Luck Factor

                I am sitting grinding it out at table five, seat 7. It is round three into a tournament at Riverside casino. I am sitting well above the average chip stack playing tight but aggressive. The table is full (all ten players sitting at the table). Seat five is up somewhere (taking a leak or who knows). Seat nine has the button with the blinds at a hundred, two hundred. Seat two folds, seat three calls, four folds, seat five is not at his seat so is mucked (flooded by the dealer), seat six calls. Now it’s on me, I shuffle the cards on the table three or four times then slowly look at them. I see the Jack of Spades and the Jack of Clubs (also called pocket jacks). I sat there thinking, there were two people that limped in before me, with two to act behind me not counting the blinds. I raise to $700 three and a half times the big blind. Seat eight folds, the button (seat nine) calls, seat ten (the small blind) folds. Seat one calls, seat three calls and seat six calls. Nice, there are a total of five players in the pot. I think right away that one player has an ace or two high cards another might have a small pair. Right away I start watching the other players in the pot. The flop comes a three of diamonds, four of clubs and a ten of hearts. This is just the kind of flop that a person with pocket jacks wants to see. Seat one, three and six all check (they do this kind of fast). I look at them then at seat nine. I make a bet of fifteen hundred. Everyone calls. Wow! Everyone called, what do these people have? The Dealer turns over the turn card, it is the nine of hearts. Seats one, three and six all check again. I figure I have the best hand. What can I bet to take this hand right now, yet leave myself a way out just in case. I bet thirty two hundred. Seat nine folds real quick. Seat one calls (in a manner that say this is just a game). Seats three and six both fold. The river card is the king of spades. Seat one checks (of course). I am now thinking to myself seat one checked, every time it was her turn to act only to call my bet, she did not raise just a simple call. What does she have? Did she catch a set or two pair and let me do all the betting for her? Did she hit that king on the river?

            Well let me explain the player in seat one as I see her. She is talking and joking with everyone at the table. She likes to call and see pretty much every flop. I would call her a social bird in my category of players. Meaning, I would guess she is there more to visit with the other players than she is there to play the game, which is fine if a player can afford to play like that.  You will run into this type of player a lot, especially if the games are small buy in games.

            Back to the hand I am in right now. While I look at her, she is talking away like she is not even in the pot or she just doesn’t care. Once again, I am thinking does she have two pair (with a flop like that a person could). Does she have three of a kind and didn’t want to be mean and raise me? She seems like a nice person (But at the poker table no one is your friend!). Did she catch the king whit a hand like Ace King. I decided to check as well. I turn over my pocket jacks; she turns over the six of clubs and the king of diamonds. She takes the pot.

What! What the h-e-double hockey sticks is this hores$#!?. As I sit in my seat boiling. In my own mixed up mind I am asking myself, how in the world can you call me all the way to the river with a junk hand like that? Those f-ing River Rats (player that play all the way to the last card hoping to catch)! You did not have a flush draw or a straight draw you had a king/junk, only to catch the king on the river to take the pot down. As you are reading this you might be saying “Well that’s poker. Or What a Donkey.”. Well in a way your both right but, I call this kind of hand the Luck Factor. No professional player or mathematician could have told you the odds or the correct probability of the king hitting on the river without see the cards the other players folded, the hole cards or what was left in the deck. All you can do is guess and hope you can get your chips in with the best hand at the right time.

            All though I don’t have thousands of hours logged in at the tables grinding it out with the Pros. I have read multiple books on poker. I have watched only God know how many hours of poker on the TV. I have played a lot of home games as well as a few casino games so I feel I can hold my own at the table. Now if we go back to the hand I just explained to you. I would have to say I went by the book or books depending how many you have read. If I went by the “Poker Brat” Phil Hellmuth Jr. book Play Poker Like the Pros pocket jacks are the fifth ranked starting hand. According to Dennis Purdy’s book The Illustrated Guide to Texas Hold’em pocket jacks rank seventh in starting hands. In fact you can read any book written by Mike Caro, David Sklansky, Kid Poker (Daniel Negreanu) or the Godfather of Poker himself Doyle “Texas Dolly” Brunson himself. They will all tell you the same thing or along the line like that. Pocket jacks will be in the top ten starting hands and how I played that hand pretty good. Not one of their books talks about the Luck Factor. If you are still a non believer in the luck factor then what about pocket kings (Cowboys) the second best starting hand against pocket tens only to have them beat by that third ten on the turn or river. What about the biggest starting hand of them all. The two cards that will make your heart skip a beat and make you do your own special little dance in your head (you know that secret little dance we all have). Yes pocket Aces (American Airlines, Pocket Rockets, Bullets or as I call them my two little Angels). We all play them differently. Some may go all before the flop every time we get them, some of us just call the blind hoping to trap someone or for a raiser behind us. Some may raise with hopes of taking the pot or getting one or two callers. One thing we can all say is that we have lost with or seen a big lose with these two lovely cards. We have lost to two pair all the way up to a straight-flush with Pocket Aces. Pocket bullets may shoot you down!

            Now if it was not for what I call the Luck Factor or Unlucky Factor (depending on which end of the hand you were on) that hand would always win. In fact why would we need the five community cards lying there on the table? Only the two cards in front of us. Ya! Ya! Ya! You are saying to yourself that it was a bad beat. Why is the winner calling it a Good Beat? Does he/she think it was skill? I say it was a horse$!?# Call! Skill does not tell you to call all the way down to the river or to call with pocket fours because another four is going to hit or to call with a five six suited contactor because you are going to get the straight. That is the Luck Factor. It was your lucky flop or community cards that gave you the best hand when you went into it with the worst hand. Oh! I forgot you will be the person that gets the luck next time. Remember that luck and cards go around the table.