Poker Woe

kmick

Poker Woe

Alright I have to get my story out here and see what people think. I have been playing Poker for years and love the game. I can happily play poker with my mates for days and days. The money goes round and round and at the end of it all I am probably even or slightly up/down - you know the way it is. About two years ago I started playing on VC Poker. Was playing most nights making a small profit on small stakes tables. usually 0.5c/0.10c tables. But in the last three months things have taken a turn for the worse.

Before I go any further I am a tight player - I don’t bet on hands I don’t feel are going to win. In Cash games that I play with real humans I am usually there/there abouts and more often than not come out up. My starting hands are no better or no worse than I normally get over the last the last three months but I cant win. I could give you some of the history of the types of beats I have had over the last three months but no matter what I have I am consistently beaten. Some examples from the last week.

House of 3's and 2's beaten by 8s and 2's
Three K's with 9 kicker beaten by Three K's with 10 kicker
Three K's beaten by A's
Two A's dealt up beaten by Three 9.s

Recently I changed from VCPOKER to Party Poker to try and change my luck. Same crap different table. Also in real life I have never won anything - never a raffle, a spot prize, any competition. But in other ways I am very lucky in that I own my own house, have a great wife, good job and am reasonably happy and content. My point is - is it time to give up. I have lost approx 200/month over the 3 months - now I can well afford this but when is the losing streak going to end? Should I just accept that my luck has turned for the worst, go away and maybe come back in 3 months, should I give up and play humans only or should I play through. I know I am good enough at poker to hold my own but this bad beat run has left me without confidence in myself or my play. I have come to thoroughly dislike playing poker because of the fact that every hand I play to the end holds a nasty surprise. Anybody been in this situation and come back from it?

El Stuntman

kmick wrote:

Also in real life I have never won anything - never a raffle, a spot prize, any competition.

oh dear

maybe you should join a luckier religion?

in all seriousness though, why not stop playing for a while and read a few books about poker instead? Might make you realise why you are losing (there usually is a reason instead of pure blind bad luck).

Start with the Bible - Sklansky

kmick

Been thinking about that thanks for the suggestion. I do educate myself and If anything my play has been getting much toghter over the last 2 years. However this is a luck thing not a play thing. Whenever I play a decent hand it just gets beaten by a better decent hand.

El Stuntman

kmick wrote:

Been thinking about that thanks for the suggestion. I do educate myself and If anything my play has been getting much toghter over the last 2 years. However this is a luck thing not a play thing. Whenever I play a decent hand it just gets beaten by a better decent hand.

well then just stop with the online poker and play live a couple of times a month

you may still lose but at least you'll have fun doing it

peeko

yeah probably the best thing to do really, maybe your game has leaks that you don't know about, maybe you are playing too tight, maybe you are not playing stong enough in position. could be loads of things.

picking up a book would be a very good move.

varaince is part of the game, and there are going to be loosing times, but sometimes these loosing times can make you play bad.

take a break, read a book, read boards and hopefully you will get your groove back soon

best of luck

ArmaniJeanss

kmick wrote:

However this is a luck thing not a play thing. Whenever I play a decent hand it just gets beaten by a better decent hand.

Post some hand histories up, and we'll see if you are making any mistakes which can be fixed.

Scouser in Dub

El Stuntman wrote:

oh dear
Start with the Bible - Sklansky

Though possibly better to start with NLHE Theory and Practice rather than the much less accessible Theory of Poker

5starpool

I know how you feel OP. This can be a soul destroying game at times.

kmick

Yeah probably give it a rest for a while. Most of the advice says to play even tighter on a losing streak. That has not worked for me. So I moved back to a smaller stakes table. That has limited the losses but has not affected the luck. Its time to give it a break. Any more advice on my three month losing streak is appreciated.

con_leche

Kmick,

If your mindset is not right sitting down to play, you have already put yourself at a large disadvantage.

Obviously you need to make a change to break the 3 month cycle, so posting here is a good start, and reading more theory is an excellent idea.

