Some bad luck

Since I started tracking my luck over a year ago things have gone very well. I was able to play $5-$10 NLHE for a long time largely because I took a shot with a short bankroll, played well and, crucially, got lucky more often than not[1].

When I had a bad run I withdrew a large chunk of bankroll, dropped down in stakes and tried to hold on to what I had won. I was concerned that I would do what I had done many times in the past: empty a decent bankroll through tilt after a period of bad results and / or bad luck.

Looking back now, this was not the best course of action to take. What I should have done was drop down in stakes and try to concentrate on playing my best. I realise this is easier said than done and at the time I didn’t have the confidence in my tilt control abilities to do this.

Six months further on I have hit a bankroll dip again [2], but this time there is a difference. In December I had a sustained period of poor play. Just in the last two weeks or so I have been very unlucky, at a time when the quality of my play has been very good.

In the last thirteen days I have run almost 9 buy-ins below expectation in the key pots. The good news is that in cash terms I have only dropped 3 buy-ins; like I said, I have been playing very well.

I constantly read about solid winning players going on 10-15 buy-in losing streaks and I always thought that within these streaks there must be an element of poor play caused by the trauma of unluckily losing a few buy-ins. Having had my first serious run of bad luck for a year or so, I am now totally convinced that this is the case.

If I had been reviewing my results the old-fashioned way, looking purely at the cash-flow, I suspect I would have been cursing my bad luck and dreading the prospect of putting my stack in the middle, expecting to be outdrawn in some freakish manner. However, because I filter out one major element of the luck factor I can ignore this to a large extent and it doesn’t affect my play. I’m sure that if I looked at the cash-flow I would have become frustrated at seeing my good play go unrewarded and that good play could easily have been replaced by losing play. I’m sure that if I had been this unlucky a couple of years ago, I could have lost maybe 10 buy-ins too. In that respect, I have won 7 buy-ins more than I would have won this time two years ago: huge progress.

Overall, despite the recent bad luck, I have still so far received more help from the poker gods than I should have, both in terms of buy-ins and dollar amounts. In effect, any cash received from good luck is excluded from results and stored away, where it can be used later in the event of bad luck. For any accountants out there, it’s the same principle as making provision for falls in such things as currency values or commodity prices at a time when things are good. When things go bad, the provisions are reduced and profits remain unaffected.

I can have no complaints about luck, and even if I did have grounds to complain it would be both pointless and counter-productive. As a result of this philosophy I feel totally assured in my game and can continue playing some of the best poker I have for a long time. I just need to keep applying my edge and can look forward to positive cash-flow at some point in the near- or distant-future.


Notes

[1] ‘got lucky’ includes those times when the money went in well and my hand held up – an often-under-appreciated aspect of poker

[2] not serious in terms of dollar amounts, but significant in comparison with expected results