Its called the law of attraction

Being superstitious is unlucky.

i think my superstition is to not be superstitious.

ive got one: everytime you win a fat pot and start thinking about ending the session you are immediately dealt a super premo soul-suckout-setup hand that you feel compelled to VPIP bcz "poker is just one long session, right!?"

This

I will admit to having tons of superstitions. I know they're dumb, but it's really hard to change.

Way too much so

There are three kinds of poker players. The first type believes in poker knowledge only and the third type believes in psychological knowledge only. The second type is somewhere in between. It isn't hard to figure out what type is the most superstitious.

The second type is partly superstitious as it believes into nonsense stuffs like the right frame of mind, Z-zone or whatever, attitude, emotions, observations of the other stuffs than the basic card knowledge factors. This type has two brains; the other two types have just one.

The psychological types believe in Jesus, the in-between types believe in Jesus state and the knowledge types believe they are Jesus.

Taking note of the patterns (there or not) is natural and it is up to the intellect to figure out what to think about them.

Well, I always try to be reasonable for everything, but I feel like in the back of my mind I am kinda superstitious. Like when I loose I tell myself I shouldnt have worn black or its because I didnt give money to that homeless person when I passed them by in the morning...

YES!

I strive for moral perfection and just recently started going to an Episcopalian church, it's been amazing. All the money I make will go towards worthy causes and I feel God knows this and is on my side.

Jesus loves a winner, brah.

JFC people. I cannot believe I just deleted "politics" posts in this thread.

I think I'm naturally a pretty superstitious person. I think it's related to a kind of creativity. The ability to join disparate pieces of information in your mind, and look for obscure patterns. Even if your rational mind knows better, it can be so hard to shake a conviction once your mind has joined the dots.

When I first started playing I must have won or lost a huge pot on a Q69 board. It took years before I managed to rationalize myself out of some weird superstitious feeling when I would see any combination of the above cards...

superstition is to poker , what rules are to drinking. it just makes it more fun.

It's called confirmation bias

There is no such thing as "luck". What we refer to as "luck" is simply probability that we choose to take personally.

I have a funny story though. I was running really hot in a 2/5 game at SHR in Hollywood and a guy threw me a $5 chip. I looked at him funny and he said, give me one of your lucky chips. I threw a $5 off one of my stacks back to him and said in a deadpan voice, "That's the luckiest one I have." He laughed.

In fact, saying "was lucky" is more realistic than saying "running hot" .. it even fits better with your definition of luck.

*NOT TRYING TO START A FIRESTORM HERE. IF THIS POST IS IN BAD TASTE MODS, I UNDERSTAND IF IT IS REMOVED.


Not trying to go the whole religious route here for the sake of confrontation... I saw a mod earlier in the thread mention that he recently was deleting posts on politics. I'm not sure if that was a warning to cool it with the direction of the religious talk... I submit this post with the best of intentions…

I grew up with a religious background, the particular religion isn't particularly important and was fairly involved with that until the later part of my teens until my personal convictions on the matter changed in that regard in my earlier 20's... I'm 24 now.
None of my morals have really changed. I'm just less dogmatic about my religious roots due to conclusions I've arrived at about it as I've grown older.

Well when I was 18, I decided that when the time came on my 21st birthday, I wanted to pursue a career in poker. This was heavily frowned upon by my parents and social circle. Due to my religious background I had a lot of cognitive dissonance about this as well. I spent a lot of time defending my choice with my friends, family, and even to God in prayer. Many people saw poker as nothing more than uneducated degeneracy, a pipedream, and low-resolution way to make a quick buck, which for some players I guess is true.

After conceptually comparing poker to other forms of business via the math involved and business acumen attributes needed to succeed long term, after comparing my choice to “gamble” as the same “risk” a small business owner takes, my peers still felt my argument on the matter could be dismantled easily by the simple fact that what I do takes place inside of a casino and that alcohol is in close proximity to me and may be indulged in by me or those playing. If my argument could somehow gain traction with my peers based on the notions of business, there is always the issue of the nobility of my career choice and what I can and cannot give back to the community by peeking at cards all day.