Playing tighter is not always the answer.

However if this is your prefered style then just change your game, and play online extended SnGs, where you can often fold into the money at the lower stakes, and it is relatively easy to progress, and develop your game as you move up levels.

You could also get buddies to watch you play online, or vice versa, and trade feedback.

LuckyLloyd

This post has been deleted.

kmick

Would be interested to hear if anyone has ever had a 3 month run on their luck where they play their game but get hammered. I was making small amounts of money in the year prioir to this. Now I wince when i think of playing online poker. Is this a mental thing or can your luck really be this bad?

gocall01

I play more tourneys than cash but bad beats are bad beats in any code.
Can't say I've had a 3 months streak where I wanted to pack it all in but have had numerous occasions where the mouse was in fear of it's life and the monitor was covered in screamed spit!

The suggestions of reading are spot on here.
I started like a complete donkey, read a bit after becoming tired of being a donkey.
Half understood half of what I read and played some more, reread and generally spotted things and began to understand situations I couldn't even recognise when I started.
It's like watching a film for the 2nd, 3rd & 4th times and seeing stuff you hadn't spotted in the previous viewing.

For example, one thing I didn't understand at all in the beginning was the power of position, I would just play the same hands the same way no matter what position I was playing from.
Now I would say it is the single most important thing when playing poker.

Also started playing some live tourneys and 1/2 buddies just helped me out when they noticed a hee-haw play.

Finally, as already said, post here, in general the advice dished out here is very helpful and the ensuing discussions can open up a whole new world on how to play the game no matter what your playing style.

Have fun, get back into the groove, this game has it's up and downs, but it's brillant!

leaba

Before Christmas I decided to Open another Tribeca account (VC) to get the 100% bonus offer. I deposited €500 and racked up the 82500 odd promotional points required to clear the bonus. I don't play cash games too much and planned to work off the bonus with SNGs.

The bonus expirey is 20th Feb, and while I probably wouldn't usually clear this many action points, I was going to knuckle down and get serious for the purposes of clearing the bonus and potentially building a bankroll. I usually play $15-50 SNG's depending on my humour and how the games are filling up. I decided I was going to start with $25 games and put together a spreadsheet to track my progress.

It's the most structured approach I ever took to my online poker playing. I don't play live that much, maybe 20 times over the last year...some casino some pub games, but tend to do okay (1 win, 3-4 second places and couple of money finishes). I've been playing online for over 3 years, and in the last two have been a winning player.

It seemed as soon as I started keeping track of the games I hit a horrible streak. I experienced all of the typical bad beats mentioned already. I understand probability...birthday paradoxes! bah! Bring on quantum mechanics. I'm not supersticious....I'm an athiest....I understand it doesn't make sense for a large online poker service provider, who's business is rake, to rig the game...but for two weeks (I know this is relatively short) I had the worst run I have ever had. The doom switch theory had taken on a whole new level! They knew I had started to keep track of my poker!

Even though I moved back to $20 and then $15 SNG's the original deposit was gone before I had 10K of the action points cleared! My girlfriend (who I live with) was sick of me shouting at the laptop, threatening to throw it off the balcony, calling her over when I had an overpair to have her witness the other player hit his set....or explain to her how he won because he hit two running suited cards to make his run or whatever (She doesn't play poker).

I went to the internet to read other people's horror stories, and it helped. In the last week I've been doing better, but I'm playing $10/15 SNG's. I've 39K action points to clear and I'm only down €400 of the original €500. So with a bit of luck, maybe the worst of it is over!

Usually when I take a bad beat, I emit a 2 to 5 second barrage of explitives and that's it (Live I'm quintessentially Zen...on the outside anyway!), but while I was running bad each bad beat stoked a rage burning within me that nearly turned me inside out!

I suppose what I'm trying to say is that I can relate to what your going through and while I love playing poker, there are also times where I absolutely HATE the game. I don't think I could play the game full time as I didn't enjoy the fact that I HAD to play X number of games to clear the bonus. It kind of took the enjoyment out of it. Finally, dropping back the levels seems to have helped in my case.

