How to play through continuous bad beats

Aud300

Aud300

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I have a question for the board.

I have been playing this last weekend and today and I have cashed 1/4 in online freerolls.

Not big cashes but enough to play some mirco cash games.

I would like to ask the board a question.

how many times have you played and you feel like all the coin flips or even when your ahead you find some way to lose the hand and severly cripple your stack to wear you are all - in or nothing.
 
Ronaldadio

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I have a question for the board.
I have been playing this last weekend and today and I have cashed 1/4 in online freerolls.
Not big cashes but enough to play some mirco cash games.
I would like to ask the board a question.
how many times have you played and you feel like all the coin flips or even when your ahead you find some way to lose the hand and severly cripple your stack to wear you are all - in or nothing.

Always, but I know that is not the case. Prime example today. I had built up a nice chip stack 3k - 12k in under an hour.
I`m delt pocket Jacks in PL game. Raise pot, get 3 callers. Flop KJQ rainbow. Bad flop - I had a feeling. So I raise pot, get one caller (take into account, a pot raise was now almost 50% of our stacks here)
Next card K giving KJQK flop - I now have FH. But, my feeling was worse, so I raised 1/4 pot. He calls. river 3. No flush, A10 would give straight, I`m only behind to pocket KK/ QQ/ KQ/ KJ but I had a real bad feeling.
I check, he raised 1/4 pot. I call, he shows KJ :eek:
So, I lost about 80% of my stack, but I feel it could have been worse. Bottom line, I feel I played every street right, but the guy got lucky.

With poker, it is my opinion that all you can do is make the correct move at the correct time - you have no control over what happens after that.
 
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chardukian

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I hope you are not complaining about cashing in freerolls more than 1 in 4 times. freerolls are such a joke to begin with because most people playing them dont even know basic strategy which throws your game off and you end up dealing with a lot of variance. I just got through a 28 buy in downswing in my regular game. Now that was frustrating.
 
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wooo

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Bad bets happen all the time.
I just won a $5 sng.
But i lost the 7 before that one.
And i lost a lot of them sngs to bad beats.
Its just the way it goes sometimes.
You have times when you seem to win all the time as well.;)
 
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ammo12180

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Kenny Rogers sang a song about this problem. " You got to know when to hold em, Know when to fold em."
 
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Cilderr

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Whene you are in a downswing(bad beats, bad plays, suckouts whatever) then just stop playing for a couple days. And don't tilt.
 
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maspowerj

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When ur lost alot of your money , stop playing.. Or Play on a other website.. A lot of times you are on tilt and play more hands then normally! Stop playing for a couple of days or try a different site !
 
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wolfchild1

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Dont make the mistake I normaly make when I lose a couple of sng,s and that is to play higher buy in,s to try and make the money back quick
 
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Cilderr

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I have similar condition right now. Last week i have always put my chips in as a favorite, but always finished the tournament with a bad beat. People catch 3-outers, 2 outers, runner-runner suits...make bad calls and get rewarded.
 
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a6april

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I hope you are not complaining about cashing in freerolls more than 1 in 4 times. freerolls are such a joke to begin with because most people playing them dont even know basic strategy which throws your game off and you end up dealing with a lot of variance. I just got through a 28 buy in downswing in my regular game. Now that was frustrating.

Lets be clear, The thread started with "How to play through continuous bad beats", This does not sound like an idle complaint or even whining for that matter. Lets examine quickly, putting aside the obvious traps like set over set or a large stack calling your all in with 13 or more outs, lets not confuse these situations with bad beats, that contributes to the old cliche "That's Poker" Those types of things just happen. I think Aud300 was referring to unbelievably losing in a long continuous streak to the most unlikely scenarios. I like that this question was brought to "The Board" because I would like to hear an on point discussion and review of this. I think we are talking about being desperate in situations where you really need your hand to hold up, or when your chips are down and your hand is best and way ahead, you have to win that race in order to stay alive in the tourney. I am talking about having AA and getting called by AA and losing to a flush, or having KK and losing to a four card straight with 99. When these sort of things happen consistently over the course of 8 or 9 tourneys, it can take a toll on your game, confidence and attitude. I am not talking about losing that 1 all in hand 9 tourneys in a row.

I am talking about losing 4 or 5 hands in a row to ridiculous circumstances in the same tourney, and only to find that in the very next tourney...just when you thought it couldn't get worse....well you get the idea. This will no doubt turn into a vicious and relentless cycle if not examined, made aware of and corrected. These scenarios = playing bad, = running bad = playing bad = running bad = bad decisions = Broke!

