Is Luck Real?
Einstein once said "God does not play dice." Considering that he was an atheist I think he meant that every event is the direct result of a cause, not of chance. In essence, "cause and effect." Chance is the odds of cause and effect taking place in a certain sequence.
So the question is, do some people get the good luck result more often than the bad luck result, and vice-versa?
I'm a believer in the power of suggestion and positive thinking. If you believe you will have good results, then more times than not you will. Is this based on anything concrete? Of course not. What probably is happening is, as an optimist, my brain is taking the result (whether it is good or bad) and processing it with an optimistic spin, whereas the pessimist's brain takes the result and spins it negativity. The pessimist says "I have no luck, there was a 5% chance of that happening and it happens to me EVERY time." and dwells on the result...and the optimist says "I can't win every one of them, at least I know the next 95% of the times I'll win." and forgets it. Both the optimist and the pessimist are processing the exact same occurrences differently.
People want to explain their bad beats, it must be all luck, right? Well, of course not. When you hit trips on the turn, and get all your chips in the pot and someone calls with a gut shot straight draw and hits, there's nothing you can do about that. Think of the math, you are a huge favorite (you should win that hand 92% of the time), and of course you did the right thing. but once in a while (1 out of 12.5 times) the trips will lose. Like we always say..."you might not remember the big winning hands you had, but you always remember the ones you took a beat on when you were ahead." Over time, if you play long enough and frequently enough, the odds will take over and turn out in your favor. It's a simple concept of probability and statistics.
People get lucky in poker all the time and we see it every month in Brooktown and every week on television. But I have to believe, if your thought processes are correct, make the correct reads, and use the correct odds to your favor, over time, you'll win more than you lose. even if you have what seems like endless runs of bad luck. It happens. Skill will rule out over luck every time.
If you ask people what the skill to luck ratio is, I bet you hear alot of answers around 70% - 30%, some may say 60% - 40%, but after thinking about this for the past few weeks, and having played over 40 tournaments the last 3 years I think the answer is tournament poker is 100% skillful.
What about bad beats? Or the times you're out-drawn on the river? Well that is all part of poker and like I said above, those things will occasionally happen, based the odds. Truthfully, these kinds of events should have less of an impact on your overall results the more you play. If you only play 5 or 6 Brooktown events a year, luck will play a bigger factor in your results than if you play all 11 events. Over 30 events, skill will overcome luck to a greater degree, and after 50 events I expect the skillful player to have an even greater edge over the less skillful one.
A solid, smart player's talent, again OVER TIME, will outweigh the effect of luck and they produce positive results over time. That's not to say this player won't run into the occasional rough patch or have losing sessions, and even be first out in some tournaments and get knocked out by a lucky player, but by sticking to their game plan, these occasional bad nights, will not affect their overall results.
Players win chips and pots for every good decision that they make and lose chips and pots for their bad ones. Sometimes we win pots even when we make the wrong decision, but a skillful player will make quality decisions over the course of a number of events, and they will have more good finishes than bad ones. The more events we play, the larger the gap between skillful and less skillful grows, and over the long haul, luck is not only insignificant when it comes to your results I believe it's non-existent.
posted by Tom @ January 16, 2008
7 Comments:
although the concepts are correct i tend to disagree with some of the points. Take slots for instance that is completely controlled at say 98% so over time every person should lose 2% of their money. Yet we all know people that play plenty and lose every time and some that win every time. No one we know plays nearly enough hands for any real statistics to come into play in poker. how many hands go to showdown or how many coin tosses do each of us get into in an event. Not that its possible to prove but i would bet if every person's stats were run as to hands they've won that were coinflips and as 80% favorites the results for each person would be all over the place and not even closely resemble stastics. You flip a coin 10 times theres a good chance its not 5-5. get 10 people to and it probably still wont be right around 50 50 but get 100 to do so and then you have something but still each individual will be vastly different, some with be 8-2 heads and others 8 2 tails. we've all gotten lucky or unlucky and many times bad play led to being unlucky but i do believe that some people are just inherantly unlucky in some things.
You are still thinking in to small a set...I bet if you get 100 people to flip a coin 10 times someone will get 8-2..but if you get 100 people to flip a coin 100 times, no one will be 80-20 and I bet all of them are 55-45 or closer.
I do not believe good, or bad luck exists, I believe it is all in how you process and accept the results.
I tend to agree with you. i don't necessarily think all would be inside 55-45 there is always a statistical anomoly(if thats not a word too bad you know what i mean) but no one would be 80-20. But my point was, in poker for example, even in 3 years I would guess none of us have been anywhere near 100 situations of being a 80% favorite to the river and having a showdown so the statistics of it all dont apply. In a set of 10 instances as 80% favorite some may have won 10 times some 4. So in the context of our situations the person that has 4 will say they have bad luck because they havent been in enough situations for the luck to turn around. And whether or not you consider it luck can be debatable and it is how you process it but i'm sure with some people it seems that the times the stats hold up are in small pots and when its the biggest pots they dont and thus its more extreme.
I agree with you...in 10 instances the person who was a favorite 80% of the time and lost 6 times will SAY he was unlucky, but here is where we differ....is he really unlucky, or is he just using the excuse of "LUCK".
The optimist would view it as, statistically the next 10 times I am in that position (while my odds are still 4-1 in any single occurance) over the long run I am due a good run to even out the bad run, and while it still could go 6 loss 4 win in any set of 10, in a set of 100 it's going to be damn close to 80 win and 20 loss, and that has NOTHING at all to do with luck.
But how long is that long run? sure after 100 occurances it will be one way but that may take 10 years of playing once a month. the way i see it, until the numbers are large enough for stats they dont matter and its luck. Luck is a point in time thing. Those first ten hands you may be very unlucky at that point in time because all stats worked against you and that year you were unlucky. and then next 80 times it works out how it should and the last 10 times they work out in your favor to even out the first ten and for those ten you are lucky. Watch that MIT Blackjack movie again. they used statistics and huge huge numbers and yet at the end of the day their luck turned and they lost.
It's a good thing you guys don't email enough during the day, I'm glad you found an outlet for communicating.
all very sensible and well thought out. i agree 100%
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