My mind is open to both possibilities. So your thread is about the RNG being unfair and how to counter it?
Or are you distracting?
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I am done. I assume that you are trolling because that is ridiculous. You are making some kind of Schrodinger’s Cat argument that we can’t know whether the deal is fair or not, so we should assume it is not? I literally said I cannot know that the deal is fair, so clearly my mind is not made up, but when we engage with reality we assume some parameters. You might just fall through the floor or float up into space right now, but I am not going to assume something unlikely will happen without evidence. You cannot prove that I even exist, since these words are coming through a website on the internet. So let’s just assume that I don’t exist.
If they released a database of the all of the hand histories to the public and you performed a statistical analysis on it that showed that certain seats win bunches of hands in a non-random fashion, then I would believe that you are correct. Anyway, have a nice day.
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No.
This thread was supposed to be about strategies to deal with players who were on a lucky streak. I didn’t want to discuss the RNG but was forced into it by the assertion of the Gambler’s Fallacy.
I can understand how many people, even most people, would suggest that one’s strategy shouldn’t change in the face of a hot seat. I used to play that way until I lost consistently betting into hot seats when I had strong hands. Somehow, those seats almost always had AA, KK or hit an improbable draw. I am doing much better by avoiding the lucky players until the phenomenon passes. I found better opportunities on the back side of the hot streak in the form of a smaller field and a big stack that was often overconfident and too aggressive.
This is also my feeling though you must have said it better than I since you didn’t get the blowback I received. 
I have seen some humdinger lucky streaks.
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Without getting onto the RNG and all that stuff, players do go on hot streaks. IMO, there are two components, a good run of cards and the player gaining confidence from winning hands. I think that people tend to play better when they are confident. This factor may have as much to do with the run continuing as the card distribution. Other players may give the person on a run more credit for having hands than he really does until they see for themselves the run is over. This may prolong the streak even more.
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Hot seats happen… period. You were right that a random distribution isn’t perfectly uniform. Those perfectly normal clumps of good hands are the hot seat. It’s very real and normal.
The “past outcomes” is an argument to causation. Nobody claimed the cards remembered anything. This has nothing to do with the pRNG or any other cause. The only fallacy is to think they happen because I have this lucky rabbit’s foot, or that cards have memory, or whatever.
In Brunson’s original “Super System,” he suggested you should almost always play the hand after you win a big pot. He knows cards do sometimes run in streaks, and that you have to be in the hand to benefit. Both of these are still true.
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Good point SPG. Its not really important why hot seats happen, the fact is they do happen. And anything that happens on the table is info for possible adjustments to strategy.
There have been numerous discussions on here about adjusting one’s strategy to deal with a slump. And what is a slump if not the flip side of a hot streak.
If we think it useful to adjust our strategy during a cold streak, couldn’t it also be useful to adjust our strategy during a hot streak?.. or even a fellow player’s hot streak?
Yes, let’s do this. We won’t risk much preflop, but play way more hands. Fit or fold on the flop because either luck is with us or it’s not and we don’t want to spend a lot to find out. But if luck is with us, then POW, we harvest the tears.
Yes, let’s identify these as soon as possible. I don’t want to get into a pot with him for a few orbits. I probably have to fold a few hands that were probably marginal anyway. QQ+ we’re gonna rumble, but I’m mostly trying to stay out of his way for now.
So yes, I will sometimes make major changes, short-term.
Well there is no way to find out if it is or is not random so why even talk about it anymore. The only thing u can do is use all your skills to out play opponents random or not. We all have the same choices to fold,bet,call,raise,re raise,bluff,chase etc. so if u think a player is that hot then fold or dont raise or whatever. I personally could care less who is on the table or how hot they or their seat is. If you are confident enough of a player then all this talk shoudnt matter and just play your game the best u can. Thats all everyone can do. The only other option is move to another table and maybe none of your so called hot seats exist at that table, if so then move again. I myself will take any seat any table and play the game like any other games or table. Other than that u can just not play online poker at all if its such a concern. Maybe some replay staff can comment more on here to give u more answers about the randomness of the games here. Peace
Yes a player can have a streak and the graphic that joedirk posted will show that in action.
If you watch it you will see that sometimes blue bursts ahead and gets to the top faster than red.
If it does that 3 or more times in a row that is generally considered a streak.
However, if you keep watching you will see red also has the same streaks and that is the law of averages at work. If you had 6 or 9 such units running like players on a table you would see all of them reach the top at approximately the same average over time.
