Bad Beat Tilt

This past few days, I've taken some of the worst beats. Three times people called pot size bets on all streets to hit gutshot straights on the river.
My KK vs his JJ ? Hits a Jack on the flop.
AA vs 88, hits an 8.
KJ vs J6, hits a 6.
AT vs T3, hits a 3.
My wife was sitting here with me and after one of them just said, "wow, that was some bad luck"

I can't win a race no matter what I start with. Now, I've still managed to finish ITM in 3 of these but I noticed this evening that my play was suffering. I've gotten gun shy and turned either weak tight or extremely loose and aggressive.

The lack of confidence in my good starting hands coupled with timid betting is a recipie for disaster.

I know that I want people calling with worse hands. I know I want these fish in the game, these are the people I win money from. This past week I've felt like I've stepped on every land mine in the field while these deaf dumb and blind kids waltz through to the end.

Maybe I'll go buy that magnet and play with that instead for a few days.

Wow, That is some run of bad luck, sounds like you need to take some time off, maybe a day or two then go back and play your normal, solid game that your use to playing or you might just end up donking off your chips in every game you play.
So take some time off and you'll play better.

I know how you feel. I made it to heads up in a $22 SnG playing really well, even in chips with opponent, and we end up all-in after the turn. Not gonna recall the whole hand history, but I have two pair jacks and nines, he has two pair eights and nines, hits his two-outer 8 on the river (4% chance). That bad beat costs me $40. Sucks sucks sucks. That just happened. Earlier today, J9 beat my QQ, 77 beat my AA, and there were of course a couple slightly less extreme cases of bad luck. It sucks really bad, but it's uncontrollable. I feel a lot worse when I lose because of a mistake I feel I made. All you can do is play your best, get the money in with the best of it, and roll with the punches. Good luck.

I feel for you, I've been there or close to it. I'm sure most everyone here understands how you are feeling, or has felt like that at some point.

The key here is to note that you were playing solid poker when you took this unfortunate string of bad beats. You got your money in with the best of it, you can't do more than that. And you are correct as you stated, you want these fish in the game calling with crappy cards. They are the ATMs we need.

Maybe it is time to take a few days off and do something that isn't poker. Take some time to clear your head, shake off the bad run, and just disconnect. Then come back and get back to playing the solid poker that you know how to play and have proven many times over.

you stop counting them eventually and then it stops affecting you

Effexor said:

Maybe I'll go buy that magnet and play with that instead for a few days.

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But you might break your hand, and then how will you use your mouse?

One way to cut down on bad beats is to play less at pokerstars. On Stars you don't need donks makin ridiculous calls. Today went allin as shortstack with KK & was called by AA & AKs, normal starting hands for 7 player table I realize & of course AKs won. Didn't even suprise me much less piss me off it happens so often. By the way AA had a couple of hundred left so went allin next hand with A7 flopped 7 & lost to trip 7's.

Kenzie 96 said:

One way to cut down on bad beats is to play less at PokerStars. On Stars you don't need donks makin ridiculous calls. Today went allin as shortstack with KK & was called by AA & AKs, normal starting hands for 7 player table I realize & of course AKs won. Didn't even suprise me much less piss me off it happens so often. By the way AA had a couple of hundred left so went allin next hand with A7 flopped 7 & lost to trip 7's.

Click to expand...

After this past week I'm thinking about switching over to FullTilt again. I keep telling myself that these bad players are the ones I want to play against, but in MTT's I keep running into chasers that hit and wipe me out or cripple my stack. I like the large MTT's with small buy ins at PS, but they seem to be more bingo than poker. At any rate, I'm taking a short break. I just bought HoH Vol. 2, I'll spend my limited free time reading that.

Effexor, what buy-ins are these tournaments you usually play? If the buy-in is low, you're going to find an overwhelming amount of uber donks nearly everywhere you play, or at least that's what my experience tells me.

KK vs JJ 4.5:1 favourite
AA vs 88 4.5:1 favourite
KJ vs J6 3:1 favourite
AT vs T3 3:1 favourite

Considering that at best, you're only going to win with big pair vs a smaller pair roughly 4 out of 5 times, this really isn't that bad of a run. People (including me; easier said than done, right ) really need to realize just how common it is to lose a race, even if you are 'dominating' villain's hand. For ex., AA vs AKs is roughly a 7:1 favourite. Dominating, but consider that AK will still win 1 out of 8 times, and you realize that AA really isn't as much of a monster as some people think.

I dunno; i'm just ranting (again) but although I'd be pretty pissed with a run like that aswell, Effexor, I think that people have to really step back and realize that hands that they think are 'monsters' really aren't that big. On top of that, but after the flop those odds can drop considerably should your opponent hit his hand. Realizing that would help tremendously with the tilt that goes along with losing with one of those 'monsters', and should help you improve one's game.