The most common advice is to not lose your game or style of game and continue to make the correct decisions, play the best you can, get it in good and that's all you can do, and the biggie is always "if you do the correct move, over time this will prove to even itself out"

Pretty crappy advice if your in a tourney, who cares about the next tourney when you need to win the one your in.

I can recall this poker realm or rutt rather easily because I am hip deep into it now. Early in the game (starter Stack) I turn the J high Straight, with 2 callers on the large bet. The board pairs the river and I call the pot size bet as does the other player only to my surprise the river card is the one (1) outer giving me the worse hand. Ouch! Then I lose my next hand to AA with AA, and the next hand I play I am all in with a set of J's on the flop - 10 outs to the river to improve and I lose to runner runner Straight, all I can think about is how many Tourneys did I just tank in a row?

Please remember, Free roll, 1 Million dollar, or main event, it does not matter, when you are ahead, you want players with inferior hands, or who are behind to call you. Putting aside skill sets, Your good hands MUST win when they are supposed to. When you are running bad this can be overwhelming because nothing makes sense. If your ahead 90% of the time, you should win 50% of those or expect to win at least 35% of those. But to lose 4 out of 5 or in some cases 5 out of 5? The question is..."What to do?"

1. I do not want to sound like a cop out, but the other suggestions to "Stop"...Very good advice, unless you are able to control emotions that surely put you on tilt. Me personally, I have never in my life, nor do I know of anyone whom of which has ever made a GOOD decision when angry. You have to STOP, Take your time and with diligence examine and evaluate "What just happened"

2. Understand the difference between "Playing well, and getting lucky" Everyone who has ever had a bad run, has also dished one out at one time or another. Luck is just luck, good or bad it will always be there. That is the hardest to accept. Don't label it good or bad, just know it is there. Pros, know when they are getting lucky or as I call it, a fortunate run of good cards, and have the uncanny ability to ride it out and also know when to reel it in and make sick lay downs, which often seems like wow, why on earth would he make that call or How the hell did he know to fold there? If you don't know the difference between Playing Well & Getting Lucky ..... Well then your probably just getting lucky.

2. Discipline! When you know you are running bad, use caution, pretty much all the time. If you limp with AA, be prepared to fold if your instincts tell you to do so. If you raise big with AA pre-flop and get 5 callers....use caution and rely on your instincts. How often do I win with 1 over pair anyway? Maybe you liked your hand in the beginning, but compared to whats on the board and my assessment of player reaction, Do I still like it or do I need to see another hand? Discipline rule number 1..."You can't make a comeback if you do not have any chips"

3. Patience! You must wait it out. Understand Step 2, you need Discipline to grasp patience. Being card dead for hours often makes mediocre hands seem like the nuts, and you always seem to get them out of position with 3 lags at the table. Have patience, Know your environment and know how your playing.

4. Aggressive. Often in this scenario playing scared is most likely going to take over your game. Or at least you may start to feel that way and we all know, playing scared is not playing well. You must know the difference between the two. In these situations, I will always try and play the button as often as I can without getting smacked. You will have to get aggressive period. You must maintain a level of confidence and project that into your table image no matter how you are feeling on the inside. If you are losing consistently at the river, well than it's best never to let it get that far. (This goes into chip management ... you have to know what your opponent is going to do, or at least sense it, if you leave him/her no choice to bang well than aggression is the thing you have to work on. We will save that for another topic.)

All in all I would love to hear other suggestions. This is a tough one to grasp because if you love this game, it's hard to stay in when your in this particular kind of rut.
 
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bz54321

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Great run down a6april

What happens to me is when I have a 90% chance of winning but it losses 5 times in a short period of time. I start playing like the other players with junk but I never seem to hit my miracle one outers. So I end up losing twice as much.

When things like this happen it really messes with my mind. And it always seems to happen more often when i am nitting it up. Its amazing to me that I can push someone all-in on the turn and they call with basically nothing and catch there one outer. Yet this never happens to me... Maybe I just fold to much.

One thing that's interesting is if some one is getting lucky they tend to continue getting lucky. I have seen it happen and I have had it happen. And from this thread I am now thinking the opposite is true and I don't pay enough attention to when its happening to other people. Although its hard because they are normally out before you can take advantage of it.

I have not figured out the solution to dealing with this yet but it is on the top of the list for things that screw with me when I play poker. Really stopping and waiting until I feel more lucky\ are in a different state of mind has worked the best so far but still not great.
 
Deluxeliner

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Variance is why the bad players play. You can't win 100% of 80/20 spots, hence it being an 80/20 spot. It's why chess isn't blowing up being played for massive amounts of money by regular folks.
 
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Nice post a6, pretty interesting stuff.


I actually take bad beats pretty regularly and I'm wondering how often you cash game grinder get them, at the moment I generally take 1 or more bad beats for every thousand hands played which seems quite high to me but I guess that is standard.

