The Creation of Adam
Poker is a game of skill and not a game to gamble on if you want to depend on luck. Why use luck to make decision on someone’s ability to lie? Just like you would not use luck to play someone at chess because it is a game of mathematics and likewise poker is a game of psychology. Yes there is an art to it but in the end the only time to truly gamble is when the odds are in your favour or you are so short staked that it is the only option left open.
Just like being a farmer is a gambler. Basically you buy seeds to plant in the ground on the gamble that the spring will be spring, summer will be summer, autumn will be like a normal autumn and winter will be the same what it usually is. If it is not then you will probably lose out. So you do make a ‘bet’ based on certain rules and therefore you’re a gambler even though you as a farmer you are making a decision based on historical data which goes back centuries.
But being a gambler does mean that you will bet when the odds are against you as this is the nature of our game. Gamblers like to take risk or they would not do what they do.
There are several rules a gambler must follow. One is never change your mind when you’re about to place a bet. I.E if you are about to bet on or have written down a horse to bet on do not change your mind at the last moment and back another, because invariably the one you jumped off goes on and win. It is better to back both then change your mind.
Another rule which gamblers must believe in is Pascal’s Wager codified by Blaise Pascal. Basically it is better to believe in god because if he/she exist then you’ve made the right decision because when you die you will have everlasting life or whatever happens after death. If he/she does not exist then what have you lost?
OK, people like François-Marie Arouet aka Voltaire states that in order to take that sort of wager, one has to be certain that God will honour that bet. Therefore, since there is no proof that God will honour that bet it would be foolish to take up that bet. As many people who have been ‘stiffed’ by bookies or websites that have online betting it is a very real problem being stiffed by the bookie or website. Not getting your rewards from a bet wagered has got to be the worst feeling in the world, however, if you have no other way of placing the bet sometimes you have no choice but to place that bet, which is no choice if you have only one bet to place. Tough decision!
Another ‘law’ for gamblers is the Gambler’s Fallacy’. Gambler’s Fallacy states that things will even out over the distribution of outcomes. IE if there are 4 coloured balls in a bag and you put your hand in the bag 100 times then each coloured ball will roughly be picked 25 times each (100 picks divided by 4 colour ball = 25 times per coloured ball) . Therefore, if one coloured ball has not been picked after 90 times then there is a very strong possibility that it will be picked within the last 10 times that you put your hand in the bag.
As you can see this idea takes several assumptions into account. I.E luck is fair, the hand being put into the bag has a memory within that process, statistics has a reality based truth.
The reason why you must believe in this law even though it has the reason why you should not believe in this law in the title, is that there is no other way of having a credible system for picking random choices. Unless you are a habitual silly mug gambler, then this system will suffice. If you are daft enough to think that you are superior to luck then by all means put all your money on the numbers will even out.
Let me put it another way. If you flick a coin 21 times the chances of it becoming heads 21 times is 2,097,151/1, therefore, if it has been heads 20 times then you should back tails on the last time because it is most likely to be tail to help balance up the statistical spread a little. Clearly this would only make sense if the price of a even money shot deviates so that you are getting better than evens. The chance of it being heads or tails on the last spin still remains the same since the chances of it 21 heads or 20 heads then a tail is still 2,097,151/1. However, as a way of making a decision to back heads or tails on the last spin then using this method to rationalise the bet is just as valid as any other system.
Using this system is valid for poker too. If you are heads up and seriously out gunned in terms of cash, then you usually have to go all in with whatever you’ve got, as sooner or later you will be forced to go all in anyway. If you get lucky then well done. If you lose then it was always on the card and you’ve lost nothing in defeat.
The reason for my interpretation of that sooner or later your ‘luck’ will change is once I fluked and scrambled my way to the final table of a online poker tournament. When finally heads up I had something like 96 or 97% of the chips. In looking to finish the game I just went all in and guess what I lost. I could not believe it I never won another hand from the time I was heads up with my opponent. The guy had to go all in as the blinds would have killed him anyway. But he too so the zeitgeist and went along with it when he reached parity with my chip count and he ended up walking away with first prize and I with a crushing sense of being disowned by the poker gods.