seemed like a talented player, but I changed my mind after seeing that. A pair of aces pre-flop is the best hand you can have. After the flop, it’s just a good pair and you need to be willing to fold it if necessary. His stubbornness and poor judgement knocked him out of the tournament.

In the next hand, I got Q♥2♥ in the big blind. One player raised. Another called, so I called too. I was getting good pot odds even though my hand wasn’t great. This means that there was a lot of money in the pot, and I had already committed money to the pot via the blinds and ante, so I just had to put in a little more. I flopped three hearts for a flush. We all checked. The turn was A♣. I bet. One player folded the other called. The river was not a ♥. I bet big. He called with A♥K♣. I won a big pot. Good thing another heart didn't come, which would have given him a better flush.

Amazingly, I won 3 hands out of 4 with AK. Shortly after that, I won another hand with AK. Overall, I got AK about 6 times in 10 hands, each one winning. It became a joke at the table that AK was "my hand" because I showed them each time. I did this not only to demonstrate an interesting statistical anomaly, but to give the other players second thoughts on calling me when I chose to bluff. I joked that I must have fallen asleep at the table and was dreaming because it’s hard to run this well for anyone, but especially for me. Again, I thought about the luck factor of getting such a good hand such an improbable number of times in succession.

Then I lost two really big hands when I had top pair, kings. In one particularly disappointing hand, I had K 10. The flop was K74. A short stack shoved. I thought hard about shoving to keep the third player out, but instead I just called. The third player shoved, so I folded, having lost a lot of chips. The short stack had K7 for two pair. The bigger stack had AK. The board ran out 5 10. I would have won with my better two pair. I asked the player with AK if he would have called if I had shoved. He said, “Of course not. I wouldn’t risk my entire stack on a pair of kings.” Damn! I kept thinking about this hand the rest of the night, and how I should have shoved.

Then I lost another big pot. I had A3. I raised under the gun. The big stack called. The board ran out 3452A. She bet big. I figured she was playing the straight on the board and just wanted to get me to fold Instead, I called. But she had pocket 6s for a bigger straight. This time, luck was on her side not mine.

My stack was kind of short at that point. I got AJ and raised. Another player with about the same size stack called. The board ran out all low and mid cards and then an ace on the river. I immediately shoved. I had a good hand, a pair of aces with a jack kicker. I felt like I was probably ahead, but I wanted to be the aggressor so that the other player had to decide whether to risk his entire stack and his entire tournament life. He hemmed and hawed, huffed and puffed, shook his head and finally folded, but showed me his ace. I showed no reaction as I scooped in the chips, but in my mind I was sighing heavily with relief. If he had called and his kicker had matched any other card on the board, I would have been gone. The table started speculating about my hand. “Did he have a set?” “I think he hit a straight.” “Was there a potential straight on the board?” “I think he had pocket aces.” “If he did, he would have raised on the flop or the turn.” I said nothing. These are the best moments in poker, though, when I make a daring move and get a player to fold when he probably had the better hand.

We were soon on the money bubble, and with about a thousand players left, at over 100 tables, it didn’t take long for one person to bust out and the bubble to burst. I had made it to Day 2 and a guarantee of winning cash. Day 2 tomorrow would determine how much cash.

Day 2

Starting Day 2, my stack was a playable 213K, but that was only 18 big blinds, so I'd need to play tight until I got another streak of good cards.

My Day 2 table was pretty clustered with regard to stack sizes, which was great. There were no huge stacks and no tiny stacks. That meant that no one could bully the table with large bets and bluffs.

There were 2,326 players out of 16,301 entries over the last 5 days. So even though I was in the money, the remaining players were more than the total number of entries in most tournaments I play in. My initial strategy was to play very tight—no betting unless I had great cards. There are always very short stacks who just folded their way into Day 2 to make the money and who are going to bust out in the first hour. I wanted to wait them out.

I won my first hand with pocket 6s. I raised pre-flop and another player called. The flop was all low cards, 249. I shoved. Since I had raised pre-flop, I wanted the other player to think I had a big pair. He folded.

