Lady Luck

Luck plays a part in any poker players game. We all know this. To think it doesn't is a bit misguided. Some nights she's smiling on us and some nights you can't win. To get anywhere in a tournament whether it be a major WSOP event, WPT event or a tournament at your local casino a few times during that tournament you will need Lady Luck smiling down on you. We all try to play smart ABC poker to advance in tournaments and after playing for over 30 years I know playing smart doesn't always win. You still need that luck factor. We all have gone in with hands that were huge favourites and watched someone get their one or two outer to win the pot. We have also been on the other end too where we have called an all in and been the distinct dog on the hand and watched a beautiful turn or river come up.

Luck seems to come in streaks to me. When I am running good my hands hold up but of course that's not always the case. The hardest thing to learn is not to let the times they don't get under your skin. It's one of the things about this game that I still deal with today. You can't let it affect your game.

My youngest son plays and plays fairly well but he tends to let the so called (bad beats) get to him. I keep reinforcing that just to play his game and not to let one hand affect his game for the rest of the evening. Its a learning process and I have already noticed a huge improvement on his part. Before if someone got that one outer he would then go on tilt and that's not good. We both discuss the hands later and analyze what we did right and of course what we did wrong. I keep emphasizing to him that even if you did everything right in the hand sometimes luck just isn't with you.

Why I decided to write this post was that back on March 19th I made this post about how Frank Calo won a NLH event at Atlantic City. He called an all in with AJ and the other player had KK. The flop came K,5,2. That gave the other player top set but the turn brought a 4 and the magical 3 fell on the river. Before the flop he was a 70 to 28% dog. After the flop he was only a 6% favourite to win the hand. The 4 on the turn brought him up to 9%. Yet luck was on his side and he won.

Would he have won this tournament if he had lost this hand? Probably. He had obviously played really well and was the chip leader at this point in the tournament but he still needed that luck to be on his side in this particular hand. I had the pot size wrong in my original post as Frank pointed out to me in a comment that was submitted today and for that I apologize. I had gotten the pot size from another site and obviously it was wrong but the cards weren't. As he said in his comment that even if he had lost this race he would still have been the chip leader. The point I was making was that we all know that in tournaments you need that luck at times to be on your side and Frank certainly had it in this case.

I am not sure how Frank Calo (pictured above) found my blog amongst the thousands of poker blogs out there but thanks for reading and I look forward to seeing you win more.

On a totally unrelated topic to the poker world is something as a Canadian I am embarrassed to say still happens in our country. That is the seal hunt. This happens mainly in Newfoundland and has been a way of life for ever but it must stop. They club the seals over the head to kill them. If you have a squeamish stomach don't google it as it will sicken you. Can we not retrain these people in other jobs?? I honestly can not believe that we still allow this to happen. Very sad. It is so barbaric.

Game 5 tonight. Canucks/Blackhawks. Should be a good one!!