@ OP, the important thing is that you are getting your money in good, that is all that matters at the end of the day
 
youregoodmate

youregoodmate

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New players take for granted the times they win and throw a paddy when they lose, hence why they feel they run badly.
 
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ScottishMatt

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New players take for granted the times they win and throw a paddy when they lose, hence why they feel they run badly.

Yeah, thing about playing micros is that even when you run bad you get still get paid off enough to offset most losses from the bad beat itself. Most losses usually come from tilt in my experience.
 
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RamdeeBen

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I have a question for the board.

I have been playing this last weekend and today and I have cashed 1/4 in online freerolls.

Not big cashes but enough to play some mirco cash games.

I would like to ask the board a question.

how many times have you played and you feel like all the coin flips or even when your ahead you find some way to lose the hand and severly cripple your stack to wear you are all - in or nothing.


Every single time I play. You will find this is exactly the same for EVERYONE, there are times you have a bad streak of bad run, but this is poker...this is what makes you come back and play poker because the bad players have to win sometimes.
 
T-Dubs82

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if i suffer through some bad beats in a cash game, i just try to stay focused. if i feel myself tilting or if those bad beats start affecting my decisions i take a break. it wasnt easy to walk away in the beginning
 
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a6april

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What happens to me is when I have a 90% chance of winning but it losses 5 times in a short period of time. I start playing like the other players with junk but I never seem to hit my miracle one outers. So I end up losing twice as much.

When things like this happen it really messes with my mind. And it always seems to happen more often when i am nitting it up. It's amazing to me that I can push someone all-in on the turn and they call with basically nothing and catch there one outer. Yet this never happens to me... Maybe I just fold to much.

One thing that's interesting is if some one is getting lucky they tend to continue getting lucky. I have seen it happen and I have had it happen. And from this thread I am now thinking the opposite is true and I don't pay enough attention to when its happening to other people. Although its hard because they are normally out before you can take advantage of it.

Interesting assessment I really like your point of view, I have not fully "checked" myself or my state of mind when this sort of streak infiltrates my table and continues throughout the next few of tourneys. I will definitely try your advice, nitting it up may be a well disguised flag for me because I usually play pretty solid, but after reading your post, my reads are the first tool to get squashed when I go on tilt, followed up by bad decisions and not even know that I am on tilt, until it is way too late to recover. I was in a live tourney just last night and I was all in way ahead in chips with AJ against AJ (Chop 99%) and I lossed the hand, even though this does not fit the title to this thread because this was not a continuous scenario because I hit my open end and a gut shot earlier in the tourney (both unavoidable spots but I had to play the odds I was getting), so I did not get upset later losing AJ to AJ as this falls under variance and "Oh well, that's just Poker" That is not what this thread is about, and I do not want to get off topic, but I did take notice to your thread:

What happens to me is when I have a 90% chance of winning but it losses 5 times in a short period of time. I start playing like the other players with junk but I never seem to hit my miracle one outers. So I end up losing twice as much.
A sudden and unforeseen sting like that perhaps puts me into a frustrated tilt that I am not fully aware of, even though I tell myself, "Shake it off, You'll get it back" there is still remnants of "**** this" left over, all I could think about is this happened to me 4 times in 2 months, that's impossible ...right..... And as you stated in your thread, nitting it up seems to follow producing more and more unlikely continuous suck outs and 1 outer draws hitting for the other guy. After reading more on this I realized, I do not usually call all ins with a weak hand like AJ, My justification was flimsy at best, he usually makes this move when he is weak because he knows I have the discipline to fold big cards in similar situations. This means I made a bad decision.

After reading this post, my original post takes on a whole new meaning, running bad = playing bad, = running bad = bad decisions = Broke!

I think I can correct this by adjusting the decision process. Bad Decisions = Running Bad = Playing Bad = Broke! I will make an attempt to sit back and be patient and understand why I make decisions and the logic I use to arrive at those decisions. I am a post flop player and usually play the player and when I am firing on all 8 cylinders, I make good decisions and I realize now that when an unfortunate turn of events occur my decision process breaks down to something less than what I am able to explain and often find myself in situations asking myself "How the hell did I get in this spot, I shoulda seen this coming a mile away"

