I was sitting at a laptop I owned, in a house I could afford to rent, with food and comforts all around me. Do I still recall how it felt? Absolutely, it stung like a wasp on a hot summer’s day.īut taking a look around me helped. So, what was my takeaway here? Did I stay calm? Not at the time. They hit a one-outer to effectively cost me the best part of a thousand dollars in equity. Then another player showed their hand with a ten in it. I was playing someone with pocket tens, and they hit a ten on the river.

That’s a $900 swing, or to put it another way, 180 buy-ins. If you lose, you’re going out for just under $100. If you win, it’s very likely that you’ll go on to win $1,000. Let’s say it’s a $5 entry tournament, and at the final table, you’re all-in with pocket aces for a chip-leading pot with 6 people left. Understanding that in the game of life, you’ve basically been dealt a premium pair can go some way to reducing the magnitude of your feelings about any given bad beat.īefore you play poker, think of the worst situation that could happen. Given that 50% of the world’s population lives on less than $7 a day, you’re already in an immensely privileged position. The chances are pretty high that you’re reading this on a $400 smartphone, laptop, or tablet.

If you’ve lost a hand of cards, you’re already lucky.

While all the following tips and hints apply and can help, it’s important to remember your place in the world. Dealing with a ‘bad beat’ can be difficult, but with our helpful hints below, you’ll be in the best possible place to get over that slice of bad luck and play your A-Game in the next hand:

Luck is an unfeeling acquaintance we cannot escape and must be treated as such. Luck doesn’t care about how hard you’ve been working on your game, whether you’re having a good day or a bad one, or whether you’ve lost your last ten coin flips. Improving our luck, however, is impossible. If there’s a poker play we haven’t learned, then up-skilling to a better strategy can feel great.

What is a bad beat poker