Crisis of Faith

[eastbay]

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Time for a dose of reality. Stop thinking like a loser.

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Though you seem to be a true believer, I am curious about the somewhat hostile tone of your response. It may be worthwhile to consider why my statement provoked angry feelings in you.

Regards,

MJS

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Because it was goofy nonsense? What kind of "faith" are you talking about? Some kind of "maybe the cards are telling me something" ridiculousness?

I think you should record your hands and see if you're not just expecting too much.

[Diplomat]

Hi Michael,

ironically, part of your victimization by randomness makes the games profitable. Think about it this way -- if bad players were never dealt hands that won (aces that stand up or 85o that hits an inside gutshot on the river against your set) they would not play. Bad times are tough -- I happen to be in the midst (hopefully near the end) of the worst loosing streak of my career. But if you keep playing winnning poker, it will turn around. For me, there somehow is comfort in the knowledge that my loosing is good for the game, and will actually benefit me later.

Whether or not you believe in randomness is irrelivant. You've got to work with what you have, and the most logical, rational approach is to consider the deal to be almost perfectly random. I'll go as far to say it would be almost impossible to construct a winning approach to any form of poker without assuming the deck is dealt randomly.

So if you think it's not random, either give up that belief or give up poker.

That said, you should watch for cheating, computer errors (online), and other such problems. But don't blame good for cracking your set of tens. [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

Hope you come out of the drought soon,

-Diplomat

[Louie Landale]

Wild fluctuations are inevitable. You would be EXTREMELY lucky if you routinely experienced "average" luck, say every month.

Don't worry about Einstein and Quantum Mechanics. Besides, the Quantum folk proved that God DOES play dice ..err.. probably plays dice with the universe. Or probably proved it. Or probably said they proved it. Whatever.

What separates the sharpies ..err.. the "are's" from the masses ..err.. the "should be's" is maintaining composure in the face of inevitable wild fluctuations.

- Louie

Actually, there ARE forces controlling the roll of the dice. But these forces balance each other out and are fickle, so it just APPEARS as though its all random.

[daryn]

basically it all comes down to one question.

does free will exist? or is every event in the world predetermined?

the craziest part is, i don't know.. nobody does.

[tpir90036]

i still have all of my faith in randomness. but i use the cold streaks to help analyze my leaks even more than i noramlly do.

that is the big problem with poker: people attribute winning to good play and skill while they attribute losing to bad luck and bad cards. what they fail to realize is that the inverse of this might be to blame.

not saying this is you...just pointing it out.

good luck!

[David Steele]

Have you ever experienced a run of cards so unbelievably horrible and prolonged that it shook your faith in randomness?

No can't say that I have.

Could it be that our good and bad runs of cards are predetermined by unseen elemental forces?

No it could not.

Is randomness an illusion?
No it is real.

D.

[Monty Cantsin]

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Only once, and that was when I was dealt exactly one duece in 21 of 22 consecutive hands. I thought it just a bit odd so I did the math, and the probability of that was about the same as the probability of my having identical DNA with someone in China. (We're talking one-in-trillions.) So I wrote to the site and asked if they'd had a glitch in their RNG, sent them the hands, sent them my calculation of the random probabilities, and suggested they might want to run a diagnostic just to be sure.

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I'm sure most people on this thread know a whole lot more about probability so take this comment with a grain of salt but:

If you had taken a random sample of 22 consecutive hands and found that they each contained one duece you would have a very disturbing clump, but if you thousdands and thousands of hands and eventually come across a clump of this size it doesn't seem that alarming.

In other words, according to my vague understanding of the scientific method, the event that makes you suspicious shouldn't also be used as evidence in support of the hypothesis you form as a result of that suspicion. Or something like that.

/mc

[Shaun]

Look man, anytime you post anything like this on this site you are going to get about 50% jerk responses that amount to "you probably just suck" or "toughen up" or "I never lose". I would not reccomend coming here for any reassurance. Poker players are generally a-holes to some degree or another. They know that answers like "suck it up" or "I have never lost for more than a week" or whatever will cause you to continue questioning yourself and this is what they want. Even if they never play against you or see you, poker players like for others to be on tilt, just in case.

Occasionally someone who is going through the same bad run and has considered that the online site's random shuffle generator is not so random will come along and sympathize with you. Trust me, there are people who have lost for "long" periods of time and they are and were still quality players. The problem as someone alluded to is the term "long" and or long run. It just isn't simple to define how long it really is.

You could do a few things for damage control:
Drop down a limit or change to PL/NL/limit from whatever you play now.

Focus on a different game: If you are a hold-em player, play stud or Omaha for a while.

Start playing shorthanded (this could be worse tough).

Finally, don't expect help from anyone else. When players are winning, they feel they have ascended to never before seen levels of poker play- and they will be sure to let those who are admitting to "bad luck" (something they have lost belief in) know that there is no such thing as running bad etc (because afterall, they are on a hot streak).

Of course in a few months you might wish to come back and post the same type of questions and chances are you will get similar responses, but they will be from different players who are running good. Of course not everyone fits into the "temporary expert" category. What you really need to do is, yes, toughen up, but mainly put things in perspective. If you have lost for years, then you are either cursed by the poker Gods or just aren't good. If you have lost for months you might have some leaks but then again you might just be in the midst of a statictical anomaly. If it is weeks then get back to us when it has been months. It is theoretically possible to flip a coin 100 times and have it land on heads every time. Have I ever seen it happen? No way. But it could. Even if no one has ever seen it happen, it is still possible. You have to keep things like this in mind when taking beatings in poker. Most importantly though, you have to remember all the money you've won over the years/months or whatever and smile when bad players suckout on you runner runner.

[Michael J. Sykes]

No problem. Truth is, I just wanted to yank your chain a bit. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

Regards,

MJS

[Michael J. Sykes]

I am surprised a site would send you a refund due to a bad run of cards, unless perhaps there was something wrong. What site was it?

In truth, to the extend that I have had a crisis of faith, it has concerned the randomness of an online cardroom's deal, not randonmness itself. However, I have no interest in starting a boring conspiracy thread! [img]/images/graemlins/shocked.gif[/img] I thought it would be much more interesting to explore our thoughts and feelings about randomness.

-MJS