Just an after thought and a suggestion to other posts, I will never turn away from advice and will take it all in like a sponge, but please know this, Variance is another topic altogether and a new thread should be started if that is what you want to research, briefly Variance is defined in Physics and Chemistry as the number of degrees of freedom of a system. That is to say all things being constant the unknown variable is part of the equation. I saw a post here where a bad beat occurs 1 in a 1,000. Well I hope you never get to experience losing to a 1 or 2 outer 9 out of 10 times in a row, hand after hand, tourney after tourney, and cash game after cash game. I know people who tell me this can last for months, sometimes years. This sort of thing happens to ALL poker players at some point in their career, this is the only thread (Thanks bz54321 and ALL of the other posts VERY GOOD INSIGHTS) that is willing to help some of us climb out of the mental chaos that ensues as a result of this. Hashing out the term "Variance" or "Well That's just Poker" is a little off, it's like advising someone who is on fire, to not be on fire. My personal opinion on Variance is that variance is part of the equation of poker and does not need to be addressed separately. I am not trying to snub anyone, just encouraging a little more thought. I hope this helps the people who have not run into this problem just yet …because believe me …you will and you should see the warning signs and be prepare for it. I don't believe "Riding it out" is a worthy explanation to my fellow Poker Players.

Thanks All

-- Poker Players are my kind of People; they are the only people who get me …. I love them all, even the ones I hate ~sniper
 
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noreraise

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From my own experience, the single BEST way to play through continuous bad beats is by playing at a level where losing a few buy ins don't affect your emotion at all. Like it or not, the moment we lose more than a certain amount of money, we will start feeling bad and go on tilt. Quite a few successful poker pros teach this principle of 100 buy-ins bankrolls rule, such as Gaucho (think he retires now but he used to be really successful before switching off to pursue his Harvard law career), Rob Akery (still active, cashinpoker.com), the Dang brothers (big consistent winners at FullTilt highstake poker in the past and won like 10 mil, but I still see them playing 50/100$)
 
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ellet

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I have a question for the board.

I have been playing this last weekend and today and I have cashed 1/4 in online freerolls.

Not big cashes but enough to play some mirco cash games.

I would like to ask the board a question.

how many times have you played and you feel like all the coin flips or even when your ahead you find some way to lose the hand and severly cripple your stack to wear you are all - in or nothing.

I play in betonline freerolls almost everyday (at least one time)... And I have only won twice. That site seems to have a lot of bots... and just terrible players that always seem to flop the nuts with their 8 deuce off suit... Can anyone suggest a better site for freerolls?
 
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GWU73

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Thinking of each bet as not belonging to me any more has really helped. It also tempered my tendency to be hyper aggressive because once I bet, the money is not mine.
 
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a6april

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I play in betonline freerolls almost everyday (at least one time)... And I have only won twice. That site seems to have a lot of bots... and just terrible players that always seem to flop the nuts with their 8 deuce off suit... Can anyone suggest a better site for freerolls?

Free Rolls are Free rolls and unfortunately they are basically the same anywhere you go. Free Rolls are an important tool for any player, depending on how you look at it. I usually use free-rolls to test out any new theory I am working on, whether I am working on pot control one day, or how to play utg against the button on another day, but you have to remember free rolls are either the catch all for tilted players or for players learning and sometimes a well executed play goes unnoticed and you will have the suck outs. If you get really good in free rolls, whatever you learn there is not going to help you in an important money tourney because the players are just way better than what you will find in a free roll, or they are really stepping up their game when there is money at stake. My suggestion is to pick an area of your game to work on and no matter what follow through on that educational goal. I usually use free rolls to reiterate discipline and patience in my game because its the best place to end up on tilt for the reasons you suggested. Make good reads on players, play good cards, make hard lay downs and you will win those free rolls, but try and always remember is this helping my game? If you find that the idiocy (sometimes) of free rolls is hurting your game or you feel bad tendencies are infiltrating your game as a result, than don't play them. If you are able to keep them in perspective and improve your game don't expect to win, but expect to improve your game.
 
bz54321

bz54321

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Free Rolls are Free rolls and unfortunately they are basically the same anywhere you go. Free Rolls are an important tool for any player, depending on how you look at it. I usually use free-rolls to test out any new theory I am working on, whether I am working on pot control one day, or how to play utg against the button on another day, but you have to remember free rolls are either the catch all for tilted players or for players learning and sometimes a well executed play goes unnoticed and you will have the suck outs. If you get really good in free rolls, whatever you learn there is not going to help you in an important money tourney because the players are just way better than what you will find in a free roll, or they are really stepping up their game when there is money at stake. My suggestion is to pick an area of your game to work on and no matter what follow through on that educational goal. I usually use free rolls to reiterate discipline and patience in my game because its the best place to end up on tilt for the reasons you suggested. Make good reads on players, play good cards, make hard lay downs and you will win those free rolls, but try and always remember is this helping my game? If you find that the idiocy (sometimes) of free rolls is hurting your game or you feel bad tendencies are infiltrating your game as a result, than don't play them. If you are able to keep them in perspective and improve your game don't expect to win, but expect to improve your game.

This is great.
 
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