Overcoming bad beats in poker
Poker can throw a lot of things in your direction to tip you off your focus. That is simply the bad beat that we don’t want when we are playing some cards.
There is nothing that you can do. Bad beats really come in poker but what is important is how you go over the top of your frustration so that you play your next hand well.
Don’t bite the bait and try to recover the money you unjustly lost by doing stupid moves. You need to keep your head working. You have to get rid of they-win-rags-then-can-win-some-too attitude. You will just end up losing money. Lucky if you lose a few dollars but I got a friend who wasted $10,000 in a matter of six hours because of bad beats and he ended up chasing the money through the session.
How to overcome a bad beat?
There are just two solutions that we know off that really makes sense.
- Take some break
This is the best way to get hold of your thoughts and over come a series of bad beats. You can take a few moments off or if you need several days to get it out of your system then that is what you should do. Taking a break will save you a lot of hard earned money.
Leaving the game does not mean you will not be able to recover the chips that you threw away. Cooling down will help you go back to your rational frame of thoughts. There will be another game after a few minutes, or maybe after a day or two, or maybe a week. You don’t have to hurry.
- Setting Expectations
There are odds calculator that you can use so you know what pot equity you have. Let us say you are holding an Ace-Ace and then the pre-flop shows A-K, then you have a 90% chance of winning the hand. You also have to consider the 10% that you may lose the pot.
Bad beats will be there. Most of the time. Winners in the long stretch will really have to be familiar with them. I am pretty sure you will learn how to look bad beat on the eye. Give him that annoying smirk and make him run away.
