Poker Superstitions

Have you ever continuously lost at poker when sitting at a certain table position (for example, seat 1 or 2) or do you seem to win a lot while a certain dealer is dealing to you? In games where luck is an issue, superstitions tend to be an issue for a lot of players. The superstition may be a certain starting hand you feel you must always play, a starting hand you always lose with when you do play it, or just about anything imaginable.

I play mainly online poker, so I have a ton of superstitions about deck color, stats, what seat number I am playing in, and even who is at the same table with me.

Lucky Hands and the Death Hand

I can't speak for everyone that plays poker, but my husband and I play a lot and we both have certain hands we love to limp in with, and sometimes even raise. My superstitious hand is 67 (especially when suited with clubs). I don't know why, but so many times it seems that I flop the nuts with that starting hand, so I play it as often as possible. My husband's is 810. I see him even raise this hand pre-flop all the time, and hit it too.

However, with good comes bad. For the longest time my husband would lose with A7. He could be in the big blind with no raise in front of him (seeing the flop for free), flop a full house, and somehow seem to lose anyway. After losing with A7(what hubby likes to call his "death hand") for months on end, finally he just started folding it unless it was suited and the bet was cheap to get in. I have not yet run into my "death hand" or even noticed a certain hand that I consistently lose with.

Online Poker Superstitions

My superstitions kick in hard when I am playing what I play the most, online poker. I play at Poker Stars - they offer 6 different deck colors to choose from. I will never again use the yellow deck - that has come to be known in my house as "the yellow deck of death". Somehow I got it in my head that I cannot win while using the yellow deck, so it is off limits when I play.

If while playing at a tournament or ring game, my cards go cold (bad cards are coming to me), I immediately change the deck color and reset my statistics. Most poker sites offer you statistics of the hands you play, and usually there is a reset button that resets the stats to zero and starts over. I am also very picky about the seats I play in (table position). I play a lot of Stud Hi/Lo and hate having players seated before me, so I always try to play in seat 1. I have even gone as far as shutting down the poker room and restarting it again if I have been losing badly.

Poker Tournament Superstitions

My husband always claimed that having sex before a poker tournament made him do well. It's hard to try to understand your own superstitions, let alone someone else's. Let's just say that he plays a lot of tournaments and we have 4 kids and leave it at that.

Lucky and Unlucky Feelings & Poker Sense

When watching poker on TV or when playing home games, you may see people with their little knick-knacks at the poker table with them. Whether it is an animal figurine or a lucky poker chip or Sam Farha with an unlit cigarette dangling from his lip at all times, these things give us comfort while playing. Who knows how or why we get it in our heads that certain things are just lucky or unlucky for us?

I say take advantage of the things you think are lucky for you and steer clear of the bad as often as possible. I call these lucky and unlucky feelings my poker sense. I always try to go with my initial feeling when it comes to poker. If you sit at a table and just have a bad feeling, get up and move on to another before your feelings prove right!

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