I'm not sure any of us are talking about "luck" in the same way a fish thinks of luck. Just because I've won three hands in a row doesn't mean I'm going to win or lose the fourth. That would be believing in good luck or bad luck, depending on whether I believe I'll win or lose. That's pretty silly.
What I'm saying is cards seem to come and go like waves in the ocean. Not always, but surely more often in an SNG to be more than random coincidence. I've seen it live, too. The last live tournament I played I got a lot of good hands early, but late I couldn't find even a decent hand to go all in. I've played a lot of SNGs. A lot. No idea how many but it's in the thousands. And I have seen it happen so often that I'll get hands either early, late or the middle. If they come early, I may or may not win. Middle it's better for getting ITM. Late and I stand a very good chance of winning it.
In the writeup I did about the SNG I played today, I got hands evenly throughout, until heads up when I didn't get much at all. That was an unusual circumstance for me. I got 3 sets from pocket pairs. Statistically, that's not ordinary. But, when I think of what felt like a whole month when I didn't get a set from a pocket pair, I'd say I'm statistically about even in the long run.
Our minds are programmed to see patterns where none exist. I know this. I accept it. But I feel also very strongly that if I am patient, the wave will come and I can surf it to make money. In ring games, not so much, but in SNGs, definitely there will be a run of cards at some point, or you probably aren't going to finish very high in one that it doesn't happen.
We're not talking about different things here, although there may be some disconsonance in what we're saying. Don't think I believe in luck as a donkey does. I know the math and work within it. The math says that you'll get a set 1 in 8 times you have a pocket pair. It doesn't say when.Statistics: Posted by Cactus Jack — Sat Jun 24, 2006 2:24 am
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