Best of Luck

While flying to Vegas last month I happened upon an article in their flight magazine.  It was titled, "Best of Luck, Why good fortune isn't just a game of chance".  I would like to recap a few points in it as I think it can apply to poker and other areas of your life.  I have always been fascinated by the concept of luck (and frankly have never thought of myself as a particularly "lucky" person especially at the poker table) and the part it plays in our lives.  Notwithstanding my recent unbelievably lucky win of a new car, I refuse to buy lottery tickets as I don't believe that the odds favor winning.  Yet, someone has to win don't they?  And why shouldn't it be moi?

Dr. Richard Wiseman, a professor at the University of Hertfordshire in the U.K. wrote a book called The Luck Factor.  He summed up a decade-long study about the nature of luck, which, he wrote, can "make the difference between life and death, reward and ruin, happiness and despair."

He claims that luck is not random and while some folks seem to lead charmed lives "There must be something causing things to work out consistently well for some people and consistently badly for others".  He believes it is possible to enhance our luck.  How do we do that?

1.  Opportunism
This has to do with seeing what is there, rather than just what they are looking for.  This was illustrated by an experiment involving reading a newspaper and counting photos.  Participants were asked beforehand to describe themselves as being lucky or unlucky.  The unlucky people finished the task in around 2 minutes.  The lucky finished in seconds.  Why?  A half-page announcement on the 2nd page said "stop counting there are 43 photos"  The unlucky missed this as well as a 2nd message that said "stop counting and tell the experimenter you have seen this and win $250".  According to Wiseman, unlucky people tend to be more anxious, which reduces the ability to notice the unexpected.  That is how the "luck" into $250.  Lucky people recognize chances, and they maximize them.
I suppose that is one reason I won the car.  Many people walked by the advertising sign with the car contest.  I noticed it, read it, and entered it.

2.  Otimism
In generat, optimism breeds good fortune.  You have to believe that you are lucky.  The article recounted a story from the 2002 Winter Olympics regarding Steven Bradbury, a speed skater from Australia.  I won't go into the details, but basically he just hung in there as the slowest skater and hoped for a collision of the fast skaters so he could go ahead.  It happened and he was the only skater left standing.

3.  Intuition
Lucky people make lucky decisions by being open to hunches and following their instincts.  You know about those times at the poker table when you go into the tank.  The phrase "think long, think wrong" comes back to bite you.  I am not a big advocate of impulsively shoving your chips, but sometimes that first instinct is the one you need to listen to.  Poker is a game of reads at times and we are all much better at it than we realize.  Our Darwinian instincts have allowed us to survive by the tells of enemy and friend.  We need to listen.

4.  Resilience
Lucky people tend toward a positive spin.  Instead of dwelling on bad fortune (thinking about your bad beats), imagine how it could have been worse (you lost half your chips, but still have a tournament seat).  Wiseman calls it "denying fate", an attitude that he says "transforms bad luck into good".  We all want to believe that we can change our fortunes, and Wiseman's principles suggest we may be able to influence them.

So, that said (and thanks to Brad Herzog, who I have both paraphrased and stolen sentences from), go forth and be lucky!!!!

Link to magazine, read the article here:

http://issuu.com/southwestmag/docs/10_october_15?e=18825507/30828238