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  #21  
Old 11-21-2007, 04:46 AM
jubalong jubalong is offline
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Default Re: Is it possible to just be an unlucky person?

Ehhh, is that your girlfriend on your avatar??

13 year old african children-soildiers are born unlucky. Christopher Reeve got unlucky. You lost some money in spots where you were 80% favourite.
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  #22  
Old 11-21-2007, 06:34 AM
Craggoo Craggoo is offline
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Default Re: Is it possible to just be an unlucky person?

I have already decided im unlucky at life (and recently) in cards.

Let me start out by telling you how my last session went. It seemed like it was cooler after cooler for a while. This was in $3/$6 limit (very juicy game at my casino). Solid regular raises, I picked a seat to her immediate left and call with 99. Flop is J93, 2 bets on the flop. Turn is a jack, we cap it. River is a 3 which i basically say "i got counterfeited but heres a donation". No counterfeit sir, JJ is good.

A few hands later there are several ppl in including same person, I call with Qh9h. Flop a flush (j high on the board). BB bets, she raises, i re-raise, we cap it. Turn is a offsuit ace, BB bets, she raises and i can already sense another cooler. We both call. River is a King of hearts, BB checks, she bets I call, BB folds showing 74 of hearts. Lady shows me A5 of hearts and of course coolered me again.

Few hands later i call with 55 pf and see a flop of 543. Put a few bets in on the flop. Turn is an 8, i check-raise and all call. River is anohter 8, someone leads out, the two of us cap it. 88 good sir. It was just crap like this over and over again. Feel the pain yet?

Now, as far as unlucky in life goes. I have gotten parking tickets for being parked slightly further away from the curb then you should (and i really do mean slightly).

I've gotten parking tickets for occupying less than 1 foot of a yellow marked area.

I've gotten a parking ticket for a safety infraction for blocking a fire hydrant when there wasnt even a fire hydrant on the block!

For the first time ever last night in a VERY long time, I didnt wear my seatbelt making the 1 mile drive to the grocery store. I havent seen a cop in weeks when driving around town. Obviously I do the only time in years I dont wear a seatbelt. GG me.

The last set of roommates I had both stole from me.

My internet crapped out the day before a research paper was due (obviously I hadnt started it yet). Lets just say it didnt come back up till the next day and I had to drive over to a friends to complete it.

You getting the general idea? This is what unlucky at life means. And this is just a small selection of the many "very unlucky things" that have happened to me. Im convinced some people can be unlucky at life.

Edit: In my last session, I was up almost $250 at one point before the sick setups started happening over and over. I left almost dead even after this sickening streak of bad variance.
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  #23  
Old 11-21-2007, 09:58 AM
Goater Goater is offline
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Default Re: Is it possible to just be an unlucky person?

I understand how this can seem, but I wouldnt say that because you got a load of parking tickets and your internet went that you are "unlucky in life". And to the other poster, I was only discussing being "unlucky" in poker.

As I mentioned in my last post, a bad run at cards should always be kept in perspective. Perspective can be one of the first things to warp during a bad spell, and its crucial to not let this affect your life outside poker. If you let poker start a vicious cycle of you feeling unlucky, your play will be affected and you will feel unlucky when even the most mundane things happen.

Perspective is the key...
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  #24  
Old 11-21-2007, 10:08 AM
Flip-Flop Flip-Flop is offline
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Default Re: Is it possible to just be an unlucky person?

[ QUOTE ]
Is it possible to just be an unlucky person?

[/ QUOTE ]

No, it doesn`t rain every day.
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  #25  
Old 11-21-2007, 12:30 PM
Mike Cuneo Mike Cuneo is offline
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Default Re: Is it possible to just be an unlucky person?

I read all the posts so far, and I feel like I've been unlucky to this point, but things can turn around at any time.