However, that is happening in a vacuum without a players skill involved
All players over time will get approximately the same good cards dealt to them, Whether a player plays those cards and how they bet those cards is what changes the odds.
To use Whittaker’s basketball analogy:
If a player is on a streak hitting 3 point shots and you give up and wait for him to stop hitting he has no pressure and will pick his spot and extend that streak.
However, no coach and players would do that and the guards would be all over that hot player keeping him from touching the ball and getting to his spot on the 3 point line and would pressure every shot to end his streak.
That is what advanced players do to prevent other players from having an extended streak by challenging them with higher bets pre-flop, turn and river and making it harder for them to fish for cards to improve their hand.
That is the difference in a game of luck and a game of skill and luck by definition is just beating the odds without any action on your part.
Holdem is a game of skill that requires action on the part of players to win.
Ya its simple. Fold more,bet less,call less,raise less,dont re raise or bluff till the hot streak settles down. Its much different in rings then tourneys tho. In rings you have more time to wait it out or move to another ring table, in tourneys you cant switch tables just hope u get re balanced at least and also the hot streak could last a good part of the tourney depending on the length of the tourney… Control what u can and make adjustments when u can.
Since people seem to be giving the idea of a hot seat some credence, I will re-frame my point. Your strategy should be established enough that it does not change based on perceived “luck”. Cards will come in streaks, that is just an element of probability, so there will be runs where certain players get lucky a lot. But in any given hand, your approach should not change. So while there may be hot streaks that impact player confidence or perceived table image (maybe they will seem more aggressive after getting a lot of good hands), if you have prior knowledge about how loose/tight they are, you should stick to that knowledge.
Games like basketball are not probability based, meaning that if the shot is taken correctly it will go in (based on accompanying related factors like confidence, skill, space, defense, etc.). In poker, hot streaks are really just statistical facts that happen. Winning hands increase confidence, but getting good cards does not necessarily equate to winning hands and having confidence does not necessarily lead to playing well. For example, I could get AA, then KK, then QQ in consecutive hands and lose all three. Was I lucky? Did I misplay them? Those seemingly simple questions do not have obvious answers. I was lucky to get great hands, but unlucky to lose them. Or luck was not involved because I played them terribly, but poker is a game of probability so luck is always involved.
So, setting aside the whole RNG thing, my “hot seat” strategy is to stick to the gameplan and not adjust because each hand is separate. A player may get lucky and get AA three times in a row, but I’m still going to play the same way the third time as I did the first and try to get their whole stack. Of course you should adjust your game based on tangible information (such as their raising range), but not based on some perceived lucky streak that is occurring.
Edit: In terms of outcome, let’s say we have seen the same player get lucky and catch a flush on the river to win 2 hands in a row. If the same situation came up in a third hand, I would play the same exact way as the other hands (assuming that my play was +EV to begin with), and if they get lucky a third time, that is an unavoidable statistical anomaly.
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It’s cool to see different perspectives on this… I guess it’s a reasonable question to ask. Sorry if I was misunderstanding
Thinking about it more I can see how coach B’s reasoning sort of applies as well…
As BigDogxxx says:
If a player is on a streak hitting 3 point shots and you give up and wait for him to stop hitting he has no pressure and will pick his spot and extend that streak.
However, no coach and players would do that and the guards would be all over that hot player keeping him from touching the ball and getting to his spot on the 3 point line and would pressure every shot to end his streak.
That is what advanced players do to prevent other players from having an extended streak by challenging them with higher bets pre-flop, turn and river and making it harder for them to fish for cards to improve their hand.
I think that’s spot on as a way of mitigating the confidence effect that comes from good runs, which makes them more likely to continue (through other players folding more to the hot player’s bets, playing tighter than they otherwise would, etc)
But I think I still agree with Joe that from a mathematical point of view it’s never good to believe someone has better odds of having the best hand by the river just because they’ve won recent hands.
