Luck, or as They Say in Russian, 'Shastye'

I'm still in Moscow, friends, still making the former Soviet Union safe for situation comedy. I've learned so much in the months I've been here. I've learned to brave the Metro. I've learned to read Russian (at the comprehension level of a 6-year-old). I've even learned (well, coined) The First Law of Inverse Neon, which states that the more neon a building has on its façade, the less likely it is to be good for me to go inside. This is true because Moscow's most depraved casinos, clubs, and nightspots all play the gaudy card to the absolute hilt. Not that it's kept me from going inside.

It's rare to find live poker games inside most Moscow casinos, at least at the hours I thrive. Moscow is a decidedly nocturnal city, and most poker (like most everything) doesn't really kick into gear until long past Johnny's bedtime. Slot machines, though, are 24-chas (hour) affairs, and one night early in my stay, I had a chance to examine some of them at close quarters - or rubles, as the case may be. It was then that I coined The Second Law of Inverse Neon, which states, prosaically, that all Moscow slot machines suck. This has nothing to do with neon, of course, and I confess that I coined it in a fit of impoverished pique.

Still, it got me musing on the nature of luck, and I realized that - when it comes to slot machines, at least - the amazingly simple two-part program runs pretty much like this:

1. Try your luck.
2. Fail.

This is not news to poker players. We know that most games of chance are losing propositions. We hold ourselves in smug superiority because we figured out long ago that poker is the only game casinos offer that we don't have to beat the casino in order to win. We pride ourselves in choosing poker, and in using skill as a means to maximize good luck and minimize bad luck in the game.

But we're still at the mercy of luck, aren't we? And that includes all of us, from the novice $2 bettor to the most experienced pro. I mean, think about it: Somewhere out there, even as we speak, the world's sharpest tournament poker player is getting ready for his - or let's say her - next match. She has everything she needs to triumph: skill, preparedness, good rest, concentration, character, stamina, heart ... and the list goes on and on. But the one thing she can't put on the list for sure is luck, and if luck isn't with her, her tournament life will end too soon. And all the skill in the world won't change it.

We could codify this as yet another law, The Law of the Dominance of Luck, viz: When skill meets luck, luck wins. Either you're lucky in a situation or you're not. And yet, it's no secret that the best poker players rise to the top of the big tournaments over and over again. They must know something about luck ... how to manage or neutralize it or make it work for them. The question then arises: How do you leverage luck?

I can think of several ways, and I've seen great players practice them all.

1. Don't press your luck when you don't need to. If it's early in a deep-stack tournament, simply don't put yourself into position to need to get lucky to win. Especially in a deep-stack tournament, skillful players should be able to find situations in which the outcome is predicated on their skill (at bluffing, inducing bluffs, making reads, whatever), and not on luck at all. This is why you hear the top pros say over and over again that they won't go broke early with any hand but pocket aces. They are particularly chary of hands like A-K, which look oh so pretty, but usually need to be on the right side of a coin flip in order to win a big pot. Pros hate coin flips early in tournaments. They don't want to need to get lucky to stay alive, when simply not getting involved will serve the same end.

2. Plan ahead for the luck you get. There's a whole range of situations in which certain "unlucky" cards will come off the deck - unlucky in the sense that they don't help your hand. But if you have a plan for those unlucky outcomes, you can often turn them to your advantage. We call these cards phantom outs - cards that would help your hand if you in fact had that hand. To use phantom outs, simply look at a flop that has a flush or a straight draw and tell yourself that if a coordinated card comes on the turn, you're going to bet it as if you own it. Against the right opponent (the kind who will put you on a draw and be determined not to pay you off), you can turn the wrong card into a ripe opportunity to capture a pot.

3. Take luck out of the picture. Make everyone fold. That way, it doesn't matter what cards would have come next. This is why strong players play strongly: so that the power of their bets, not the power of luck, determines outcomes. I find that when I'm really on my game, I'm not particularly lucky - because I'm playing so dominantly that I really don't need to be lucky at all. Remember: If they all fold, you don't need to get lucky to win.

4. Deal with it. Bad luck strikes. It happens to you, me, and every other poker player in the world, just like it happens to slot players, craps players, and everyone else who gambles. But we poker players know that our decisions matter, and one key decision is, "What are you going to do next?" If you let bad luck turn into bad play, you've multiplied and magnified its negative influence. If you can shrug off bad outcomes, and stay strong and stable, you have a chance to minimize bad luck and see yourself through to victory.

In every poker tournament - indeed, any poker game anywhere - some very talented players get very unlucky and go broke, while some not-so-talented players get very lucky and believe for a while that they're God's gift. Eventually, like water, they'll all find their level. The strong players will recover and the weak players will go broke. In the long run, after all, everyone is equally lucky: It is how you deal with the luck you get that makes the difference in the end. For instance, I've learned to stay away from Moscow's gilded places of sin, and that's the luckiest thing that's happened to me since I got here.

John Vorhaus is the author of the Killer Poker book series and the new poker novel Under the Gun, in bookstores now. He resides in cyberspace at vorza.com, and blogs the world from somnifer.typepad.com. John Vorhaus' photo: Gerard Brewer.