What I hate is how people who have no clue or are just gambling it up seem to be winning and doing a lot better than me. For example, my uncle hit for $6k on a slot machine, then went to roulette and was hitting his 13 or 00 or whatever.

2 weeks ago I drive to get some food and the power is out at McDonalds. WTF?

I'm a Pittsburgh Pirates fan.

I mean everyone has bad or unlucky things that happen but sometimes I do feel like I'm destined to lose.

As far as poker, typical session is I get KK, raise and take down the blinds. Then I raise with KK a few orbits later, someone reraises I push for like 75bb and he has AA. I've missed so many straight+flush draws it's sick. 77 vs AKs, flop a RFD with overs, and miss it. In MTT or SNGs, I get it all in 3 way with 99 vs AK vs AQ and the AQ wins.

When I get 2 pair, I'm always getting counterfitted, or everyone folds to a small bet, or they have a set.

Last week I had TJo in the BB, 7 way action, flop comes 789 rainbow, I check trying to make a nice c/r, checks around, turn T so now I split with any J and lose to QJ, but I put out a 1/2 pot size bet, one caller, river 8, I bet $20 he raises to $40 and I sigh and call, shows T8o for a boat. It just makes me mad that if he would have played his hand fast on the flop (pair+open ender), then I would have gotten in my stack with huge equity. I'm just getting sick of donks slowplaying a flopped flush or set and I'm sitting there with an overpair or combo draw or lower flush and I just lose. Honestly it must feel great to pick up JJ and KK right in a row, limp in with both, and have someone give you action with 88 on a TT9 board. Or flop a set of kings.

Honestly I don't know how people have money, they constantly limp or flat call with QQ KK and AA preflop. No one will ever reraise AKs. It just boggles my mind that they can win, so passive and just hitting every card.
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  #26  
Old 11-25-2007, 01:12 PM
blurred blurred is offline
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Default Re: Is it possible to just be an unlucky person?

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Just FYI, there is no Santa Claus

[/ QUOTE ]

WHAT????????? Who is that fat guy in the red suit I see in the supermarket every year?

[/ QUOTE ]

He's the drunk bum begging for change on the side of the road the other 11 months of the year.
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  #27  
Old 11-25-2007, 10:14 PM
Phone Booth Phone Booth is offline
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Default Re: Is it possible to just be an unlucky person?

To answer your question, no, luck has no memory by definition. To say that there are such things as an unlucky person would imply that luck is not based on random chance, but some sort of quality inherent in the person. Then it's no longer luck but your karma - I don't think there's any accepted mechanism by which you can unconsciously influence how cards are shuffled in such a way as to cause you lose money, except by explicit mechanical cheating.

With that said, it's possible that you *have* been unlucky. I don't know my true win/loss-rate but the difference between my "average" 50-hour rate and my actual worst 50-hour live-poker stretch appears to be about 12 buy-ins (where buy-in = 100BB; so for 1/2 game, this would be $2400) and that happened once already over only about 400 hours of play. Hence, even if you were a good player, your downswing (4.5 buy-ins) would not be considered particularly improbable. I lost more than that in a few hours before. With that said, I play just about every hand preflop whereas you sound like a TAG, so it's possible that you should see less variance.

On the other hand, most players dramatically overestimate their skill. Since skill + luck = result and you can't change the result to any meaningful degree (though many lie to themselves), those with decent memory are forced to assume that their luck has been worse than it actually is. The fact that you don't get to see folded hands makes this self-deception much easier. For instance, people remember when their aces are cracked, but not when they hold up, mostly because the hand usually ends more quickly and often without a showdown when nobody can beat unimproved aces. You'd also note that for the same reason, when you're waiting for the train in a subway station with several tracks, your train always comes last - it's because those times your train comes first, you're not thinking about these other people waiting for the other train. Same with buses, taxis, etc. Also when they are several rounds of betting, people tend to remember only when they were ahead, not when they were behind. If you were against one player and were far ahead preflop and behind on the flop, no matter what cards come on the turn and the river, the loser could claim that as a proof that you were unlucky. You yourself even mention:

[ QUOTE ]

Another less interesting one was getting all-in preflop with QQ vs AK for $100 each. Queen in the door, yet a T also on flop, river J gives him the nuts.


