In Poker there are numerous examples of online poker players who captured the industry’s imagination with meteoric rises and then in an instant they are gone.  Smarter bloggers than I have demonstrated that these flashes of brilliance are part and parcel of the game.  Slow, steady improvement from a player in online poker should be a goal, not being an overnight sensation who rode luck to the mountaintop and then bad luck caused him to fall off the cliff.

Currently the poker world is aflutter with the rise to prominence of Isildur (to catch up read this great post at Cardrunners) but just as quickly as he tore up the nosebleed games he’s gone on a downturn.  Is he one of those crazy outliers of luck, bursting with confidence that ran good until he didn’t, or some new superstar.  As always with poker only time will tell.   When you play poker online you must understand that time is the only thing that can show you to be a great player or a poor one.  Anybody can play online poker and win a tournament or two in the short run but how well do you do in the long run.

When a game like the NFL, where video montages are made in lightening fashion to celebrate teams of dominance, dynasties of excellence, and coaches are revered for great runs and run out the league for bad runs, it can be shown that luck is such a strong element what does it say for poker, even worse for the assertion that poker is a skill game.  Take two big NFL games, the Immaculate Reception, where a fluke incomplete pass landed in the hands of a Steeler and a dynasty was created with a Steeler SuperBowl win, and the Tuck rule game, where a fumble was not a fumble and the Patriots were off and running into a dynasty of their own. 

Had either play gone against them, would the Steelers be so revered or their players so exalted?  Would Tom Brady even be Tom Brady and would Bill Belicheck be the new genius of the moment.  When you can showcase these teams of greatness, as beneficiaries of luck, what does that say about your poker game?

Well, first off, it further cements the value of patience.  If you are not willing to wait for your streak or your rush, and you can’t shake off hiccups of bad luck and second best-it is you shouldn’t be playing.  It is impossible to always win at poker no matter who you are.  Just as it is almost impossible to always win in football no matter how good you are. 

 And take heart, the great thing about luck is it doesn’t discriminate.  The good teams in the NFL get lucky just as often as the bad ones.  In poker, good players get lucky just as often as bad players.  If you play enough hands theoretically you’ll be on the other side of any possible outcome.

It also teaches you the importance of luck in any particular moment.    Joe Cada doesn’t become the Main Event champion if he doesn’t hit one of his sets.  In that case, since Main Event final tables are so hard to make, you better run good when you get to one, or have enough chips to weather the bad beats.  

 Sure over a long run, skill will win out, but how many times do the Steelers get that moment to catch an Immaculate Reception and how many times will Phil Ivey sit at that final table to overcome that bad beat with AK vs. AQ?   That may make a pivitol hand more bitter to swallow but it is something you have to prepare yourself to take if it does.  Players that agonize how they could have done something different when they were basically coolered will only suffer the next time they play.

To me it’s easier to understand the importance of luck in the moment when you compare poker to a game that is a skill game like the NFL.  Obviously, by the nature of poker there is more luck involved in the game than there is in football, but what that study shows is there is a lot of luck involved in most any contest.  

As an optimist, this only proves that you should be more patient and more understanding when luck is not going your way.  It also should teach you not to put your entire bankroll or too big a portion that you can’t afford to lose into any one game and especially into any one hand.

Poker has shown me just how often a 1 out of 20 hits the river, and if you play enough you’ll see it all.   Which is a valuable life skill to understand, chance is a far more important factor than people give credit to.  Those 5 per cent-ers happen, and  just because it’s 95% unlikely to happen doesn’t mean it won’t.  So when you weather man says a one per cent chance of snow, realize it could snow.