Is it possible to just be an unlucky person?

[BarryLyndon]

1. Luck is the residue of a well laid plan. That's all that luck is - residue. If you plan well and you try to make good decisions, a lot of times, you control outcomes to a substantial degree.

2. Luck in life is, in large part, a matter of perspective. For instance, if that girl in the photo is your gf, please stfu and share your opinions on how unlucky you are to walls, your dog (he probably won't even listen), or aliens. What, aliens don't exist on this planet? If that's your gf, then they do for you, because apparently you like to entertain things that are a figment of your imagination.

3. If not "2," then realize that luck is all relative and a matter of perspective. You are "unlucky" at poker, but probably not as unlucky as the guy who wasted his 4K bankroll at 10/20NL last night. Or maybe I consider myself unlucky for going on a solid 50 hour slight downswing whereas I feel like I wasted 2 days of my life, but someone else would love to be in my spot because I actually have a BR and I have a pretty good idea wtf I'm doing.

It's all relative. You play poker and you have friends to play tennis with. That's about "luckier" than a huge chunk of all people.

If you compete well, chances are you marginalize your luck will put you in a certain competitive spectrum. This is where "luck" really comes to play - within that thin percentilie where you lie. But, chances are, there are millions of people who want to be where you lie, so who is to say whether you are really "lucky" or not. Better just concentrate on decisions instead.

Barry

[sweeng8]

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

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They are the same thing if you are talking about luck in a devine sense- that is to say, if you believe god (or who or whatever) created some people who are 'naturally unlucky'. If you are talking about luck in the varience sense then of course its differet, but if the discussion is on being 'naturally' lucky or unlucky it has obvious either theological or perhaps biological connotations. In that sense, I would argue that to be 'naturally' unlucky would surely encompass what you were born into, what oppurtunities you have, etc.

[BarryLyndon]

luck is a function of competition. Everyone wants basically the same thing, and there is a competitive pool for that. If there wasn't scarcity and everyone could just have what they want, then nobody would complain about being unlucky.

Luck is a function of what you want, and people compete for what you want. If you gf has a large rack and a nice face and you are playing poker and tennis with your friends, chances are you are doing pretty well in the luck department. If you want more but can't get it, you have to re-evaluate your life and/or not equate getting what you want directly with luck and lean how to reach a peace between what you have and what you want.

Barry

[Russ M.]

<---- This is not my GF btw. If it was, I would never impose to make a post like this one.

[Qrawl]

No, it's not possible to be an unlucky person. It's possible to have the unluckiest results that any human has ever had though. Hope that makes you feel a little better.

(On the other hand, you also have the luckiest results that any human has ever had, if you believe in the multiverse.)

[sweeng8]

Read some of Richard Wiseman's work on 'luck'. He is a pop psychologist who demonstrates that people who consider themselves lucky tend to create more oppurtunity and have more success than those who consider themselves unlucky. Their brains are more open to information and they are able to perceive things in a clearer fashion (obvious skills needed in poker)

Also, for the guy for said "it doesnt rain everyday", he obviously doesnt live in Scotland [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[TheCutter]

Try posting this in the "Beats, Brags, and Variance" forum. You will get great responses, like:
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OP -- yes it is possible to be an unlucky person. For example, think of your parents...

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[BarryLyndon]

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No, it's not possible to be an unlucky person. It's possible to have the unluckiest results that any human has ever had though. Hope that makes you feel a little better.

(On the other hand, you also have the luckiest results that any human has ever had, if you believe in the multiverse.)

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There is no one definition for "luckiest" and "unluckiest." You could feel like the "luckiest" one day and "unluckiest" the next.

Barry

[dontquit]

To start with...I'm very impressed with the responses to this question...At first...I'm thinking...#1...this sounds like me...hhahah! #2...man this guy's going to get flamed! But...instead...people responded very well...giving him some insight and me too for that matter. I'm a winning player..but have hit a downswing with being drawn out out runner runner straights and flushes...including a guy calling my top pair J's on the turn..with nothing more than QT..no straight draw..no flush draw...only 3 outs to win..and yep...Q on the river. I'm disgusted with online poker right now in the midst of the scandals going on..and will probably limit myself to freerolls....until the dust settles...Thank you guys for keeping the posts honest and not flaming...shows alot of class!

[Al Mirpuri]

Somewhere out there is a man/woman who has not lost a bet.

Somewhere out there is a man/woman who has not won a bet.

Both events become less and less likely the more bets are made.

Games that are not based on probability have no luck in them. You say your opponents were lucky in the tennis match but what you really mean is they played far better than they usually do. In physical sports there is no luck just outcomes that are unquantifiable. For example, in soccer, a player tries a huge kick up field and the ball enters the opponents' net for a goal. What luck everyone declares but what they mean is that the scorer could not have reasonably assumed that his huge up field kick would score. The laws of physics were not suspended at any point. Indeed, physically, when a chain of events is initiated the chain must fulfil its outcome even though that outcome cannot be predicted.

You said it was not a bad beat post but that was exactly what it was. Stop crying. Wet keyboards do not work. Stop lying to yourself. You are not the unluckiest person in the world - probably not even the unluckiest posting in this thread.

Moreover, in the physical non probability world, even the word luck needs to be defined.