I'm just spewing out some of my thoughts and if it seems organized then I'm just having some good luck.

What is luck?

The very first time I tried golf was at the driving range. I experienced how difficult it was actually hitting that ball, and when I first succeeded it didn't travel very far. My friend still insisted that we were going to try a couple of holes and I reluctantly tagged along. The first hole was a Par 3. I took my 9-iron and hit the ball with a nice solid swing and landed on the green. WOW, what luck! Today when I do the same, I know it's my skillset and not my luck. If hit a bad shot I still blame it on my skillset and not on bad luck.

What am I trying to say here?

Good luck and bad luck are usually the words we use based upon how the situation favours us. What I think it's really about is knowledge. In poker we use all the factors we come across to make our decision about the current hand in play. The more information we take in, the more correct and precise decisions we can make. But what I believe we are really doing is narrowing down the area of luck. Everything you don't know are the areas where luck will dictate the outcome.

Hypothetical situation A:
A chinese person got kidnapped and wakes up somewhere in Europe and needs to find his way back to China. He doesn't understand the language in the country he's currently in so he can't get any help with directions. He does not understand directions or dictanse either as he has never seen a map. The only thing he can do is gamble and just start walking somewhere until he meets people that do understand him.

Hypothetical situation B:
A chinese person got kidnapped and wakes up somewhere in Europe and needs to find his way back to China. He understands some english and asks people around him where he is. He learns that he is in Norway. He's not sure where Norway is, but after lending a map he sees that he's far away from China so he borrows a telephone, gets a private jetplane and heads back.

In situation A the person depends upon his luck to solve his problem. He needs a great amount of luck since he doesn't have any skills that will let him obtain enough information to make a good decision. In situation B the person uses his skills to solve his problem. He doesn't need that much luck since he uses his skillset to get the information he needs to make a correct decision. His area of luck was that he found a private jetplane to go home.

Luck is the area of uncertainty and this area can be very large or very small. It just depends on what you know and what you don't know. The less factors you base your decision upon, the more the area of uncertainty will dictate the outcome. If you are experiencing a huge downswing you will need to analyse the hands and understand what is actually happening. Is it the area of uncertainty that is currently in effect, or are you making incorrect decisions because you are not taking all the factors into account?

Can you decrease the level of uncertainty in any way?

Someone once said: The more I work, the luckier I get.

Yeah sit to the left of the fish.

It's kind of the opposite I think in poker, because being a winning player is all about minimizing luck (not getting your money in behind).

Since it's impossible to face a bet and be getting a price worse than 1:1, whenever I call I expect to have the worst hand more than half of the time unless the bet is all in. For example: the pot is $8, opponent bets $1, I'm getting 9:1 so I call if I think I have the best hand 1/10 times. Getting your money in behind is a good thing sometimes.