You create your own luck

Posted by bellatrix

January 31, 2008

Today are my last few days in Northern California. We leave on Saturday, job starts on Monday and the big moving company is coming by the weekend after that, so it’s a week living in hotel and with friends. Today was also the last day of my daughter at daycare. I was talking about the move with her caretaker and I told her, we didn’t have a house yet, but it was going to be fine, just shrugged it off. She said, it was amazing that I was so relaxed, most of the people she knows are not like that.

I kept thinking about that in the car. It struck me as weird, that she would say that. I am not American, if you didn’t know :). What I have always loved about this country and what I strive for is the optimism that Americans have. That thinking that somehow it will work out and that you will archieve your dream. That the line “the pursuit of happiness” is written right there in the Consitution is something that reinforces this notion of America being a very open and optimistic place. So a move like I am going through is a good thing, probably only positive is going to come from that. I am going to a place where I am advancing at my job, I have the knowledge, I will be paid ok, we have friends that can help us out… why would I not be positive when trying find a new place. So what if it takes a few more days?!

So this got me thinking about poker. In the last few months I have also been very relaxed when I sat down at a table, be it live or online. I had done the homework, I went through my hands, I discussed the hands I wasn’t sure about, I knew the people, the tells. Why wouldn’t I be optimistic?

Ah, you see, you create your own luck. I guess you can be really optimistic, but in the end the person with the most EV will win, be it slots, poker or sometimes even life. It is very hard to quantify in life what are the right choices, the right decisions and they may be different for different people. But at the poker table, they are pretty clear, just very few shades of gray. So my opponents sitting in front of me might be optimistic that they’ll win, that they’ll be lucky tonight, but they are nervous. Every pot is a victory. I’m relaxed, in the end it will work out fine, it might take a few more pots, but I will make it. It is amazing how good your game becomes when you are just relaxed, same as in life.

It is not easy being relaxed when sitting at a poker game, especially not if you were a heavy favorite to win the current hand. However, when you look at a 20k Hand History (and 20K is not statistically significant), they you’ll realize how small the blips are that consitute those pots (I play limit so no major 300BB all-ins). I know I sound likea broken record, but I gotta remind myself to not sweat the small stuff. In life and in poker!

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