Shortly after that, I limped in with pocket 4s. I got called by two players. The flop was AAA. One player bet. I folded my full house. The two other players continued betting. The big stack, who had won every hand he'd played so far, had the other A to make quads.

After only a few hands, I got A♦J♦ and was preparing to shove. Then a player with about ¾ of my stack shoved. I thought hard about it before folding. I told the table I had folded AJ. Several players were astonished. “What were you waiting for?” asked one. I said, “I’m waiting for the next pay jump. There will be hundreds of players busting out in the first hour.” Many players held on with tiny stacks at the end of Day 1 just to get in the money. They’d already started busting out quickly. This happens in every multi-day tournament.

“You were waiting for an extra $80?” asked the table chip leader. The increase in pay from min cash to the next level was only $80. But that wasn’t my entire reason. I could afford to hang on until I got a great hand to shove while all those others busted out and made me a little more money. A♦J♦ is a great hand, but typically someone shoving will have a pair or a big ace (and ace with another high card). If she had a pair, she was ahead of me. If she had an A, she could have had K or Q to go with it and still be ahead of me. Or she should have some other card and get it paired up with the board. In any case, it’s basically a coin flip, and why should I bet my tournament life on a coin flip?

There’s a common misunderstanding of tournament poker, especially by those who play poker cash games. In cash games, the idea is to maximize your potential winnings because each hand is independent of the ones before it, and the goal is to take home as much money as possible. In a tournament, the chips are not real money and how much you have is irrelevant to your overall goal, which is to make it to the end to collect real cash. Therefore, your goal in tournament poker should be to last as long as possible. This means that the negative of losing chip far outweighs the positive of gaining chips. You’ll have another opportunity to gain chips later in the tournament (you hope), but if you lose all your chips, that’s the end of the tournament for you. I could have been the first to shove, with AJ, forcing all remaining players at the table to “flip a coin” to decide whether to risk their tournament life. But calling another player’s shove with AJ means that I’m the one gambling—flipping a coin—to determine my fate.

In fact, I think I’m playing better lately because I’m keeping in mind that it’s better to lose fewer chips than to risk winning lots of chips. I played like this in my early poker days because I was insecure that I might not get a chance to play again soon, especially when I didn’t live in Las Vegas. After I moved here and started playing more tournaments, I started taking more risks, knowing that I could play again tomorrow. I think this may work if you’re a professional player, playing every day. For me, it’s better to fold hands that seem 50/50 and wait for hands with much better odds.

At the break, a player came up to me to say hi. He was really excited to see me and to tell me he’d made Day 2. I had to admit I didn’t remember him. That’s a common issue among poker players because we meet so many people at the tables. He didn’t mind reminding me that we’d played each other at the Wynn. He fist-bumped me and hugged me. We asked about our stack sizes and about our strategies. It's fun to be part of the poker community.

After the break, I got “my hand” AK in the big blind. One player raised. I shoved. He thought for a while (a good sign) and then called with pocket 4s. I hit an A and doubled up!

On the very next hand, I got A9 in the small blind. The big stack raised. I called. The flop was A98, all hearts. I didn't have a heart, so I bet 80K. The big stack was flummoxed. He said he had one big heart as he folded. That's exactly why I had bet so much. I didn't want him to see another card and possibly catch a flush. My stack was at 340K, somewhat below average, but very good.

After about an hour, I had made the first pay jump.

But after not playing any hands for the next hour, my stack was again short, so I shoved with pocket 2s. I got called by AQ. The board ran out 457... 9... Q. Damn. I busted at #1,379 out of 16,301.

Epilog

As a scientist, I think things happen according to the laws of physics and that’s all. But as a normal human being, I sometimes attribute my wins and losses to the plan of God. My friend Lois Joseph passed away last Thursday. She was a dear friend, a sweet person, a supporter of Israel and the Jewish community, and an American patriot. Her funeral was scheduled for today at 2 AM, but I had already committed to this tournament. I busted out in just enough time to get to her touching funeral service. Maybe there’s luck, maybe there’s Karma, or maybe there’s God’ plan. I don’t know.

About the author

Bob Zeidman is a high-stakes recreational poker player. He created Good Beat Poker, a free online poker site using patented technology for audio and video—see and hear the other players at the table if you choose.