So, how does this relate to superstition? I’m getting to that.

Anytime things get dysfunctional in life, or chaotic, or tragedy strikes; in my religious background one of the first assumptions is that it might be judgement from above or a sin problem. I live in the US. Living in a western culture has allowed my greater religious community the opportunity to garner beliefs within our religion that simply wouldn’t be applicable, or accurate, or even hold water, in worse circumstances or third-world countries. Due to the quality of life we’ve been given, should we take a religious stance, its possible to become lethargic or self-serving in our interpretation of our scriptures and its easier to adopt our religion without forming an accurate theological viewpoint from rigorous analysis of hermeneutics. It’s easy to speak loftily of sacrifice or suffering when it is far from you. It’s easy to speak of spiritual works when regardless of the condition of the human heart and how altruistic motives are for appearing like a servant, society and circumstances still reward you. At least in the sense of safety and opportunity.

In my community, many people perform the spiritual works they do, not simply because that is the expectation, or humanity in their acute surroundings could be benefited, but because they expect to be paid back in a greater degree by the big man upstairs. Not to mention it garners acceptance and brownie points from others. As a male millennial this can garner huge sexual access in a very undiscerning community, where the national average female-to-male ratio is 3-1…

I became hyper aware of these dynamics as the years went on. I’ve also become accustom to grilling myself about every intention I have. Is it righteous or unrighteous? I’m not saying it’s because of brainwashing, but I’m recovering from a pathology that every single interaction I have with a human is a devine appointment and that every misstep I make holds irrevocable eternal weight.

I was homeless for a few years. I slept rough on 16th Street Mall in Denver for some time. My hockey career ended when I was 18. A shoulder surgery and introduction to pain pills as a coping mechanism for severe depression will do that to you. In my father’s furry and resentment that I couldn’t make it to the NHL, my newfound addiction and crappy behavior, and our families hard stance on my sin and passion for analytics and math wanting to present itself in the sinful form of poker, I wasn’t allowed to return home. I did the math. As an adopted child I had some expectation that family would rally around me despite my drug addiction. So, if they weren’t willing to help me despite my willingness to seek treatment, then me becoming homeless must be because of my desire to play poker one day, and this was God telling me so.

Being homeless and an addict was perpetuated by the lack of stability homelessness brings, and that lack negated any skillset I had at the time that could manifest itself in employment. It also negated any reason to consistently fight for sobriety. It was just too easy and seemingly +EV to choose the expedient relief that drugs bring to your psychical withdrawing body coupled with the psychological reality that the benefits and rewards of a life of sobriety is so, so, far away. Drugs today. This’ll be the last time. Sobriety tomorrow. But today, is always and only today. So that formula didn’t work. It takes awhile to sort that out.

While homeless I vowed that if for some reason, I was able to have a normal life again, I would be more understanding of homeless people. I can’t change their lives. But I can lend an ear. The choices they’ve made, or the circumstances out of their control, that have befallen on them, or the mixture of both that have contributed to their reality isn’t for me to size up. But if they ask me, the very least I can do is buy them lunch. Humans need to eat.

I say none of this to convince you that I’ve conquered all my demons, have figure life out, and that my character has become so refined that I’m better than you. In the span of writing this post, I’ve blatantly flicked about 8 cigarette butts on ground outside in the no smoking zone of the coffee shop I’m currently at. I’m recently visiting my home state on vacation and to file court proceeding with my lawyer. I spent a few nights with an old flame that hopes my presence in her arms is indicative that we are going to wipe the slate clean, start fresh, and have a future together once again. The reality is, at the time I was lonely, enjoy intellectual conversation and have physical urges as a male, in which she can provide fulfillment to those prerequisites that my current state of fleeting happiness calls for. Plus staying at her place is cheaper than booking a hotel last minute… I’m certain that if I should amass to much money from poker too quickly that it would destroy my life and any ego derived from it would be a cancerous liability to anyone around me because of the reality that I’m indeed not better than you.

