Music of Chance

One of the amazing things about online poker is that it has made tournament play profitable for a lot of players. What, you are no doubt asking, about the live guys? Surely they are making great money too? Errrr, no. Most of them are backed, either by poker sites or other players. Many scrape along, with such massive “make-up” to achieve when they hit their big score that it almost becomes perpetually playing for free on a subsistence lifestyle. (Make-up is the common term for the money you owe your backer for buy in’s and expenses, before you hit profit. It’s the costs you need to “make-up” to him to get into the black.) They are in action to give action.

Of course, if you win the “big one”, or something of that size, then you can be made for life. And if you are an excellent attractor of lightning, then go outside and get struck by a bolt from the blue. But don’t confuse this with skill or expectation. Certainly several winners of the “big one” have gone on to prove that their conductivity was excellent; their poker playing much less so. The main problem is the short-term luck. It is far more distorted for online players than live. Online players can play thousands of tournaments a year, over which their luck finally starts to balance out. They will still have the same heartbreak and suck outs, just a lot more of them. Live players may not play that many tournaments in a lifetime. But the metaphorical “balancing of luck” is not just the only issue.

Some folk would say, “It will even out if you play more tournaments. Make that a lot more tournaments. Accept that or don’t play.”

I think this is a common fallacy. The difference between luck — or variance if you want to be more high-falutin’— in tournaments and cash is that if you keep your stack at consistent levels, online buy-in maximums to one side, in a cash game, then when and how you have good and bad luck makes little difference. However, in a tournament, exactly when and how your bad luck strikes could be the difference between being a major success or going broke. Perhaps a slightly hypothetical example will make this clearer.

Imagine an alternate universe in which we have the power to see the destiny of a tournament player over the next two years. We know that despite excellent play, discipline and some recent success that Mr. X will lose $1 million in entry fees and expenses over the next two years. I don’t think that this is particularly an extreme example. Travel, expenses, and buy-ins are enormous, and David Sklansky did some computer simulation work a while back to examine tournament variance and the potential for “bad runs”. Certainly Mr. X, playing the circuit across the globe could easily rack up such expenses. Unfortunately for Mr. X, his tank is exactly $0.9 million and this bad run will render him broke.

But, Twilight Zone style, we can stand with him at the cross roads of a major drama that may give him a chance to avoid his fate.

Mr. X is down to the last few tables in the World Series, just before the albatross of long-term doom is about to descend on him. Mr. X is at the peak of his game. He has all his chips in the middle on the right side of a 6/4 shot. If he loses, he pockets $100,000, and like a Flying Dutchman, sails off to his doom and poker ignominy. If he wins, he will go on to get into the major money and pocket $2.5 million. The bad run will still come, but he will survive and go on to potential greater success.

Unfortunately our glimpse into the “book of destiny” only extends for two years so we don’t know what the long-term, whatever that means for a tournament player, actually holds. But at least now he has a shot. Brokedom will be averted at least in your clairvoyant future.

The whole of Mr. X’s poker existence rests on a coin flip. Now I know I have grossly simplified rather complex issues around money management to make my point, but I think the point is still well made. In tournaments, the luck may never break even because some events are hugely distorted in value and these almost-never–to-be-repeated events just do not exist in cash games, assuming you are playing within a sensible bankroll.

Success or failure is just a coin flip away.

David has played poker all over the UK for the better part of a decade. Originally a tournament player, now focused on cash play and almost entirely on the Internet for the last three years, he makes a healthy second income playing a wide range of games. David is also an Omaha instructor for CardRunners.com, a leading source of online poker instructional videos.