Free Online Poker Guide To Beating The Bad Beat Blues

 

Bad beats as you will know if you play any form of poker be it a free online poker game or high stakes card room are the very deepest embodiment of "bad luck" known to poker humankind!

Physically, if your opponent has only a few cards to catch in the river in order to win a very large pot and one of them falls, you cannot recover the hefty stack of chips that passed from your hands to an undeserving adversary. You might even be knocked out of a tournament because of it. You cannot recover your physical seat in the poker table (unless it's a rebuy tournament, and you rebuy).

Suppose, in the example above, your opponent has A-J and you have A-K, and the board is A-3-7-10. You have top Pair and the best kicker. Your opponent has top Pair with the second best kicker that he thinks it's the best, and he moves all-in. At that point, moving all-in will cost you 90 percent of your stack.

You call with the hope that your opponent does not have A-10 or something, and he flashes A-J. You're in a seat of roses now. He can catch a Six only with a 6.82% chance, and it's the only way he wins. He catches it. Bam! Bad Beat! You are left with one-tenth of what you have before the hand started. Or you may even be the one knocked out.

Psychologically, how do you redeem yourself from such a cataclysm? It is easy. Ask yourself: Would you like your opponents to call with A-J in such a situation if you have an A-K? If you say 'Yes', then there's really nothing to whine about.

You played your hand in the best way you could (you might have even read him with, like, an A-5 or A-4, and you're close to your read). So you want him to call. He did. All your circumlocutory plays like acting weak, betting small for him to pounce, etc., are successful.

He did what you want to happen. If he calls, then you know that you're a 93-7 favorite. Would you like to be on the 93 or on the 7? Ask yourself that question. You have not made a bad play after all. Your opponent made it.

You might be knocked out of the tournament after that hand, if you have lesser chips. But you have to be thankful that there is someone willing to put his chips in on even just a 90-10 proposition in which he has the 10. 90% of the time he does it, he will be knocked out. Your loss will fall only on the 10% side.

So you can redeem yourself by saying that you made a smart play, after all. In other words, that you play better poker than the one who messed you up. And this point made, in the future you can exploit many players who might be willing to make bad plays but who didn't know that these plays are actually bad.

Sometimes to feel the ease of victory in which you are a 90-10 favorite, you should be ready to take the 10% hit sometimes.

But if you're not knocked out, try to save yourself. Don't waste your mental energy from fretting and cracking your head on how that card emerged. That card emerged, and nothing can change it, not even the wind. Just use all your mental resources to make a very good play next time, maybe a calculated all-in, and resurge from the deep.

And if you're on the end of a stream of bad beats go play some free online poker games and get your confidence back before returning to the money tables.