Hi! We have all heard of Murphy's Law. You know, the one about 'whatever can go wrong, will go wrong'.
Well, there is hardly a better proving ground for Murphy's Law than in a game of hold'em poker. All too often, it seems that in hand after hand after hand, and game after game after game, everything that can possibly go wrong will go wrong. Like they say, 'that's poker'. Which is a succinct way of saying that poker is, after all, gambling and risk taking.
Thus, those hard luck outcomes are actually the work of variance or probability, 'whatever can happen, will happen'.
Somehow, you have to learn to deal with bad luck in poker. If laughing will help, the following list is something I found on the Internet. It drips with delicious sarcasm. (I wish I had been the author.)
But, even in its humor, it helps to teach an important lesson about luck in poker. The lesson is this: someone's bad luck is someone else's good luck. That is always the case. There is a constant balance. And, probability dictates that every player will get a significant dose of each, good and bad luck.
So, over the long haul, the two extremes, good luck and bad luck, will offset each other. Then, you will be either a net winning or losing player based upon your decisions. Basically, the balance scale will fall one way or the other based upon just a few correct or incorrect decisions.
In a great sense, that is the simple determinant of long term winning at the game of poker: a few correct decisions. Therefore, strive to make every decision the best one possible. Then, absolutely forget about the bad luck. Because, eventually the winning will follow.
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Murphy's Law For Hold'em: (Author Unknown)
1. The only time a bluff works is when it gets you to fold.
2. If you try to slowplay your hand, the worst card that could possibly come will appear on the turn.
3. When dealt two rags in the Big Blind, someone will ALWAYS raise.
4. When you try to raise on the Small Blind to steal the Big Blind, you will ALWAYS get re-raised.
4a. You will then meekly call, miss the flop entirely, and fold to the BB’s ensuing bet.
5. If someone calls a cap raise, it’s because they have a monster hand - for example, a 45 suited which they clairvoyantly know will flop two pair against your aces.
6. If you flop an open-ended straight draw, you will NEVER make your straight.
7. If you flop a nut flush draw, you will NEVER make your flush.
7a. Instead, the backdoor flush draw will make his flush.
7b. In case you ever do make your nut flush, your flush card will make another player a full house.
8. If you move all-in at a Sit & Go and get called by someone with a worse hand, he will ALWAYS outdraw you on the river.
9. If you move all-in at a Sit & Go and get called by someone with a better hand, you will NEVER improve your hand.
9a. In fact, the river card will often make an even better hand for your opponent, just to rub it in.
10. Never call a straight or flush draw unless the pot odds justify a call.
10a. The pot odds will never justify a call.
11. “nh” in the chat window is shorthand for “You f–king suck-out artist!”
11a. “ty” is shorthand for “You lost. Deal with it.”
12. If you have a pocket pair, someone else has a higher pocket pair.
13. If you’re dealt a suited connector, there will be no pre-flop action before you.
13a. If you’re dealt a high pocket pair, everyone and their brother will call.
14. The best possible hand to be dealt isn’t AA. It isn’t KK, either. It isn’t even AK suited. It’s T7 offsuit, because there’s a 25% chance of flopping TT7 when you get it.
15. At a Sit & Go, all nine opponents are ganging up against you. This will become evident when chip leaders repeatedly decline to call the short stacks’ all-in bets.
15a. Unless, of course, you’re the short stack, in which case the chip leaders will call you without hesitation and show an unbeatable hand.
16. If you’re in third place when a S&G gets down to four players, you will not cash. This is because the short stack will get lucky again and again - he could get called all-in with 72o against AA, and the board will come
22772.
16a. Once the short stack passes you in chips, you will end up with a suited Ace in the next hand, flop a nut flush draw, go all-in, get called, and the turn and river will be two middle fingers.
17. The player with the best hand at the end is often the player who had no business being in the hand to begin with.
17a. Moreover, this player will have flopped nothing and still stay in the game, then catch either runner-runner two pair or an Ace on the river.
18. People with “Muck Losing/Uncalled Hands” unchecked will never show their hands anyway.
19. If you ever go on tilt online, the best thing to do is mark yourself as away, get up, and do something else for a few minutes to clear your mind.
19a. Reorganizing the kitchen knives is not recommended.
20. Above all, remember this: when you fold hands that would’ve flopped monsters, when you flop top pair and lose to an overpair, flop two pair and lose when bottom pair is counterfeited, when you make a straight then lose
to a flush, when you make a flush and lose to a full house, when you make Queens full of Tens and lose to Queens full of Jacks, when you place fourth in every Sit & Go you enter after the short stack sucks out on you and you
fail to get the same luck, when every deposit you make lasts as long as a keg at an AA meeting, don’t be hard on yourself, because you’re playing winning poker.
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Thanks!
R. Steve McCollum (rstevemccollum) www.sitngoholdempoker.com
"Good judgement comes from experience, and a lotta that comes from bad judgement." ~Cowboy Proverb
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