What good does it do to work at being a better poker player?
I wаѕ іn a tourney аnd blinds wеrе $2,000-1,000. I wаѕ hυgе blind wіth AA аnd gο аll іn wіth mу last $8.000. One caller called аnd hе οnlу wουld hаνе hаd $3,000 left іf hе lost. Hе called wіth J-10 οff suite.
Well hе gοt a straight οn thе river аnd nobody аt thе table believed hе wουld call mу аll іn. Sο, whаt dοеѕ іt matter tο study poker іf іt іѕ mostly luck?
There are three primary components to poker:
1) “Luck” – this is related to #2, but it’s entirely out of your control. You have to be able to shake off a single excellent luck or terrible luck instance, and stay on your plot, playing the odds and the players.
2) The odds of getting what you want. You have to be able to figure out what your chances are of winning from any given point, given the information you have (the cards you have, the cards they have showing, etc.).
3) Psychology – You’re playing against people. You have to be able to figure them out well enough to determine what they’ll do in a given situation (so you know when to bluff), how to read them (so you can tell when they bluff), and how to hide your intentions/reactions from them.
You’re focused only on the final outcome of that hand. Yes, there was chance there, but both of you played the odds from your perspective. A excellent player is excellent at 2 and 3. If it were all just luck, then there would be no “excellent players” – we’d all be just exactly the same over a given number of hands.
You don’t mention how many people were left in the tourney. You only had 4 huge blinds, the guy with JT knows that and he only had 5.5 BB, so depending on position it’s not the worst call ever and even of he saw your cards he’ll win 1 in 5 times. If you studied poker then you should know that you don’t really want to get down to 4BB with no fold equity.
You should also know that no one likes to hear other player’s terrible beat tales.
Using that logic, there is no such thing as a “better” poker player.
Anyone can go all in with 4BB with AA. The “better” poker player wouldn’t have let himself get that small stacked.