In a recent column, I told you about Poker Player Newspaper reader Allison "Wonderland" Johnson's lucky seat theory. She believes there is one seat at the table that is fortunate to be blessed with winning hands much more than its fair share of the time.
As an engineer, I prefer using probabilities, logic, and my hold 'em algorithm to help me win. The cards don't know from a lucky seat, or do they? The dealer pitches the cards as they come off the top of the deck. He has no control of who gets which hole cards, or what falls on the board. But after my recent experience playing low-limit hold 'em at the Normandie Casino in Gardena, California, I am beginning to become a believer in Allison's theory. How else can you explain my remarkable experience, which almost defies all laws of probability?
During four hours of play, I was twice dealt pocket aces, and twice I was dealt pocket queens. Each time they held up and I took the pot. Think about it. . .. There is one chance out of 221 that you will be dealt pocket aces. The same is true for pocket queens. With 30 hands dealt per hour, you can expect to get pocket aces once every seven plus hours. To be dealt pocket aces twice in four hours is a huge long shot, never mind starting twice with pocket queens during that same session. Wow!
Sure, I played them correctly by raising to limit the number of opponents staying to see the flop. Pocket aces are favored against any single opponent, but a statistical underdog against four or more opponents. In one case, my raise was greeted by a re-raise, and six opponents stayed to see the flop. Now I was definitely an underdog but my pocket aces held up to take a big pot. Lucky seat?
As the session progressed and I won pot after pot, the other players kept going to their pockets to buy more and more chips. Some left the game and were replaced by others who also saw their buy-ins disappear. It seemed that only I, and the house, made money, and the house doesn't need a lucky seat. The rake assures it of winning well over $100 per hour. I almost felt sorry for my opponents. Several took breaks from the game, but it didn't change their luck. A lady to my right went on tilt and kept buying more chips. But she had only herself to blame because she played hands that deserved to be mucked without a second thought. Sure, once in a while, she connected, but overall, her starting hand selection caused her to be a loser.
What is Luck? Good luck at the poker table is when the cards go your way. The poker gods smile upon you. Probability is a mathematical concept that tells you the chance of an event occurring. Toss a coin in the air and 50 percent of the time it will land heads-up. That will happen over the long run; it's as certain as night and day. But right now, at this moment, you might flip five heads-up in a row. That's what we mean by luck. It's the result at this particular time-not the long run. We cannot control luck. A winning poker player uses probabilities to give him a positive expectation, but it is luck that determines the immediate result.
So what about Allison's lucky seat theory?
George "The Engineer" Epstein is the author of The Greatest Book of Poker for Winners! and Hold'em or Fold'em?-An Algorithm for Making the Key Decision and teaches poker at the Claude Pepper Sr. Citizen Center in Los Angeles. Contact George at geps222@msn.com.