Poker is hard. There is a nagging lawyer in the recesses of my subconscious. The pathologies created by religion, family, my expectations, my colored past, rouse this lawyer at the poker table, before or after a session, during my poker studies, and while I stare at the ceiling fan in bed at night.

I genuinely love poker. I love the game. The study of it is financially fruitful and too expansive to elicit boredom. I love and care about the poker community. It’s my only community. Which might be partially why I spend so much time on 2p2. Not only to get better as a player, but to insert myself into an ecosystem that has no choice to accept me on some level and my contribution is self-soothing enough to call upon when my family doesn’t return my phone calls.

I have no family. The one I was adopted into or the one I created with my ex-girlfriend in which the last memory I have of her, is punching the air as she left the court room when a judge ruled in her favor. With her, I have a daughter whom I have yet to meet. She is going to be 1 next month and the ability to realize my relational equity with her through my only option of expensive legal litigation takes a while. I’m in limbo between families.
So, back to superstition and that nagging lawyer in my subconscious and the pathologies that make up his being. Despite how much I love poker and deep down believe in my future with it. Occasionally I have no rest with it. Whether I’m on a downswing, or the beautifully mysterious combination of playing bad and being on a downswing, that lawyer shows up. If I’m crushing, that lawyer shows up.

When in this place, if I’m running bad, I wonder to myself that it may indeed be the Lord himself trying to tell me he is disapproving of my choice to be a poker player. Or that my actions recently were not completely pure, and this is my karmic punishment. When I go on an upswing, it’s the Devil, trying to keep me in the game to ensnare me with belief that I’m going somewhere in poker so that I never make it out.

I know this is utter nonsense. But occasionally, these are my superstitions. Unfortunately, they are powerful.

^bruh

I think when I feel unlucky I play bad, which makes me lose hands i should have won. So there’s that.

that one's funny ... when I have my nightmare nights it is so often accompanied by the complete inability to get my name properly on the list ... like it's some black hole of non-existence ... happened again the other night after a long winning streak

I can't even remember the last time someone actually made a comment or did something silly because of a superstition. The idea that there is a lot of superstition in poker is a farce.

When I’m playing blackjack and the dealer has a six up I’ll say to myself face face face, but then they turn over their undercard, and it’s a 4, and I say no no no I didn’t mean that. I don’t think that’s superstition but still weird.

I'm the opposite. When i get it in ahead i ALWAYS focus my enitre mind on the cards I have to fade.

Jeezus. Straight from the nightmare files tonight:

Floor comes over to the table to update the must move list. I'm the only one that never got put on the list. As he walks away thinking he's checked it, I call him back. "You never read my name," I say. He takes my name. Then another player speaks up and says same. He takes his name. Walks away then comes back and reads the updated must move. I'm still not on the mutherblanking thing. I get a little nasty. I know this bizarre ignored by the list things means super death. Here's the hand:

I have J-J-9-7 ds heart and clubs.
Villain J-8-3-x unsuited.

Flop is J-4-3, two hearts.

I bet 100, three calls.

Turn 3.

Dude with mini full bets 100. Of course now he has one out, but I've already lost my kawksucking stack to him. I've been living here for three flippin years, 300 sessions.

The guy had no backdoor flush and I don't know about a back door straight ... on the flop. He has Jacks and threes versus trip jacks. That's almost 1000/1 underdog if no straight draw (forgot to look for it when they were turned up). Anyway, he has one out on river, and maybe 900+/1 on flop.

I don't get a single chip back.

3 river of course.

Next hand I flop three pair and flush draw against his nut straigtht. Of course .00000000 percent chance of hitting it.

Then I go to desk for 2-5 holdem. Your first up they say and take my name. Meanwhile I go to immediate seating 1-2 table. They never call my name, never wrote it ... AGAIN. Something weird like I was never really there ... and here's the savage beat hand that goes with that weird shyt, by the way.

At this point I can only think of one thing to purge this insanity from my system, one thing to make it moot. It's worth a good try.