Rb

OP: Do you have pokertracker? If not, you should get your hands on a copy of it asap (only $55). Maybe take a break, re-read some books and strategy sections on poker forums e.g here, 2+2 etc. and then get back into it in a few weeks/a month or whenever you feel ready and give it your all again while using pokertracker to keep track of your play. After 10K hands or so, if you're still losing, some of the people round here will be able to tell you from looking at your PT stats some areas where you're playing wrong/badly and that can only help.

Over the last while I've been on a bit of a downswing, at first I put it down to variance and as something I could ride out as I thought I was playing great, but after sitting and thinking about it I realised I was just playing shíte, (coupled with the drunken sessions which desimated my online cash), changed a few things and I'm winning again. Good luck with it though, it can be a great game at times and an absolutely horrific one at other times.

hotspur

kmick wrote:

Poker Woe
But in other ways I am very lucky in that I own my own house, have a great wife, good job and am reasonably happy and content.

kmick wrote:

I have come to thoroughly dislike playing poker because of the fact that every hand I play to the end holds a nasty surprise.

No-one who is living a contented non-poker life and is financially non-dependent on poker should ever torture themselves by making themselves work through an awful patch of bad variance and loss of confidence in the game in my opinion. You seem to have some bad concepts about luck, mentioning changing sites to change your luck and accepting that your luck has changed so wait for 3 months.

A fundamental fact of playing poker somewhat seriously is that it is horribly unjust and when that gets to you as it has then it's time to take a break and fill your time with something else for a while.

As for your question about the fact of 3 month bad variance streaks, it depends upon how much you are playing how normal that is. Generally a cash player playing for a couple of hours every day will almost never experience a 3 month streak of continued genuine bad variance, that is my perception of it. Of course it's very difficult to abstract the effects of bad variance from the effects of loss of confidence and frustration, it's just that the bad beats are more salient. And since you're a tight player you will always experience more bad luck than others. But every poker player worthy of the name has been through bad periods they weren't sure they could get through. Mostly they take a break though to destress and approach it fresh after a while.

It's impossible not to have a love/hate relationship with poker if you play it a lot. It's cyclical, when you hate it don't play. The answer isn't hitting the poker books in my view, you're not a pro so you don't have to do Rockyesque training (my God that reminded me there's a new Rocky film coming out...see he took a break and is back!).

BobSloane

You probably need a break. Might I suggest that when you do return you think about changing your game considerably. I'm making some presumptions about how you play but I'm just basing them on you describing yourself as tight and on the beats you listed as they were the kind of beats that used to drive me insane(and still do but not as much). Also with regard to the beats you listed - depending on where the money went in etc. but they look a bit more like coolers than bad beats to me mostly. However if its going on for 3 months i'm sure people are hitting runner runners, and 2,3,4 outers etc against you.

I only returned to poker a few months ago after a 6 month break. You sound like your poker history is very much like mine. Very much a casual player.

Put $500 dollars that you are completly prepared to lose into some poker a/c and play at the $25 buy-in level of cash game. Play the 6 handed tables and loosen up alot. Be prepared to raise small pre-flop with just about any starting hand that has decent potential - 23s even. Make the same small raises with your current tight range. Try to play it small ball all the way to the river and see how the hand is playing out. Try to assess your percentages and outs as you go. Make appropriate bets 1/2 pot, pot etc. Don't go all-in for $20 on a pot of $5 when you have a set and there is a flush draw on board. Just price him out. If he calls he's still the one making the mistake and you dont lose all your money on a bad beat. You re-assess on the next card. Try to put your opponents on hands. Be prepared to make a river call with a marginal holding just to see how you're doing in this respect. This is obviously -ev as it is calling station play but it helps your game if you can see the bigger picture. Calling stations are calling just because they have something. You'll be doing it to develop your thought process on why someone bet the flop, checked the turn and bet the river for example. Sometimes your marginal holding will hold up but don't celebrate too wildly. Ask yourself did it hold up because I put him on the right hand or did i actually think i was beaten and would have folded if playing for "real". You will get alot of abuse at tables for some of these calls but ignore it. Try to get used to the concept of playing your opponents hand instead of your own. This is by far easier to do when you have position in the hand which is why you will be raising preflop with all sorts of crap. Sometimes you'll flop the nuts and clean someone out as they just wont see it coming.
I think playing 6 handed is best for this as its not that hard to keep an eye on what 5 players are doing compared to 8 or 9.

