> <snip> > > >I guess what I was trying to > >say is that being a successful player is about a lot more than just the > >odds of a certain draw or pot odds...knowing the odds is only a start to > >the skills you need. > > > > > Another skill you need to win consistently at poker is luck - now hold > on before you despise that statement - Even if you do everything with > the best mathematics it is still possible for you to not only lose all > your money, but to always lose all your money; there isn't a good poker > player that isn't at least a little bit lucky. > It would be accurate if you said, "You have to avoid being absurdly unlucky." Once you have, say, ten thousand hours at the table, your luck is going to pretty much even out. Even over a thousand hours (which is about what I have) the effects of luck have pretty much gone. If you go into a 10-20 limit game with a ten thousand dollar bankroll, yes, it is possible that you will be go broke before the odds even out. It has happened. But it's pretty rare, and takes extremely bad luck. Going into a 10-20 game with a twenty thousand dollar bankroll, it is, of course, mathamaticlly possible for you to go busted just from bad luck, but your chances of winning the lottery are much better. Luck determines how you do on this hand. It has a great effect on you did today. It has some effect on how you did this year. Over a ten-year career, you can pretty much forget about luck being a factor.