In hold'em, luck comes in many forms. There is the luck of the cards you get, the luck of the cards your opponents get (like when you get AA and they get KK) and the luck of the board. People often complain about their "luck" when their hand gets cracked by someone who happened to catch the cards they need to win. People always know how luck screwed them out of a tourney, but very few players actually understand luck and how it works.

Let's assume that during the course of a normal tournament, you get all your money in with the best hand (we will define "best hand" as being over a 60% favorite) 10 times. Let's say that on average, you are an 80% favorite in those hands. This means that out of those 10 hands, you should lose twice. Even though you are a favorite in each hand, overall there is a good chance you're going to lose 2 of those 10 hands. This is why many good players like to play "small pot" poker and don't like to put all their chips at risk.

When a player gets his good hand beat, he often feels "cheated" or like the site is rigged, forgetting that you are almost GUARANTEED to lose 2 out of those 10 hands. We can only hope that when it's our turn to lose, we have the chips to handle the downswing.

You can't control how much money luck can cost you, but you CAN control when you will put that money at risk (at least to some extent). Pot odds will dictate much of when you will put all of your chips at risk. The "reward" for risking your tourney life should be the chips you get OVER the chips you deserve when you win. For example, If you get your flush draw all-in against top pair/top kicker on the flop, you are a 3:1 underdog (or 30% favorite) to win. So to get your chips all-in there, you would want the pot to pay MORE than 3:1. If the pot was paying exactly 3:1 and you win the hand, you would get exactly the chips you deserve. But if the pot is paying OVER 3:1, you are also winning "bonus chips". Those bonus chips are what make the gamble worth it.

My best example is a live hand I played 2 years ago at Foxwoods Casino in CT. We were about 3/4 of the way through the tournament and there were about 30 people left and 22 got paid. I had an average stack of about $125,000. A tight local player limps in from early position who just had me covered. It folds to me in middle position and I raise to 4.5 BB with A-K suited. It folded back around to the limper, who reraised all-in. I immediately put him on a middle pair or another AK. He was smart enough to fold weak Aces from early position and I knew he would have raised with a big hand - he wasn't a tricky player.

So, I knew that I was most likely a slight underdog. If I win, I'm top 3 in chips and if I lose, I'm out of the tourney. Almost certainly I could have folded my way into the money. I knew I would have to get "lucky" to win the hand. I was about a 3:2 underdog, but the pot was paying better than 2:1. That means, assuming I'm right about his hand, I'd be getting about a 30% "bonus" to make the call. I did make the call, my opponent turned up T-T (with a T of my suit of course) and I spiked a king on the turn to win the pot and move into the top 3 in chips.

I understood luck, understood the odds, understood the situation and made an educated decision to risk all my chips on "luck". In retrospect, I consider it one of the best hands Ive ever played. Not because I won a big pot, but because I made a perfect analysis of the situation and made a decision based on all the information I had. In this hand, I got lucky, but even if I had lost the hand, I used luck to work in my favor and thats a correct decision no matter what the outcome. I hope this article helps you to get less upset when you lose a big hand and helps you to understand how you can use luck to work FOR you instead of against you, even if you lose the hand!