“So I didn’t play a hand for maybe two hours. I was Card Dead,” she began her story. “My stack was slowly disappearing, so I decided to take some initiative.”
The initiative she decided to take was to open with :7c :6s for $20 in a $2-$5 MP game. Two people called, as did the big blind.
The flop came :Ah :8h :4s and she bet, to “represent the Ace”, with her gutshot-straight draw. She bet again on the turn when she missed the straight. On the river she got the 5 and beat someone holding :As :Kc for his entire stack.
“I know I was lucky,” she said, “but I felt it was the right thing to do given the situation.”
Well, that wasn't the right thing to do. Since I've heard variations of this line of thinking several times, I decided it was time to write about being card dead (having gone a long time without being dealt playable hands).
Your Card Dead phase can end at any time
Here's the first concept. Each hand is independent. If you've been dealt trash hands several times in a row, it doesn't affect what you'll be dealt the next hand. Each new hand is completely new, completely random. It could come up with more trash hands, it could come up with a pair, something suited, anything. It's random.
It seems to me that after a certain period of being dealt a lot of bad hands, most people start to get used to those hands being the new normal. As if the rules of mathematics have broken the space-time continuum just to keep the aces away from you.
This can happen very quickly. I think part of the reason this feeling is so common has to do with how our brains learn (learning from hands-on experience is more powerful than learning from math).
However, the reality is that the rules of mathematics are completely inflexible. There is no such thing as “being card dead”, there is only “was card dead”. It is not something that exists in the present, only in the past. It can ruin literally any new hand. Every time you are dealt a new hand, you always have the same chance of being dealt good cards.
So, thinking this way, a bad spell of cards is never something that is happening in the present, it is not. It is always in the past, it is not something that is carried into the future in any way.
If you’re a mathematical thinker like me, you’re probably nodding your head as you read this. Bad cards in this hand won’t affect what you’ll get in the next hand; it’s all random. However, I can tell you that it’s very easy to start thinking “I’m in a bad streak” instead of “I was in a bad streak.”
Resist the temptation. Remember that random means random, there is no such thing as a “dead card” that persists into the future. What happened in the past is over.
Don't overestimate your table image
The second concept is not universal, as it depends on human psychology. I would say that, as a general rule, the vast majority of players overestimate how their card dead state will affect their opponents' perceptions and plays.
“I hadn’t played a single hand in the last half hour, so I figured they’d respect my raise this time.” Nope! Most of the players at the table probably won’t even be aware that you haven’t played a single hand in all that time. Plus, if you find players who actually pay attention to this, there’s a good chance they’ll also realize that it’s perfectly normal for someone to not get any good cards, making them prepared to play you.
So when you say, "I haven't been playing, so I figured they'd respect me," what you're really saying is that you think your opponents live in this magical world where they pay perfect attention to what you do, but at the same time, they don't pay enough attention to know that often a player can go this long without being dealt any good hands, and that when he is dealt an average hand, he will end up playing it rashly, because dead-card players get bored, and also because they're convinced that the table knows how tight they are.
Don't make this mistake. If you haven't played a single hand in a while, chances are your players won't change their minds against you.
You don't have to take the initiative
Here it is necessary to make a distinction between tournaments and cash games. In cash games, where your stacks are relatively deep compared to the big blind, there is absolutely no reason to start playing more hands just because you haven't been dealt good hands for a while. If you do play looser by your standards, or if you start playing more aggressively than usual (such as raising preflop with a hand that would normally just call), chances are your opponents will eventually catch on and adopt a strategy that will hurt you in the long run.
So if you play cash games, my advice is pretty simple: Sit back and relax, and don’t worry, you’ll get some good hands eventually. If you’re bored, take a walk, listen to some music, or do something else to break up the rhythm of things. If your table isn’t feeling so good, consider changing tables. But don’t do it thinking it will change your luck, random is random.
This can be a good thing because if you're not comfortable at the table already, it might be a sign to change anyway. And besides, if it gives you a fresh perspective on the game, even better. You're certainly less likely to get bored at a new table than you are at an old one.
In tournaments, however, things get more complicated. This is because stack sizes are smaller, and each round you don't play means you lose a lot of chips relative to the big blind. In general, the smaller your stack, the more hands you should play.
However, this isn’t just because you “must take the initiative” to win a tournament. Rather, it’s because the math of poker changes when you’re playing with a 5 big blind stack versus when you’re playing with 10, 20, or 50 big blinds. Also, since most tournaments have antes, the structure itself requires you to play looser than you would in cash games.
So yes, in tournaments you need to play looser if you haven’t been dealt good cards for a long time, but that’s only because you’re short-stacked. It’s the stack size that requires a different way of playing, not your bad streak. However, you shouldn’t force hands that don’t make sense, like calling light raises just because you “can’t afford the blinds”. Be patient and play a good strategy.
Final Thoughts
So what do you do when you’ve been card dead for too long? Nothing. Eventually, the cards will come. And more importantly, you usually have more to lose than to gain if you start mixing up your playstyles too much. In cash games, you can take a break or change tables if you can’t handle it. In tournaments, obviously, you have less control over the situation, so the best thing to do is play according to your stack.
Article translated and adapted from the original: What To Do When You're Card Dead
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