I have been playing and keeping track of my stats this year. I am down $700 net, which isn't too bad considering this is after hundreds of hours on the poker table this year. But down is still down.

But I considered just how many bad beats I have had this year and I realize if I just had average luck, I would be up several thousand dollars. It's why I think I could be a pro poker player. Luck has to even out doesn't it?

First bad beat. Holding pocket Aces. Villain has pocket Jacks. Ok your average bad beat story right? not so fast. 2nd villain also has pocket Jacks. I am 95% to win. You guessed it. Villain hits a flush on the river. We were all, all-in. I had about 350 in the pot. Villain covered me, 2nd villain had about 200. So Instead of being up 550 I am down 350. A $900 swing!

Second bad beat. I am on the big blind with 6-5 offsuit. Flop comes 6-6-5 The nuts, I bet out$ 25 because table is loose. Villain has Jack-6 and goes all in, 2nd villain has a straight draw and calls. River is a Jack. This cost me another 900 and change in lost opportunity.

Third bad beat (happened last night). I have Ace-King on a loose table in the small blind. I make it $47 pre-flop to protect them a bit. There are 4 callers. Flop comes A-K-2. Ok,possible someone has deuces but there was no preflop raise and this table is very loose agressive. I bet out $100, I get re-raised all in. I call. 2 others fold. 2nd villain calls. 1st person shows A-7, 2nd person has 2-3. He hits runner, runner flush and I lose out on about $750 in lost opportunity.

Those are my 3 worst Bad beat stories for this year. But just generally find myself getting sucked out on..a lot. I just think, maybe I am unlucky?

Luck is not a condition that can be projected to the future. It is a report on the past.



Also, do you ever suck out a hand?

This.

Also, many people do not play long enough for luck to "even out," which to some gives the impression that some players are more inherently lucky than others.

It's either you being unlucky or the other person getting lucky when you are talking about random events devoid of skills. Like what cards are dealt. Getting struck by lightning.
Choosing Door #1 , #2 , or #3 on Lets Make a Deal!

Maybe you are unlucky some of the time. Most of us certainly are. But most of us also get very lucky at other times. Likely you do too.

I've run considerably below EV for six years, so I've been pretty unlucky in poker terms. But then I was born a white male in one of the richest countries on Earth, and don't rely on poker to pay for my food, rent, or healthcare, so I'm pretty lucky overall.

If you want to get right down to basics, you're only alive in the first place because one particular sperm won a tournament with a hundred million entrants.

So if another sperm had won, what would he be?

she

Toushe!

I have played hundreds of hours this year. I think it has been enough time.

There was one memorable time of good luck. I hold 8-8 against pocket aces. Flip comes 8-8-3. Turn is an ace. I win with quads. That’s an easy double up. It could have just as easily been flipped set against aces - double up. Most people at 1-2 lack the discipline to fold aces unless there is a very dangerous looking flop.

I seldom suck out. I don’t generally play garbage. I try to keep things “tight aggressive”

Your opinion of "enough" is not supported by math.

So you don't actually have records? This is just from memory?

Short answer: No.

Long Answer: No, some people are not just more naturally lucky than others

Longer answer: If you asked this question seriously and not in just some 'Running bad, must vent' way, you should probably quit playing poker.

Longerest Answer: Using anectdotes of unlikely events happening does not in any way prove that the laws of statistics are somehow warped around certain people.

Have you read Ringworld?

RINGWORLD IS UNSTABLE!

Luck isn’t supposed to even out in absolute terms in the long run.

If you lost two coin flips, your expectation after another 98 ones (for a total of 100 flips) is 49 wins and 51 losses, not 50 wins and 50 losses.

I don't think I indicated I was talking about absolute terms. As the sample size increases the results converge to EV. We don't really care about the absolute deviation from EV, just the deviation from EV in proportion to the sample size.

dude how many hours ? live or online?

So you've played like 20k hands max?

I don't know where you live, but unless it's somewhere in Sub-Sahara earning "several thousand dollars a year" isn't really enough to live off of in any meaningful way in most countries.

The loss/win doesn't come from the big pots. Because they just play themselves - you get coolered or your opponent does. That's 50/50.
Your real wins come from the small pots. That's where the skill is at.

It's hard to tell how you arrived at that number because you leave out important details like stack sizes but let's assume everybody had $200 stacks.
5 callers of your $47 raise pre means the pot on the flop was $235(maybe $238 if none of the callers were blinds but let's ignore that for now), 3 of you somehow get all in for your remaining $153 each for a total pot of $694.

Your hand had about 85% equity

ProPokerTools Hold'em Simulation

600,000 trials (Randomized)

board: AK2

Hand	Pot equity	Wins	Ties
AK	85.32%	510,888	2,452
A7	2.55%	14,250	2,452
23	12.13%	72,410	1,085

which means your expected value was 85% of $694(or whatever the pot was), or ~$590.

You can't just look at hands like this and say "Instead of being up 550 I am down 350. A $900 swing!" and then assume based on that that you "should" be a winning player.

Assumng that hundreds means 200 hours, for the sake of estimation, and assuming it is valid to walk back all your bad beats without walking back all the times you caught up, and assuming (based on your stack sizes) you are playing $1-$2. If you show $2K profit after 200 hours, you are showing a win rate of 5bb an hour. This is respectable (again, assuming that it is valid to chop off the hands you want to not count), but it is not truly 'pro' territory. As an illustration, if you played, at this rate, full time, you would likely make about 20K a year. If you are in the US, that is above the minimum wage (in most states) but not by terribly much.

Now, there are serious concerns about the validity of your conclusions based on sample size, so absent other supporting data, and in consideration of the fact that you seem to be asking about 'luck', I would not put a high amount of faith in your statement " It's why I think I could be a pro poker player."

Play 10,000 hours, or a million hands, and show a consistent winrate that makes it unattractive to take on a non-poker job, and then you are ready to be a pro

If you could be you would know it trust me. I quit my job close to 7 years ago to play poker for a living as i was making more money per hour playing poker than my job by a factor of 10. Far as im concerned thats the only metric that matters when deciding whether to become a poker pro. All that said i wouldn't advise it in this day and age. The game has changed a hell of a lot from then to now and will only get tougher in the future.

6,000-8,000 hands at live casino play. (about 5.5 sessions for me before BF). If we say 800 hours of live play...that would still fall under a single month's grind.

I made am assumption this is live casino play based on OP's posts.

I have been playing, on average, 40 hours per week since Jan 1, when I kept formally tracking hours played and keeping a running tally of my net wins/losses. Coincidentally.I won a little last night. But Overall, I am still down about $500 in approx. 1350 hours of play.

The stories I mentioned were the 3 worst bad beats of the year but were no means the only times I was unlucky. (all in with a significant advantage only to lose, but this is too common to be worth repeating).

I assume the average member of the poker community, steadfast and not prone to superstitution would argue, the stats mean that is not luck and I am just not a very good player. Without a formal tracking of my EV I suppose I have no way to prove my overall lack of luck.

The reason why I think I am capable of being a pro and it may counter some of the things I have said is that in about 80% of these sessions I am up at some point. Not always by a lot. But in approx 80% of my sessions, I am up at some point by at least $100. Once in a while I will get lucky, but I have become pretty good at picking off bluffs and making a few well timed ones of my own, chopping away at pots, pretty much the ABC of good tight -aggressive poker. I just keep on trucking,I run into some bad luck and lose a good chunk or all of my winnings.