Poker Q & A

I really like Texas Hold 'Em Poker. I wish I was a lot better at it, but that's OK ... maybe I'm just saying I'm bad on the off chance that one of my readers will challenge me and discover I'm really super-awesome and just hustling y'all. Gotta love the bluff.

Anyway ... over at the NYT's Freakonomics blog, they have a Q&A with Phil Gordon, who you may remember from such shows as Celebrity Poker Showdown (that was so 2003).

I really liked this one:

Q: What percent of your success would you say is attributable to randomness?

A: That really depends on what you mean by randomness. Was it random that I was born in the U.S. to a caring family that was able to educate me instead of to a poor family in Zimbabwe? That was probably the biggest determining factor in my success, and one of the most random.

Randomness, otherwise known as “variance” at the poker table is much bigger and more important than most poker players realize. I have a simple theory: change 10 river cards in any poker player’s tournament career and I would bet that they would be a losing tournament player for their career.