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Luck


slapdash

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On holiday over Christmas, ESPN2 didn't seem to have much proper sport to show, and I watched a fair bit of recorded WSOP coverage in the early evenings (amongst the timber sports, speed pool, rodeo and spelling bee). In particular, I saw the final table of the $50,000 HORSE tournament, where Chip Reese got lucky several times against Andy Bloch. It got me thinking. When somebody is all in against a better hand and draws out, it's obvious that they are being lucky. But there's an awful lot of more subtle luck. Getting dealt good hole cards, hitting the flop, not facing a better hand when you make a big bet, facing a good but inferior hand when you make a big bet, etc., etc. How easy is it to decide who's really been more lucky? Especially when you don't see all the hands? The TV coverage understandably focuses on the big hands, but how important is good luck on the big hands compared to bad luck on the other hands (where your bad luck may just consist of it not becoming a "big" hand)? I'm not saying Reese didn't have the best of the luck, but it seemed to me that I only had partial information, and not really enough to know for sure. Another thing I got thinking about: Is there ever poker other than no-limit (or pot-limit) holdem shown on TV? It seemed kind of silly that the HORSE tournament, which consists of various kinds of limit poker until the final table, then reverted to no-limit holdem. Personally, I'd like to watch other kinds of poker being played at a high level every now and then, but maybe there's just not the audience for it?

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Re: Luck

no such thing as luck' date=' just variance.[/quote'] While I agree with the sentiment, and believe that everybody has roughly equal "luck" in the long term, in the short term (e.g., one tournament), you can have good or bad luck. Otherwise, to misquote Phil Hellmuth, I'd lose them all. :D Forget that ... I do lose them all. :sad
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