Post hands on boards and post replies to other peoples hands. I think i get more out of posting replies tbh, first off as the OP generally also posts some info about the Villian in the hand which gives you clues for patterns to look out for in your own future similar hands and second, as the better players here will point out flaws in your decisions or thought process on each street. Don't be afraid to be wrong..they don't seem too harsh here...you won't get banned if you're a russian and you call with KJ lol. And don't be intimidated about expressing your opinion on hands that the better players here are posting. There seems to be an "all opinions welcome" attitude here and players playing a few levels higher are not condescending if you're playing pots for the size of their small blind. The pots are for alot more but they're playing with the same 52 cards and the correct things to do and the wrong things to do are still the same.

Maybe all this doesn't apply to you as you've been playing for years and probably have a decent poker knowledge. Playing tight aggressive poker is surely the most profitable style but if you truely love the game as you say you must play looser and more aggressive for a while to develop your knowledge. By all means then move back to a more tight aggressive style and you will better understand what the looser players are doing to you. Like when you say you don't bet on pots you don't think you're going to win. Well if you have position in the hand alot of the time they ARE your pots. You just have to reach out and take them.

I have found that finding some betting courage when the situation is right - based on the players and situations, not neccessarily on my cards - and loosening up my starting hand range from what it was when i was playing a year ago is like comparing playing poker in colour as opposed to black and white.

But remember that $500 - you must be prepared to lose it. Its the cost of the eye opening

To answer your original question - no - i've never suffered a 3 month stretch of horrendous luck. Had patches like anyone. Last time i quit was a tilty drunken step well outside BR when all I played was SnGs and I was just a bit sick of poker anyway. Your current style would probably do well enough on SnGs as someone suggested if you could adjust sufficiently on the bubble.

Hope this is some help. Its an alternative anyway

pok3rplaya

OP, you don't seem to realise that there is no such thing as luck. Until you realise this in general life, poker is not for you.

And without trying to be too rude, I think it is quite obvious that you are not as good at poker as you think.

RoundTower

You aren't destined to make money playing poker. But you really enjoy playing the game and spend much less on it than many people do on their hobbies. Just keep on truckin'.

empirix

pok3rplaya wrote:

OP, you don't seem to realise that there is no such thing as luck. Until you realise this in general life, poker is not for you.

And without trying to be too rude, I think it is quite obvious that you are not as good at poker as you think.

I agree, also playing on tables with small blinds is going to hit you, you will get stung, play live

pok3rplaya

empirix wrote:

I agree, also playing on tables with small blinds is going to hit you, you will get stung, play live

Please tell me this is a joke?

phantom_lord

kmick wrote:

House of 3's and 2's beaten by 8s and 2's
Three K's with 9 kicker beaten by Three K's with 10 kicker
Three K's beaten by A's
Two A's dealt up beaten by Three 9.s

meh, I've had worse beats than that in one night of live play.

hotspur

pok3rplaya wrote:

OP, you don't seem to realise that there is no such thing as luck. Until you realise this in general life, poker is not for you.

Of course there is such a thing as luck. When something improbable happens we tend to call it luck if it affects a person, and good or bad luck depending upon the nature of the effect. You know this so perhaps you assume that while luck exists that good luck and bad luck even out in the long run for everyone. Well they don't.

