Luck

[SheetWise]

I believe it was Hellmuth who said "Poker is 100% skill and 50% luck". He also said that if it weren't luck, he'd win every time.

Since I assume assume a lot of people here play other games -- and even games they know to be -EV -- I have a question about "Luck".

Do any of you believe you can control your luck? Have you ever had a premonition that a hand would win -- or that a bet would win -- even though you "knew" statistically it was a bad wager? Has anyone kept a book on their "dumb luck" bets?

If you play based on intuition, how has it worked out for you? Any stories?

[Skipbidder]

I've been saving up my luck for several years. I've been having bad luck at poker, bridge, backgammon, and blackjack. I've almost got enough luck stored up now to go buy a lotto ticket and cash in big.

[KingMedicine]

sheets - i know you to be a very intelligent and wise poster and a quite informed gambling theorist. are you asking this question b/c you think the responses might be amusing or just b/c of boredom or is there some other motive?

this is actually a very interesting question and im hoping some people will give legitimate responses.

[Double Down]

Oh boy. here it goes. The post that's going to pretty much de-value any of my future posts.

I do not believe in "luck" as in some sort of magical force that decides who will win and who will lose.

However, I do believe whole heartedly in intuition. I believe that the universe is literally what we make of it, and if you choose that you want to have a winning experience, you will.

Intuition in my mind is a higher level of consciousness that knows full truth and resides in a mindset of abundance, love, and wealth (not monetary wealth, but wealth as in the feeling of fulfillment.) It is without fear, because it doesn't have the concept of lacking and being without, so it has nothing to lose.

99.99% of the time, our consciousness level is in this plane of existence and not listening to our intuition. Fear, panic, worry, anxiety are all signs that we are ignoring our intuition.

When I play blackjack, I am counting cards but I also am very much listening to my intuition, and after keeping very good track of my results, I win almost every time I play. I play waaay beyond my bankroll and yet I only tapped out once, and that was back in college.
I can confidently say that this is because of my intuition, because my results are way outside the standard deviation of even a winning blackjack card counter.


Most people who play negative ev games and know it believe in intuition, because it's their hope that that will be enough to make them a winner. However, just like many potentially winning players, they are coming from a place of fear, worry, and anxiety while they play.
They have made the decision for themselves that they will be happy if they win, but unhappy if they lose. And guess what happens?


When I play, I say to myself that I am going to win. But I also say that if I end up losing, I will still enjoy myself. I have decided that "losing" is not a negative experience. Experiences don't have any innate value behind them other than what we assign to them, so I decide to find peace and happiness with whatever the outcome may be.

I am not trying to make a living playing blackjack. I am there for the fun of the game, so win or lose I am still there to be playing.
If I am down in the middle of a session, I don't get upset or frustrated or angry. I remind myself that sometimes losing is part of the experience and I keep playing.
And I win around 80% of the time.
(And no, my losing sessions aren't 4X my winning sessions!)

Hundreds of times, I have gone to place my bet and had a very strong feeling that either I'm going to win or lose, and I will change my bet accordingly.
Dozens and dozens of times, on the first hand after a shuffle I say to the dealer to hang on, and I throw out a couple of black chips, because I know that there's a blackjack coming.
And it comes out, and I'm hardly surprised.


I go to Vegas 5 or 6 times a year and always go with a friend or two. We're there to drink, gamble, and party. When I haven't been drinking, my results are okay, but ironically, when I'm drunk, my results are incredible.
And I truly believe that it's because when I'm drinking and having a good time with my friends, I am very connected to my intuition. I'm having a good time, no matter what happens, and I am without fear or worry about the money that I might lose.
I decide before I play that I'm going to win. That it's as much in my power as it is to say the words, "Hit me."
I am so confident that to even consider the chance of losing seems preposterous.
It's like the difference between having to shoot a free throw versus having to make a layup.

I decide that I'm going to win and I do. Simple as that.

[KingMedicine]

good post dbldwn.

[SheetWise]

[ QUOTE ]
sheets - i know you to be a very intelligent and wise poster and a quite informed gambling theorist. are you asking this question b/c you think the responses might be amusing or just b/c of boredom or is there some other motive?

this is actually a very interesting question and im hoping some people will give legitimate responses.

[/ QUOTE ]
It's a serious question. I think the word "luck" means a lot of different things to different people. For example -- Skipbidder assumed that luck implies some sort of zero-sum accounting. Double Down took the position that luck is a correlation between intuition and outcome, and didn't infer any past/future relationship.

When I use the word, it's closer to the meaning Double Down takes -- and what I'm interested in.

[SheetWise]

[ QUOTE ]
When I play blackjack, I am counting cards but I also am very much listening to my intuition, and after keeping very good track of my results, I win almost every time I play. I play waaay beyond my bankroll and yet I only tapped out once, and that was back in college.

I can confidently say that this is because of my intuition, because my results are way outside the standard deviation of even a winning blackjack card counter.

[/ QUOTE ]
Thanks for the reply. I have seen a similar case only once. We had a guy who played with us for about a year back in the 70's. He would literally get up and walk away from a +count shoe because "it didn't feel right." We considered dropping him -- but he was in every other way an excellent player. He's the ONLY player I've ever met or seen who never brought in a losing session.

Either this guy was adding his personal money to the bank, or there was something about his "feelings" that worked well for him (and us). At one time we decided to calculate the random probability of him never losing, and after getting an overflow error on our early computers we simply accepted that it was a small number.

[Yads]

I'm normally not very superstitious and don't really believe in luck. When it comes to sports though I'm extrememly superstitious. If I wear a jersey to couple of games and my team loses I switch the jersey I wear to the next game. If I do something that causes my team to win that I've never done before I'll continue doing it until the team loses. Crazy I know, but I'm otherwise an extremely rational person.

[SheetWise]

Thanks Yads -

That's an interesting twist that hadn't occurred to me -- superstitions. I think when we label something a superstition, we're denoting it as irrational. Yet, clearly, if you're consciously doing something because you see the action as related to the outcome of an unrelated event -- you're trying to influence the event.

I don't think most people believe that "luck" is something you can influence. I think they believe that it's something you "tap into", or that you're a victim of.

[FCBLComish]

My luck is fine. I have just been going through a bad run of skill...