Poker Articles

Blues great Albert King sang, “If it weren’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all.”  One way or another, we’re all lucky.  Lucky in love, lucky in life, lucky at poker.  There are so many aspects of luck that nobody is truly “unlucky”.  Some things work out for you....some things don’t.

You cannot afford to miss out on other opportunities at the table because you're obsessing about the draws you brick or the aces that got cracked.  There is one aspect of luck in tournament poker that goes almost completely overlooked.  In fact, I can only remember hearing one name pro (Mike Matusow) acknowledge its importance.  Truly, the luck of a good table draw can allow you to overcome a lot of other misfortunes.

The most obvious case of bad luck in table draw comes in the featured mid-level buy-in events on several major sites.  I’m talking about tournaments like the $25+2.50 $25k guaranteed on Stars, the Bodog guarantees at 8:30 PM Eastern, or the nightly $24+2 events on Full Tilt.  These tournaments usually have 500, 1000 or more people, the majority of whom are between mediocre and awful.  On most nights, there are a handful of pros playing as well, because their EV is so high and the top prize money (often more than $5k) is attractive to anyone.  The odds of getting stuck with the pros are small, but it does happen.  A couple of months ago, I played in a Full Tilt $24k guaranteed, $24+2 buy-in tournament.  My starting seat had Chris “hattrick8810” Odle on my right, Allen “AwwwNutz” Carter on my left, and two other P5ers at the table.  Needless to say, I was very pleased when the table broke shortly into the second hour.  Unfortunately, by that time, the damage was done.  Good players at tables loaded with fish were able to gather a large stack of chips;  I was stuck below average, hampered by great players who wouldn’t let me make any moves.

Bad luck also strikes in rebuy tournaments, especially the $3r, $5r and $10r on Stars.  Accumulation in the first hour of these tournaments is absolutely critical, but your ability to accumulate depends greatly on the overall looseness of the table.  If everyone is playing tight, as though this were a freezeout tournament, you cannot gather chips at the same rate as a very loose table.  If people aren’t busting and rebuying, the total number of chips in play at your table will lag, putting you at a disadvantage when you try to clean those chips up in the following hours.  Heaven forbid if you get a nit or two who try to slow down the pace of play by timing out every hand (a tactic which seems to be increasing in popularity for some incomprehensible reason).

On the other hand, there are the times where you get a table full of weak-tight, easily abused players.  Hopefully, you’ll be at such a table as you approach the money bubble and each subsequent payout level.  If you aren’t getting lucky with how your cards are falling, the good luck of a tight, scared table can help you recoup your losses, and then some.  Raise the blinds of players whom you know are just trying to hang on to cash.  Re-raise the players whom you know are trying to abuse those other players.  It’s completely irrelevant how lousy your cards are.  The cliché “play the table, not the cards” is never truer than when you’re fortunate enough to get a tight table late in a tournament.

As mentioned before, you can get screwed by starting out with a bunch of great players in a tournament full of fish…but what do you do if you sit in the dream scenario – eight losers and you, their self-considered master?  I treat those situations similar to the “wind-tunnel booth full of money” contests.  You have a limited amount of time before each bad player gives away their chips.  You need to get there and grab them before someone else does, because other good players at other tables are grabbing at chips, too.  If you get monster cards and get paid off, great.  If you’re catching rags, consider loosening up.  Find opportunities to play pots with people whom you know you can outplay, before they’re no longer around to take advantage of.

To many poker players, the luck of table placement is too much to deal with.  Just when you get a good read on key opponents, your table breaks.  A bad player on your left is replaced by a great one with a monster stack and a surly “re-raise every hand” attitude.  Bouncing from table to table can be just as overwhelming as a bad run of cards, with even less sense of control.  When faced with a stream of raggedy cards, you can choose to bluff or simply call and pray for a flop.  There is no action you can take to control who sits at your tournament table.  If you have issues and cannot adapt, play cash games.  Selection of the ideal table is a benefit enjoyed by cash game players, but rarely available to tournament specialists.

Unfortunately, the luck of your table draw often goes completely unnoticed (until now, anyway).  Your seat assignment isn’t an issue if your cards are running well, because you focus on the plays you make rather than everyone else’s.  And your draw is ignored if you’re card dead, because you’re too busy bemoaning your fate.  Every thought of “this sucks”, “another 94off?”, or “what a waste this is turning out to be” clouds your ability to creatively maintain some semblance of a competitive edge.

You need every advantage, every positive mindset available, to be a winning tournament poker player.  Recognize when you’ve got the positive edge of a good table for your style of play, and you’re more likely to survive the bad luck waiting to crush us all with every turn of the cards.