Somebody who is weak at something will always experience more good luck in their success at that thing than an expert will. Take an example of repairing a tv. I'm not a tv repairman, if I try to fix a broken tv I may open it up and fiddle around with maybe 4 things of out 50 that I could fiddle with, I'm using an heuristic strategy, I basically don't know what I'm doing. Now if I happen to fix the tv with one of my random fiddles I have gotten lucky. A real tv repairman has the expertise to know that the problem will be 1 of say 3 things, check them in turn and will be successful in fixing it with zero amount of luck involved. If both of us continue to try to fix other tv's I will *always* experience more instances of getting lucky in fixing it, it will never even out. The expert doesn't get lucky here because he doesn't put himself in the position where it is improbable that he will succeed.

Now the same thing applies to everything where there is appreciable skill present whether it's throwing a dart or playing poker. An expert will necessarily have less unlikely successes than a novice because expertise and skill by their nature constrain the number of instances of being in a context for that to happen. The amount of times a particular improbable event will happen involving you is a function of the number of times you put yourself in that context. So people who are bad at things will find themselves in the situation where they need to get lucky to succeed far more often than experts will, hence they will experience good luck more often. It doesn't even out.

I will never get lucky as often with 27o or 3rd pair on the flop hitting two pair on the river as often as a terrible player will, and the longer we both play the greater will be the discrepency in the number of such instances of good luck.

Most reasonably intelligent players realise intuitively that good players get sucked out on more often and suck out less than bad players, but I doubt many people extrapolate this to a general principle involving the relationship between luck and expertise. The most interesting fact of it for me is how you can use this insight. This is more interesting when you extraploate it beyond poker. I have clearly come to the conclusion that generally speaking naive people are luckier. Most non-naive people in whatever field will either not try something extremely unlikely to succeed or will approach things in a way that gives them the maximum chances of success. Therefore it is the bold and naive idiot who gets luckier. The lesson to be learnt I think is that in areas where you are not an expert you have to be bolder because you need to rely on luck to compensate for that lack of expertise. So if you're qualifed for a particular job apply to 2 places, if not apply to 20. If you're George Clooney ask 1 girl out, if very much not Clooney ask 10. And if you're not great at poker...bet more often.

ArmaniJeanss

Hotspur I think pok3rplayr meant that the OP was wrong to attribute a 3month downswing to luck, that it was much more lilkely poor play.

i.e. If you try to fix a tv everyday, that on an individual day you will get lucky or unlucky but overall you will fix close to the amount of tvs that your skill level would expect.

pok3rplaya

The OP is confusing the TV repairman with someone who is getting lucky. He's not getting lucky, he's just relativly well skilled.

There is no such thing as luck. If the TV repairman is 70% better at fixing TV's then me, over the course of 10 years he will end up with 70% more working TVs then me even if some days my heuristic approach allows me to repair more TVs then the repairman could on that day.

Hectorjelly

Hotspur you made some good posts and id agree in general. Id disagree with your tv analagy and meme though, I think that successfull people are often successful (or add to their success) because they do a lot of things that make it easy to get lucky. Bad players and bad repairmen tend to do well because they do things that make it easy to get unlucky.

pok3rplaya

hotspur wrote:

No-one who is living a contented non-poker life and is financially non-dependent on poker should ever torture themselves by making themselves work through an awful patch of bad variance and loss of confidence in the game in my opinion.

I disagree with this. You want to play poker, you want to play well, you want to learn about poker. Downswings are a part of poker and I believe if you want to improve, and learn about the game then you have to teach yourself to play well when things are going bad.

latenia

I'd advise to stay away from cash altogether and just hit the 5 and 10 dollar sngs. Play absolute ABC poker systematically and maybe read a basic guide to beating them-I think there was a link to one on another forum posted here a while back. (possibly 2+2?). Maybe you're overplaying mediocre hands like KJ or A9/A10?