I think Doyle Brunson’s suggestion to always play the hand after a big win shows this, and is a way to capitalise on people’s belief in the gambler’s fallacy Or else he wouldn’t have said, “whatever the cards”…
Playing timid gives the already winning player an advantage…
In my view this is what really creates the hot seat
Ya joe i agree with most of what u said, i was just giving those few simple points on what u could do if u cant accept the fact that it is deff not random such as whittaker seems to think or doesnt know for sure. I myself would not change my game but we all know the table as a whole will and some will back off and some will put more pressure on him. Although i agree with the basketball analogy i would not compare the hot seat player in poker to the hot 3 point shooter. You cant compare the 2 because B ball is a team sport and poker is an individual game such as golf. If u put pressure on the hot 3 point shot maker than the coach and team will make adjustments to pass or get the ball more to the players that are open more because of the lack of defense and pressure on them that was given up for the 3 point player. This is not the same scenario in poker as the hot seat person is playing for himself only against all others and has no one to pass the ball to when pressure is put on him. Some others will change their style when they are in the hand with him or heads up with him as far as betting strategies and the so called hot player will have to make adjustments to that too. The difference is that at the end of the hand it still is each player for him/herself against all others to try and take the pot where its just not like that in team sports. Unless you are playing team poker here, in which there is a league on replay that plays that style. If more players would stay in the hands instead of back off to the so called hot seat player than he/she would lose way more hands than win and the seat wouldnt be so hot anymore, especially if more players stayed to at least see the flop and many went to showdown. Thats one way of stopping his run.
The interesting thing, to me, about the basketball analogy is the thinking of the coaches. They both believe that the player will revert back to his career average. The question is when?
If the reversion happens right away, the assistant coach is correct. If it happens to late for the game to be saved, the head coach is correct.
So the math works, but will it work in time? In a poker MTT, against a big stack hot player, one loss ends my tourney. Two minutes later his luck ends and his stack shrinks, but that does me no good if I’m not in the game.
Now, to be honest, Joe’s last post has me leaning in his direction as to how to play against a hot player. I only have 2 reservations…
- If Joe’s advice(stay the course) is sound against a hot player, isn’t it also sound when I find myself in a slump? Assuming I cannot identify a flaw in my game, shouldn’t I continue to play the same ranges, stakes, level of aggressiveness, etc.
I ask this because I have seen much advice on here to change up your game when in a slump. - Does Joe really exist.
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Well u could also say the same thing about the so called bully on the table. Are u saying no one on the table will make adjustments to him/her ? whether the bully is on a hot streak or not, u have to make adjustments on how u wanna counter that, the best way is to be a bully or more of a bully back when ur hands are well made. This usually gets the bully to fold a lot. Ever notice that the bully that raises big pre flop or after the flop, most players fold, but then when u raise big pre flop or big after the flop, then the bully folds. So thats a typical example we all see on those tables.
That is the million dollar question!
New players generally only have one range and betting style which makes them easy to read while advanced players will usually change their range and betting style based on observing their opponents, size of their and the opponents stack (risk assessment), where the blinds are and whether they are at the beginning, middle or end of a tournament or playing a ring game.
That may even change from hand to hand as an advanced player reads and adapts to different opponents they face head to head.
If I am facing a new player that over estimates their hand I am probably going to drive up the bet to take as much as I can from them.
If that is an advanced player I know slow plays a hit on the flop and plays a tight range I may pull back on my bet to see the river and not take as much risk on a mediocre hand.
Most advanced players do that almost subconsciously after they have a read on the table and it isn’t like they pull out out a book and decide on a style against certain players.
The secret IMO is to always be unpredictable so other players can not get a read on you.
What should you do in a slump?
Ride it out as long as the blinds are not eating your stack until your cards come back around OR widen your range a little and take more risk on good but not great hands as long as the bet risk is not too high.
Have you ever noticed how many times you fold cards out of your range you consider unplayable only to have them hit big and had you stayed in the hand you would have won?
If you are in a slump and the risk is not too high take chance on an oddball hand. You never know when that 72 you play will show up on the flop for a big hand.
If you do hit and win the opponents will start questioning their read on you and they will wonder what you are up to and it makes them nervous.
If you don’t hit just fold and no one knows you ever played that oddball hand so no harm to you.
I am pretty sure Joe exists?
Have a good one and win big!
If u dont get good cards then play your bad cards good
I’m just a bot employed by the site to stir up controversy (or to end controversy, depending on what you believe).
But seriously, I think adjusting to how others are playing is a key part of the game (since there’s no point in trying to be gto here). I’m just saying you shouldn’t do it based on your luck or the perceived luck of others. You should be trying to figure out how they’re playing, but you can’t guess how the cards will fall.
Trying to change your play because a seat is hot seems likely to lead to mistakes. Trying to end a losing streak or fix holes in one’s game is a separate, very important topic.
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Very good point JoeDirk… and well said.