Luck In Poker

Luck in any card game is cyclical - it comes and goes in a mysterious fashion. Sometimes the cards run hot, sometimes cold. Many players give no weight to this at all as a factor in the game. But if such events are cyclical, perhaps we ought to take a hard look at this as a factor in the game. It must be of some significance that in some games no matter how well we play nothing works, while in others it hardly matters what we do because we can't do anything wrong. It is unlikely that an effect of such magnitude would have no meaning within our own purposes in the game.

Since poker involves so many borderline decisions, often occurring one after another, it doesn't hurt to ask yourself from time to time (when trying to make up your mind about which way to go in a hand): "How is my luck running?" Asking yourself this can be helpful in maximizing your good days and minimizing your bad days.

As noted, some players ignore this completely. They play each hand independently, regardless of how their luck is running. You see these players betting along nonchalantly, playing each hand by the book, despite being down a lot of money. They have not retreated, despite the negative flow of events.
It can't hurt to monitor one's luck and the general trend of it: how hot or cold you are is a legitimate factor in the decision-making process. This is not just a question of academic interest. It has a direct bearing on your fortunes. Use this tool to answer some of the borderline decisions you make in the game.
If your cards are below average, but you've been winning with anything and everything, you might want to play more hands. Conversely, if you've been getting fairly good hands, but you've lost with all of them, you might want to fold some of these.

A mistake in many areas of life, not just poker, is to struggle against the trend. A sight that is often seen in poker games is players desperately trying to make all their strategies and experience work when nothing is working. When such a situation as this occurs, approach even good cards with a wary eye. Call bets grudgingly; be reluctant to raise. Keep a lower profile. Some players will tell you, "Well, if it's good cards, then you have no choice - you have to play the hand." You don't. Not if nothing is working.
Monitor trends in your luck - but not excessively. Keep an eye on them, but don't become a slave to them.

Don't just downscale your bets when you get cold, downscale the actual way you play the game. Back off within your method of play, alternately loosening up your game when things are going well and tightening back up when they are not.

Mathematicians tell us that each hand takes place independently of all others. This is good advice to ignore. If things are going badly, back off. You may be playing in a game closer to your bankroll than your opponents are (or the experts), and thus cannot afford to test out the theory. Don't go home from a cardroom with a horrendous loss just because you read somewhere that mathematically "every hand is independent of every other," so you just kept betting away, despite the fact that you were losing every hand, one after the other. For your purposes the hands weren't operating independently of each other.

Longtime, experienced card players believe in the bunching of luck. They have seen it. They have felt it. They know it is not a pipe dream or a mirage. Ignore this phenomenon at your peril. Even the mathematicians admit that it can happen, will happen, does happen, and has happened - they just dispute it when it is happening.