BobSloane

This guy wrote an essay on luck and good/bad fortune generally 100 or so years ago. Maybe something here for the more philosphical among you. I had just smoked some grass when I read it however

http://oaks.nvg.org/rswa.html

hotspur

Just to save anyone some time the essay BobSloane linked is not worth reading. It would take a Withnail and I-esque Camberwell carrot of grass to make it tolerable. Steiner may have been a philosopher of sorts but any essay which begins with:
"GOOD FORTUNE can be regarded as bringing our soul-forces into a certain harmonious mood "
can f*ck right off

BobSloane

hotspur wrote:

Just to save anyone some time the essay BobSloane linked is not worth reading. It would take a Withnail and I-esque Camberwell carrot of grass to make it tolerable. Steiner may have been a philosopher of sorts but any essay which begins with:
"GOOD FORTUNE can be regarded as bringing our soul-forces into a certain harmonious mood "
can f*ck right off

LMAO - it was quality grass although hardly a camberwell carrot. I liked the story in it about the girl whose life got worse and worse from the day she was born until she was buried alive though. It might cheer up the OP a bit when he sees he doesn't have that much to complain about in terms of the bigger picture

hotspur

I have to admit that was one hell of a life bad beat story, I nearly pasted it here, what I loved about it was the fact that it was a long rambling paragraph about the most unlucky life *ever* and then you are waitning for the payoff or the point...and there isn't one lol, seriously random stuff

Ok here is the bad beat life story :

"A daughter was born to a married couple. The mother died in child-birth. The same day the father heard that all his property had been lost at sea. The shock brought on a stroke, and he, too, died the day the child was born. Hence the infant met with the misfortune of becoming an orphan on the first day of her earthly existence. She was first of all adopted by a rich relation, who drew up a will bequeathing a large fortune to the child. She died, however, while the child was still young; and when the will was opened it was found to contain a technical error.

The will was contested and the child lost the whole of the fortune intended for her. Thus she grew up in want and misery and later had to become a maid-servant. Then a nice, suitable young man whom the girl liked very much fell in love with her. However, after the friendship had lasted some time, and when the poor girl, who had been earning her living under most difficult conditions, was able to think that at last some good fortune was coming her way, it transpired that her lover was of the Jewish persuasion and for this reason the marriage could not take place. She reproached him most bitterly for having deceived her, but she could not give him up.

Her life continued its extraordinary, alternating course. The youth was equally unwilling to give up the girl, and he promised that after the death of his father - who had not long to live - he would be baptized, when the marriage could be celebrated. He was in fact very soon called to his father's death-bed. Now, to add to the troubles of this unfortunate girl, she became very ill indeed. In the meantime, the father of her betrothed had died at a distance, and his son was baptized. When he came back to her, however, the girl had already died of the mental suffering she had endured in addition to her physical malady. He found only a lifeless bride.

Now he was overcome by most bitter grief, and he felt that he could not do otherwise - he must see his beloved again although she was already buried. Eventually he was successful in having her body exhumed; and behold, she was lying in a position that clearly showed she had been buried alive and had turned in the grave when she woke."

kmick

Well just to follow up on my tale of woe. I took a break for a week or so and tried to allow my brain to chill out. I played a couple of live cash games with the tight game I always play (The game that a lot of you guys claimed was probably rubbish) and won both nights. Then I ditched VCPoker and started in FullTilt playing STT's Kept it very tight and started to make a profit again. Have moved back to Cash games and am up 14% on my stack so far.

I have learned
1) You can have a three month period where playing a tight game you get busted to pieces.
2) Reading articles helps
3) Poker is 33% Luck, 33% Play, 33% Mental - you can lose one of these and still hold on. If two go you need to take a break for a while.

redzerdrog

what about the other 1% whats that?

Lafortezza

I'm running well atm.

Ste05

Hadn't read this thread, very nice posts Hotspur. Loving your work. Kudos.

OP,

You shouldn't get too upset about what other people think of your game, in general though, especially in Poker, it's the norm to assume that someone is a donkey until proved otherwise. And just because you happened to have 2 winning sessions doesn't really prove anything. But again I'm not saying anything about your game, because I've never seen you play.

Also luck is a factor the only thing that affects how big a factor is the term we are talking about. In the theoretical "Long Term" it basically has no effect as it should have evened itself out. In the short term, e.g. one or 2 sessions then it has a big effect.

