Handling Bad Beats

Written By: CarbonPokerPlayer.com

As much as we might try to deny it, Bad Beats are a large part of the game of poker today. If you haven’t experienced a bad beat yourself, then I’m guessing you haven’t been involved in many pots or your poker strategy is far too tight for your own good!

We’ve all had that sense of disbelief as the river card comes down and the guy who’s shoved all his chips into the middle of the table with a 7 2 offsuit has hit the only two cards in the deck that could save him.At best, a bad beat can leave you feeling frustrated and angry. At worst, it can be a feeling that hangs over you and sends you on tilt for the rest of the game you’re playing.

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Behind it all though, is a sense of injustice that you’ve been cheated out of a pot that should have been yours and it’s this feeling that you need to deal with in order to put the hand behind you and focus on winning your chips back.

That’s obviously a lot easier said than done though, so what’s the best way of getting over Lady Luck abandoning you? As with most things, talking about it will get the problem off your chest a lot quicker. The problem is that when it comes to bad beats, nobody wants to hear your problems. Look on it as an unwritten rule among poker players – they’ve got their own problems and their own stories. They don’t want to hear about yours.

So with your fellow players effectively turning their back on you, how else can you get over the Bad Beat Blues? Here’s a short list of things that I’ve found useful in the past:

1. Give yourself a set amount of time to vent your frustration, and use that time to do whatever you have to do to get the annoyance out of your system. If you’re sat at home then shout, scream, point at the screen … whatever you need to do. And then let it go.

Obviously you can’t really do this when sat down at a live poker table (not unless you’re looking to go home early anyway). So when playing in a live tournament, push your chair away from the table and sit out for a couple of hands. If you need to, then get up and do something else. Have a chat to a friend or get another drink, and then sit back down at the table and re-focus.

2. Feel pleased with yourself. It may sound silly, but you played correct poker and pushed your chips in at the right time. It may not have worked out for you, but you’ve actually identified a good opportunity for future hands.. If your opponent keeps playing in a similar way, then he won’t be holding on to his chips for long. Just make sure you’re there when he next decides to give his chips away.

3. If you’re an online poker player, then make sure you play at a room like Carbon Poker who operate a Bad Beat Jackpot, which is growing by around $10,000 a day. At the time of writing the jackpot stands at just over $630,000. which means that if the worst does happen and your monster hand gets cracked, then your share of over half a million dollars means that you won’t be feeling down for long!