After 13 years of playing poker I still get stung by bad beats. Badly sometimes. It's super embarrassing for a grown man to storm out of the casino like a baby after a loss. Usually when that happens everyone else at the table is like, "First time you've ever played poker???" I'm venting if I'm being honest, but nonetheless dealing with bad beats is something every poker player needs to learn. Here are some of my thoughts (and, obviously, do what I SAY, not what I DO).

1. Make sure you're properly rolled for the game you're playing. If your entire bankroll is only $1000 and you put down $200 on a table, on any given hand you're at risk of watching 20% of your bankroll go into someone else's chipstack. Exactly how big your bankroll SHOULD be depends on many factors, but there is no reality in which 5 buyins is enough. The amount you have on the table should be peanuts to you.

2. Be aware of and (perhaps more to the point) BE PREPARED FOR both possibilities (winning and losing) at every given point in a session (this applies more to no-limit than fixed-limit but still somewhat applies to both game). Before you even put your chips on the table ask yourself, "How am I going to feel if all of these chips go into someone else's chipstack?" If you don't think you could handle it, GET UP. Let's say you sit down at a 1/2NL table with $200 and you manage to triple it up within the first 15 minutes. Now you have $600 in front of you. You're at a no-limit table - at any given moment your entire $600 could be at risk. How are you going to feel if you put it in the middle and lose it?

3. This is kind of a corollary to #2, but any given point DURING A HAND, know your odds. You turn a nut flush. The other players don't ALWAYS have two pair or a set when you do that, but know that hands that could suck out on you exist. Before you even put your chips in the middle, tell yourself, "either I'm going to win this hand, or someone's going to make a boat or quads or a straight flush. I'm prepared for either possibility." Even getting all in preflop with aces, know there's an 86% chance you're going to win and a 14% chance you're going to lose. Be prepared for both possibilities.

4. DON'T TAKE IT PERSONALLY!!!!!!!!! This may seem like a silly thing to say, but I'm sure I'm not the only poker player who's ever thought the universe hated them after taking 3 straight bad beats. The poker gods don't "hate" you. You're not "inferior" to the person who got luckier than you did. Cards are indifferent, ignorant pieces of paper who do not "favor" any one person more than any other.

5. REMEMBER ALL OF THE TIMES ***YOU*** WERE THE PERSON WHO DID THE SUCKING OUT. How many times have YOU flopped a set with JJ against AA? How many times have YOU flopped a 3-flush against someone's set and runner-runnered a flush? How many times have you flopped a straight on the same hand someone flopped a set and had it hold up?

6. Don't be jealous of other people's "heater stories". I've seen pictures of people with $3000+ in front of them at a 1/2nl table. I've sat at tables where somebody won 5 big hands in a row on nights I didn't win a single big hand. "When is that kind of luck going to happen for me?" is a really silly question. It's like asking when you're going to win the lottery. This is kind of a corollary to #4 - the universe doesn't "hate you" because you're less lucky than other people. You're not inferior to people who are luckier than you. It's just that - luck.

7. Track your overall results. Even with the few crappy beats I've taken this year I'm still up over $600 over only about 45 hours of play. In criminally raked games, I'm actually running like GOD. (I'm not going to lie, it's hard to not to think, "Man, if those 2 additional hands had just held up I'd be up over $1400 for the year instead of $600." But seriously, I'm running WWWWAAAAYYYY ahead of expectation for 4/8 limit and 1/3nl.)

I'll stop there. Hope this helps somebody, and perhaps even more to the point, I hope a day FINALLY COMES when I actually TAKE ALL OF MY OWN ADVICE.

Great post.

#1 is the most important, IMO. When you can shrug off a loss by telling yourself, "no big deal, it's only one buy-in" you free yourself up to play correctly.

Another thing to remember. All players have bad beats, but good players will have them more often than bad players. To suffer a bad beat, you have to be in a +EV spot to begin with. Good players will obviously find themselves in good spots more often than bad players - that’s what makes them good players. More opportunities to suffer bad beats will lead to more bad beats.

Obviously it’s mostly luck over any small number of hands, but over the long term you should see bad beats more often as you improve your game.

#6 expanded - no one is luckier than anyone else. Someone may have been luckier than you in the past.

But when someone goes on a heater, it's not a sign that he is lucky - it's almost always a sign that he is a bad player. I certainly have had very good nights before, but I've never had one of these crazy runs where someone wins 10 hands in a row. Why? Because I've never had a playable starting hand 10 times in a row. Let's say I play 20% of my hands (already very optimistic). I would have to play 10 million hands to be likely to have at some point won 10 hands in a row. My math could be off there, but trust me that it's extremely unlikely. When you see someone win 10 hands in a row (or even 9 or 8 or 7), it's almost certainly because they are playing much looser than they should be playing. Usually they play more hands because they think they are on a heater. Now, if people are fearing you so much that they are folding to your raises or c-bets nearly every time, you definitely should widen your range, but that is pretty rare itself, and not the reason why most players on a heater loosen up.

TLDR - when someone goes on a heater, it's not only "just luck". It's nearly always luck + bad play.

stremba70 hits on a saying that I will often blurt out in certain spots ...

"I wish I knew less about poker"


As a Player improves their skill level they end up folding in spots where they might have called before .. not being as aware of the spot before experience tells them it's not as it appears. By making these folds a Player may miss out on some fairly large suck-outs which will tend to pad the bankroll of others.

HOWEVER .. these same Players 'ARE' making these calls and ARE sucking out in these marginal spots. So they have the benefit of both good Players folding out AND they experience the feeling of the huge suck-out big pot being pushed their way.

It's can be disheartening some sessions to see all the betting antics going on and know that your holding is marginal and shouldn't jump in .. and when you do jump in it's just not your day on Flops and Runouts.

So as good Players set themselves up for higher equity spots they don't need to run as good as Players who put themselves in low equity spots to turn the same profit.

You can call it 'good luck' or just running on the right side of variance 'today'. GL

This is so true, it can't be emphasized enough. I had a moment way back where I started wondering why I couldn't recreate the old Borgata days where in 2/5 I'd have a bunch of pumpkins. And it hit me eventually: I was a fish on a heater. (relatively) I don't get into spots like that anymore. I'm better for it but it deceivingly makes me feel like I got worse.