There are proven winning players on 2+2 who have reported on 80k hand breakeven stretches and huge down swings. How much of that was down to "Pure Bad Beats" and true Negative Variance (as opposed to not playing well due of the effects of the down swing) is probably impossible to tell. But what happens in this period could in fact all be be down to luck/ variance, but I honestly think the best way to break this and improve our game is to blame ourself for the problems and try and locate leaks in our game (every player in the world has some) instead of blaming luck, if people continually blame luck or downswings for losing money in Poker then they will not improve their game. And the times when we are playing badly/ running badly is the perfect time to take a look at our game and identify leaks.

Fatboydim

Looking at the OP a couple of things strike me.

Firstly you talk about playing with your friends and how the money goes around. - When you play with the same people all the time you start playing the people and not the cards. This is usually a good thing until you take that game elsewhere. In other words you develop habits that are suited to your circle of friends but not to either live casino play or online play.

Secondly it seems like you might be playing at limits that are too comfortable for you. There has to be some pain involved in poker otherwise it's too easy to throw away money. Also at the lower levels on line a lot of players go there to shoot steam after a bad beat or two. I know I do.

Thirdly - You're not giving away much on the supposed bad beats. K9 v K10? Which is the better starting hand? 8's over 2's v 3's over 2's. Presumably you both had pocket pairs but what was the preflop action. Was it raised? If it wasn't then once the 2's hit you have to be aware that there are hands that can beat you. Even if it was 832 on the flop. Unlucky yes... but again beaten by the better starting hand. [assuming both pocket pairs]

Finally - Good players are not defined by how well they play when they're running good but by how well they play when they're running bad. - Bad beats are part of the game but examine your play during this bad run and see how many good laydowns you are making. How many times your making good calls even if you're rivered. If you're playing right it will soon sort itself out.

bohsman

Id put it at 75% mental, 25% skill and a whole lot of variance, if the mental goes no amount of skill in the world will help.

AmarilloFats

Nearly sioled myself reading this "...A daughter was born to a married couple. The mother died in child-birth. The same day the father heard that all his property had been lost at sea. The shock brought on a stroke, and he, too, died the day the child was born. Hence the infant met with the misfortune of becoming an orphan on the first day of her earthly existence. She was first of all adopted by a rich relation, who drew up a will bequeathing a large fortune to the child. She died, however, while the child was still young; and when the will was opened it was found to contain a technical error. The will was contested and the child lost the whole of the fortune intended for her. Thus she grew up in want and misery and later had to become a maid-servant. Then a nice, suitable young man whom the girl liked very much fell in love with her. However, after the friendship had lasted some time, and when the poor girl, who had been earning her living under most difficult conditions, was able to think that at last some good fortune was coming her way, it transpired that her lover was of the Jewish persuasion and for this reason the marriage could not take place. She reproached him most bitterly for having deceived her, but she could not give him up. Her life continued its extraordinary, alternating course. The youth was equally unwilling to give up the girl, and he promised that after the death of his father - who had not long to live - he would be baptized, when the marriage could be celebrated. He was in fact very soon called to his father's death-bed. Now, to add to the troubles of this unfortunate girl, she became very ill indeed. In the meantime, the father of her betrothed had died at a distance, and his son was baptized. When he came back to her, however, the girl had already died of the mental suffering she had endured in addition to her physical malady. He found only a lifeless bride. Now he was overcome by most bitter grief, and he felt that he could not do otherwise - he must see his beloved again although she was already buried. Eventually he was successful in having her body exhumed; and behold, she was lying in a position that clearly showed she had been buried alive and had turned in the grave when she woke.
"

Marq

leaba wrote:

My girlfriend (who I live with) was sick of me shouting at the laptop, threatening to throw it off the balcony, calling her over when I had an overpair to have her witness the other player hit his set....or explain to her how he won because he hit two running suited cards to make his run or whatever (She doesn't play poker).

What did you think this would acheive?