[/ QUOTE ]

If all the money went in preflop, exactly how he won is irrelevant. You were a very slight favorite and should expect to lose nearly half the time.

Even during my recent insanely hot stretch (when I made 10 buy-ins above my average rate in less than 40 hours), people hit 4/3/2-outers all the time against me in fairly large pots. If you play poker for 50 hours, you expect to be on the wrong side of bad beats of all kinds even if you're running extremely well. It's difficult to quantify how lucky or unlucky you have been on the balance. I recently had a session where I had Aces twice and lost the maximum amount both times and also lost twice out of the five times I had Kings - I still finished up.

Also, the fact that you say $900 is 9 buy-ins, while describing situations where you had a $300+ stack makes it very possible that you play a +EV game when short-stacked (say, 30-50BB) but not with a 100BB+. The examples you chose also may be a sign of this - good preflop hands holding up is a small part of the total amount of luck involved. Also important are 1) someone else holding a very good hand when you have an even better one and avoiding the reverse and 2) someone else deciding to bluff for whatever reason when you happen to have an unfoldable hand and of course avoiding the reverse.

In short, if you are tight and aggressive preflop and play poorly post-flop, you'd be +EV with a short stack but -EV with a sufficiently large stack. Since you're playing worse, effectively, when stakes are higher, this could very well sum to a -EV overall. Note that you're probably paying the casino and dealers $15 an hour or so and possibly some more to cocktail waitresses, -$900 over 50 hours is basically breaking even with other players. Since you choose to only get involved with big hands that you're willing to go far with, whereas your opponents will give up if they don't hit, you'd feel that you're consistently unlucky in big pots.
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  #28  
Old 11-26-2007, 02:33 PM
sweeng8 sweeng8 is offline
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Default Re: Is it possible to just be an unlucky person?

In a poker sense, then yes, it is possible to be unlucky forever in the strictest sense. Varience that lasts the life of your poker career is almost impossible, but its still possible. I have thought about this before- my worst downswing was about 1 1/2 months playing almost very day. If I was just starting and had that run it would put me of for life. This said, to 'run bad' over a few years is statistically possible but sooo improbable that you probably wont find anyone in the world that plays regularly.

On a side note, and it has been mentioned previously, on a larger scale, losing repeatedly at poker even though you are going in ahead does not mean you are born unlucky, or somehow naturally unlucky. Being born in the 3rd world in some war torn country with no food is born unlucky, so although I appreciate your question, you need to keep ideas of being 'lucky' and 'unlucky' as very relative terms. The fact we can discuss these terms in poker terms suggests most of us are very lucky
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  #29  
Old 11-26-2007, 03:08 PM
Goater Goater is offline
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Default Re: Is it possible to just be an unlucky person?

[ QUOTE ]
you need to keep ideas of being 'lucky' and 'unlucky' as very relative terms. The fact we can discuss these terms in poker terms suggests most of us are very lucky

[/ QUOTE ]

best point made yet. perspective....
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  #30  
Old 11-26-2007, 03:45 PM
Henry17 Henry17 is offline
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Default Re: Is it possible to just be an unlucky person?

[ QUOTE ]
On a side note, and it has been mentioned previously, on a larger scale, losing repeatedly at poker even though you are going in ahead does not mean you are born unlucky, or somehow naturally unlucky. Being born in the 3rd world in some war torn country with no food is born unlucky, so although I appreciate your question, you need to keep ideas of being 'lucky' and 'unlucky' as very relative terms. The fact we can discuss these terms in poker terms suggests most of us are very lucky

[/ QUOTE ]

You are confusing worse off with unlucky. They are not the same thing.
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