09-27-04, LearnTexasHoldem:

Luck: Mucked Cards and Calling Stations

Question: I think there is a close corollary to your comment about the calling station players which you should mention. The same way calling stations are bad players, but they will get lucky and win sometimes, I think you should mention that when you play correctly and muck bad hands, you will also have gotten lucky sometimes. Occasionally, you will correctly fold 22 and find 22 on the flop, etc. This also should not bother anyone. Just a word of encouragement could help some people. Also, great web site. Thanks a million!

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Answer: Yes, that is definitely a good point. Inevitably you will fold winning hands because you are playing correctly. To beat yourself up over that is wrong. You need to understand that the only way to beat poker in the long term is to play well -- deviating from your strategy even for a bit to try to get lucky can undermine your game and it can take a number of sessions before you realize you've been playing badly.

That isn't to say that you can't screw around every now and then but see it for what it is and also realize that poker has a very large dose of negative reinforcement. A bad player can win once and it will keep them coming back time and time again. For some reason people base their poker playing on their best days only and chalk the rest up to bad luck.

Learning is always easier then "unlearning" and "relearning" so be careful what bad habits you acquire by chasing those long shots. The way to beat poker is to expose your money only when you think you are the favorite to win money in the end -- otherwise you are the sucker and it is a gamble you can't win.

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