Louie's Motor

It’s one of the great mysteries of Formula One. May 2008, Lewis Hamilton takes the chequered flag in Monaco after a relatively easy drive. As he fist pumps the air, numerous thoughts charge through his head:

“I’m a genius”…….”I’m the next Tiger Woods”……”The MBE is in the post” “I’m off to dinner with a Pussycat Doll”

May 2009, Lewis Hamilton limps home in 12th position in Monaco, having been lapped by Jensen Button.

“What happened Louis?"
"My car is shit” (well, this is clearly a paraphrase but you get the idea)

This scenario has been played out numerous times over the decade - the guy at the front is brushed with mystical driving abilities, until it starts to go wrong when it is suddenly the car’s fault. Other glaring examples are the Villeneuve 1998 season when Williams lost the Renault engine, and 1997 when champion Damon Hill elected to drive an Arrows car, which was seemingly powered by no more than a hair dryer motor.

I think this driver’s mentality is also adopted by many tournament poker players. In deep stacked cash, the starting hands don’t really matter due to the implied odds and the ability to reload, but in tournaments where many players end up sitting on 15 big blinds, the starting hands seem to matter far more.

However, I have noticed on my blog (and many others) numerous grumbles about being card dead, and that being the reason for the tournament demise. Perhaps we need to stand back a bit. When we are on golden tournament runs we are not geniuses, and when we have long barren stretches it is perhaps not all the fault of the cards. When those great runs happen, players get great natural confidence in their game, play positively and generate profitable situations. When the bad times come, the tendency is to play defensively, overbet good hands for fear of outdraws and generally have a resigned demeanour.

Next time I play abroad, I’m going to try and enjoy every tournament, irrespective of the run of the cards. Perhaps this will help me engineer promising situations, even if the chips are not going to simply fall into my lap.