Poker Articles

After so many bad beat stories and so many posts concerning maddening play, I decided to address the issue of frustration. There is no way to explain how many times I have been sucked out on and how horrible some of the beats are that I’ve taken in the last 3 months. I have left my computer screen wanting to beat the living hell out of the guy who sucked out on me. How in the world could he call my 6X the blind raise with K10 off? Oh and by the way I have AA. Then when the flop hits 782 and I raise 12X the blind, he calls. Then the turn comes a J and I raise all in and the guy calls. You know what the river is, don’t you? Oh yes, it’s a 9 and I’m out of the tourney. There is no good reason, based on sound poker play, to play like that. As I said in another blog it’s pure slotsman stuff. That is called gambling. I don’t like to gamble, I like to play poker. There is a huge difference between the two. If you look at the above example and say “what’s wrong with that play?” You are a gambler and not a poker player. Now I’m not saying that gamblers can’t make any money. However, poker players make much more over the long haul.

The simple fact of the matter is that guys like this example are both a blessing and a curse. These fish are the ones who will, more often than not, pay you off. You need them and you hate them. Their stupid plays get you a lot chips, and they also get you knocked out of tourneys. While I have been fortunate to make decent money in the last few months, I’ve also tasted the bitterness of defeat at the hands of many fish. This phenomenon is magnified online.  The reason is the much larger amount of players online as opposed to live poker.

So what can you do about it? How can you prepare for it? How can you get away from it? The answer to the first question is multi-faceted. I believe there are only two things that you can do…deal with it or quit. DJCBoston decided to quit. Things got so overwhelming that he couldn’t deal with it anymore. I can totally understand that reaction. Listen, my goal is to cash in 40% of the tourneys I enter. Of that 40%, I want to make the final table 30%. Of that 30%, I want to win 30% of the time. So if I play in 5 tourneys in a day, my average, I will play in 30 tourneys in a week. If I reach my goals, I will have cashed in 12, made the final table in 4 and won 1 (approximately). If you really evaluate that, those are pretty high goals. How many of you would want to win a tourney a week? Yet, even if these goals are reached, you will spend the vast majority of the time losing.

So then how do I deal with it? Let me propose a couple of suggestions. First, don’t deny who you are. If you are an emotional player, you will hear all the time that you need to chill out. While that is the goal in the end, I think it’s the wrong approach in the heat of the moment. You need to find an outlet for your anger. Your physical health will deteriorate the more you bottle it up. I have two outlets. I will either go into my shed that has a golf net set up and pound the hell out of balls while picturing the guy who sucked out on me or take an axe and chop wood while doing the same picturing of the guy who sucked out on me. This releases my anger physically and allows me to chill out mentally. We can argue about the issues of picturing someone you don’t know while chopping wood, in another blog lol.  Then I go over the facts of the situation and reaffirm who I am. I will go over triumphs and how much money I’ve made to reestablish my confidence. Then I repeat a line that has helped me tremendously, “this is just another step to my next win.” When Edison was asked what it felt like to fail hundreds of times to make the light bulb, his response was, “I didn’t fail hundreds of times, I just found hundreds of ways that didn’t work.” That’s the mentality that it takes to deal with the frustration of bad beats.

Another thing is don’t listen to the crap that everyone suffers the same amount of bad beats. You don’t believe that and neither do I. You have to accept the fact that you, as well as myself, are not as fortunate as some other people are. Nobody was luckier than Michael Jordan. NO ONE got more calls and had more close shots roll in. When you add that to the fact that he was one of the most talented players to play the game, you get the combo that makes him one of the best ever. Give Jordan average luck and he has 2 or 3 less rings. You may not have the luck to avoid as many bad beats as some other guys, but over the long haul if you are a solid player, you will make good money. You may not make Bax, Savage or Gator money, but you will make enough to justify continuing to invest your time and money into poker. Now let me address the obvious statement, “are you saying that the top guys are luckier than everyone else?” Yes, but they are also better. They get more out of their luck than most do. They take advantage of situations that are fortunate for them much better than the average player.

Lastly, use the discussion boards here at pocketfives. There is something very cathartic about venting. Each person has to find a happy medium of doing this, because no one likes a whiner. By the way, complaining about a bad beat isn’t whining. Going on and on and on about it is. This is just another tool to use to get you back on track and in the proper mindset to make money.