Boyo! I am fighting a rant. Fighting hard, homies. Ah fudge it. Here we go.
I have been on the shit end of bad beats before. In fact, for a long period of time, I felt like the poker gods were against me. I don’t even want to go back and look at those posts, because fortunately, that ugly spell is behind me. But, well, that’s not really what this post is about. This post is about the special little snowflakes out there who think that they are super-duper special. You know who I mean. The wannabe Sigmas Six. What’s a Sigma Six? I’m glad you asked.
I’m no mathemagician, but from my understanding, Six Sigma is a math and/or statistic term for super outliers. Since we are talking about bad beats, let’s apply the idea of Six Sigma to luck. Basically, if you charted out all the people in the world, you would find that some have perfectly even luck and others have more bad or good luck. A very select few, however, will have a lot more good or bad luck. Those outliers, as rare as they are, are those tools who never lose or never win in poker. They literally have the best or worst luck around.
Now, whether or not luck really works that way is another story. But the point is, there are way too many people out there who think that they suffer the worst bad beats or have the worst string of cards or the worst luck. Lord knows some of them write about poker on these very Intertubes. I can think of a couple offhand that at various times were so focused on their losing hands that they proclaimed voraciously that they had the worst luck ever. Hell, I may’ve made such a proclamation in the past. It was the distant past, if ever, but it could’ve happened. I have not always been this pokering machine you see before you (via text) today.
So, here the rant really begins:
You are not so special. You are not a precious little bad luck snowflake. You are not cursed. You are not a Sigma Six.
You simply are suffering some bad luck.
Here’s the thing. If you have been playing poker for any significant length of time or at any significant stakes, you should have learned by now that bad beats and bad luck happens. And it even happens in stretches, where for a while, nothing can go right. But you are not special. You aren’t. I know you want to be. Or at least you want to hold it up to the world and say, Look at me! I’m suffering bad luck! The WORST luck ever. I don’t suck! I DON’T! You might not suck at poker; I don’t know. But you do suck at life.
Complaining about bad luck in poker is the equivalent of saying that the clouds must hate you because it has been rainy all week. No, dude. It is going to rain. So, if it rains on your parade, that may suck, but it isn’t because you are cursed or special or a Sigma Six. It’s because your parade is outside and sometimes it rains.
So, here is what I ask of you:
Stop bitching about having the worst luck ever or stop playing poker.
Unless, of course, you are bitching about it while playing against me. In that case, bitch away. You are only hurting yourself and I could use the entertainment.
Until next time, make mine poker!
February 18th, 2010 - 3:49 pm
What if you’re a rain god?
February 18th, 2010 - 5:00 pm
Im a green belt Sigma Six, i need 2 years of bad luck training to become a black belt.
(Corporate humor FTL)
February 18th, 2010 - 5:30 pm
Here’s a question: do you even believe that there are some people who over the long term are “lucky” and others who are “unlucky” at things like cards? I imagine many people have some kind of a story like this, but I have played a ton of Bridge in my day and I know someone who always seems to get dealt the 20-point hands. Over literally years and years of playing, Linda always seems to get dealt good cards, definitely far more than the other players I regularly played with. I know some other people I would say the same thing about over a long enough period of time to be statistically significant.
So the question is: is there no chance that some people are just “lucky” or “unlucky”?
February 18th, 2010 - 6:25 pm
As I was reading this I was thinking to myself “this post is either about Hoy or Fuel.” Sure enough, Hoy has already commented.
Hoy plays so much he is bound to have more percieved bad luck in his mind. We never hear about how lucky a person is in these spaces, its always about how bad they run or how unlucky they get. We should always consider sample size when discussion luck.
I use to win radio contests all the time. However that was because I called in every single day, for every single contest. Volume increases your chances of winning/losing.
February 18th, 2010 - 9:17 pm
Six Sigma is overrated by someone named Mr. Welch.
February 19th, 2010 - 9:43 am
Hoy, I think there are such things as lucky and unlucky people. I do believe that we don’t all end up perfectly even by the time that we die. I just reject the fact that half the blogging population at one time or another suffered the worst luck ever or were the unluckiest people ever. There will be times in poker where you will do everything right but still lose. That is fact. You, I and the rest of serious poker players know that. Yet, so often, we ignore that reality and instead throw ourselves a pity party. ‘Woe is me!’ I reject that way of thinking. I call bullshit. If someone playing poker cannot handle losing or bad luck, they should quit playing because I GUARANTEE that they will lose or experience bad luck again. 100% guarantee! So, if you know poker is frustrating to the point that you bitch and moan about how you have the worst luck ever, then quit. OR, if you know that you are in fact the most unlucky player in the world, then you can’t possibly win, and I also recommend you quit. But if you are going to complain about being the unluckiest player in the world and then insist on continuing to play, you are either a sore loser complainer or stupid. One of the two. Because you are either subjecting yourself to something that frustrates you or you know you are the unluckiest player in the world so you are stupid to keep playing anyway.
So, yes. I believe that there are lucky and unlucky people. And amongst the self-proclaimed unlucky people, you have cry babies who aren’t really the unluckiest person in the world but insist on believing that they are, and morons who choose to play even though they are the unluckiest person in the world.
February 19th, 2010 - 1:47 pm
People who need people are the luckiest people in the world . . .
February 19th, 2010 - 1:52 pm
Jordan,
You should be embracing the folks who whine and moan about their fate. The reason is that they are falling prey to their emotions. Emotional people make emotional decisions and that leads to more mobneys for you, the player who makes all his decisions based on calculated risk and cold math. Why tap the tank? If no one complained about their beats, we’d be left with unfeeling robotic players, none of whom have the edge on the other, and the only winner will be the house rake.
February 19th, 2010 - 2:38 pm
I was unlucky enough to have read this post.
February 19th, 2010 - 3:02 pm
Jamie, if I were sitting at a table with these sad sacks, I would be fueling the flames, talking about how well they’ve been playing and how ridiculous their luck is. I would then suggest that it is bound to turn around any minute, especially if they keep playing so well. I am all for encouraging self-destruction.
It is a different story if I have to read about your bad luck in a blog post. We should be a community that helps each other get better. In general, that is what we are. This is simply an extension of that. I am simply pointing out that bitching about being the unluckiest player is ridiculous for any skilled poker player.
So, in sum, I won’t tap the glass at a table with a sad sack, but I will offer my honest opinions to people in the blogger community when we are away from the table.
February 22nd, 2010 - 2:09 pm
En fuego or ice cold, I just never seem to run mediocre.
Saturday I played a HU PLO sat for a $216 seat.
1st round won 1st blind level set over set
2nd round won 2nd blind level, nut flush over 2nd flush.
3rd round won 1st hand, rivered a straight flush against A hi flush on unpaired board.
4th round, rivered quads against Aces over boat. 2k of 3k total chips got into pot after river.
5th round flopped top and bottom pair against middle set, played slow and 2 outed opponent on river then we got money in
6th round flopped middle set against top and bottom pair + shit flush draw, he played fast and set held up.
I think only LJ is only blogger other than myself who could deliver this many coolers in a single tournament.
I also seem to take a sick number of runner runner beats for straights or flushes when I get it in set over set.
If I knew when I was going to run white hot or just run like a normal person to smooth variance I would not complain so much.