When you bust out from a cash game or poker tournament thanks to a bad beat the first feeling is one of disappointment, then anger and then back to disappointment at the injustice of it. You then need the reassurance that you are still a great player and that it was not your fault that you busted out so you seek out a willing pair of ears to whom you passionately tell your tale of woe. Only nobody wants to listen! More injustice! This article is going to look at why people seem to avoid listening to bad beat stories.
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We discuss regularly how to avoid going on tilt and how to manage your emotions at the poker table and this is really important to maximising your abilities. We are going to focus today on how to deal with opponents during a cash game or poker tournament and things to bear in mind when they are playing hands soon after a bad beat, argument or loss of a big pot. Both Texas Hold’em online and live poker gives you opportunities to benefit from a weaker moment in your opponents.
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In this article I am going to discuss the concept of looking beyond the bad beat. When you lose a big poker hand, the circumstances by which you lose the hand will dictate how bad you feel about the outcome. Being at the final table of a large poker tournament you might have the opportunity for a life changing win, so having to return to your day job, albeit a little richer but not nearly as close to your goal as you might have been, it seems a cruel way to end the poker tournament. When luck and not skill causes you to lose, it feels even worse.
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These kinds of articles really should be making people think about the variance in poker and especially with certain forms of poker like limit hold ‘em. In fact this was one of the reasons why I switched to playing NLHE because the variance in full-ring no-limit is far less than at limit or at least the frustration factor is far less.
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We all want to be professional poker players making $1 million a year. Why play if this is something we do not want? We also like to forget that in any sport there are certain traits in your mental character that must be present in order to achieve a high level of success. Examples are the big game clutch ability of a basketball or football player, the self confidence of a sprint runner or the ruthless streak of a poker player. If we are missing any of the key traits to a poker player’s mental make-up, we might do quite well but we will never reach the top. Let’s look at the mental strengths you need to be a top pro, once you know what they are you can work at obtaining them.
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To win playing poker you build a pot that you win having the strongest hand at the showdown. Whilst your opponent remains in the hand they too are building a pot hoping that they either have a strong hand already or draw to hit the necessary cards to improve to the winning hand. Once the hands are revealed, you may have done everything right during the hand in terms of bet sizing, raising or checking yet the one or two cards that your opponent was drawing for to win came out, thus costing you the pot. This is referred to as a “bad beat” meaning that luck rather than skill contributed to the winning hand this time. It can be very frustrating; no-one likes losing to a lucky player.
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Every poker player hates taking a bad beat, but we do enjoy a guilty pleasure at the recounting of bad beat stories. The following bad beats were played out at the World Series of Poker with the prizes on offer huge. This accentuates the bad beat pain for the players involved but that is what makes the hands memorable.
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Ever the controversial character, Luke “__FullFlush1__” Schwartz has made few friends in his rise through pokers cash game levels. He is outspoken, brash and cocky and simply says what he thinks no matter whether people like it or not. In fact, the more edgy the comment the happier this young man seems to make it. He is a cash game player who has won a lot of money online, although the online community does not seem to like how he goes about it. It is unusual for a player who is successful to court negative opinion about themselves so openly and Luke does seem to have put a target on his back by being so abrasive.
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Even though he has won millions from poker and is one of the most recognisable names and faces on the planet when it comes to Texas Holdem, you still do not wish the bad beat like the one suffered by Daniel Negreanu on anyone. His opponent, eventual victor Barry Shulman needed an Ace and only an Ace to save him in an all-in confrontation. The river duly obliged, with one of the two remaining Aces left in the deck. We eagerly awaited Daniel to update his popular online Blog so we could get an insight into how he was feeling after missing out so closely on winning the WSOPE Main Event.
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