Handling Losses When You Played Perfectly (almost perfectly?)

[Warik]

Though this may look like a bad beat story at first glance, whining is not what my post is intended for... so my apologies in advance to those tired of bad beat threads.

I'm hoping to get some insight as to how you guys handle getting destroyed in a hand you played perfectly and ended up giving away lots of your stack.

I'm not even going to describe the hands because it won't change anything, and like I said, this isn't a bad beat story. It's the same as one of those blackjack situations where you hold 8,2, hit yourself to 20 and the dealer 5 card 21s you. Screwed if you hit, screwed if you stand. You play perfectly but you are doomed before the cards are even dealt.

The "I'm going to be a winning player some day" side of me says: "every call he made put money in your pocket... every raise he made put even more. If you play this situation again a thousand times you will be rich" and that's great and all... but the logically minded side of me says: "Dude, you are not going to play this situation a thousand times!! You got rivered and you'll probably never play against this guy again!!! If he put money in your pocket with every call/raise, then why did he walk off with all of yours!!! Who are you trying to kid? YOU'RE DOOMED!!! DOOOOOOMED MUHAHAHAH!"

How do you get past this?

[Mike Gallo]

How do you get past this?

I go for a smoke break. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

"Bad beats" hardly bother me anymore. I have become numb. I do not know whether to consider this good or bad. [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

[GuyOnTilt]

How do you get past this?

I think in terms of EV. Looking at my win-rate at the end of each month helps too. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

GoT

[fluff]

I guess you have to have faith in EV. On nights when AK top two pair gets beaten by a runner-runner 42o full house, TPTK gets killed by rivered inside straight and such, you just have to know that eventhough in these particular hands you lost money, in the long run you make money off of players like this. True, you probably will never have the same exact hand again, and you may never play this same guy again, but that doesn't matter. You don't keep score against just this one guy for just this one hand. You keep score for all of these type of guys and for all these types of hands, and as long as these type of guys make these type of plays (-EV ones), you can't help but make money off them.

As long as you make +EV plays and these guys make -EV plays you are like the house and they are the casino patrons. And the house always wins. (Provided no cheating, and sufficient BR).

Once you really *know* this in your heart of hearts, bad beats do not upset you. In fact they should amuse you.

[bernie]

[ QUOTE ]
It's the same as one of those blackjack situations where you hold 8,2, hit yourself to 20 and the dealer 5 card 21s you.

[/ QUOTE ]

im guessing that in this situation, you shouldve doubled down and only taken one card. in this case, the idea isnt to make '21', it's to get money in the pot when the dealer is most likely to bust regardless of your hands actual value at the time. if you hit a high hand, 19+, it's an extra hedge for your bet should the dealer not bust.

how does that apply? if played right, you're making money during the hand EVEN though you lose the pot. longrunwise, it will pay off. if the opponents never won, they'd never play. they'd be broke. sorry about the cliche, but it's true.

watch how some of these players play when they are missing their hands and how much they buy in and blow. it doesnt even have to be this 'particular' player, but this 'type' of player.

no one said winning was easy. it's much more than just playing great cards and playing them well. it's about handling these types of sessions/runs. which is why i like to mention to the ones who are on a great run and winning that the real test is when the cards turn.

this is a big corner that many, many players never get around. or they get around it only to fall back behind it later on. (usually after another great run and they forget how tough it was the last time they went through it)

anyway, study the game more and hang in there.

the cards will turn.

eventually

b

[lostinthought]

I think this is an aspect of poker that is even easier handling if you're an online player. First of all, because you can see more hands in the same amount of time - you see the long run a little faster (in terms of hands). Second, there are great database programs like pokertracker and statking where you can keep accurate records of your results.

When I was still pretty green(new) playing online (I still am relative to some of the posters here), bad beats esp. at higher limits that I wasn't used to easily put me on tilt. Now that I have more than a years worth of playing behind me, with records and results, the bad beats seem to blur a little more. I think 500-600 hours in a pokertracker database will begin to give you an idea that certain hands really do hold up over time. You just have to have the perspective. And that perspective is achieved through experience and reflection.

Good luck..

[CrackerZack]

Depends on where this happens...

If it's in my home game, I usually have another drink and think that at least its a 2-4 game instead of a mid-limit game. If its a mid-limit game, I usually just say F-it because I'm happy to be playing in a casino. You do kind of get numb to it. An entire night of it can still get to anyone though, unless they've turn robot.

[Schneids]

Think of the bad players as a collective group, and don't worry about getting anything back from each individual bad player that lays a bad beat on you. It's simply inevitable that they're going to river their gutshot on you once out of every 12 times. It's their groups other 11 out of 12 failed efforts that you should focus on and remind yourself about.

[Warik]

Thanks for the comments guys. This was in a $1/$2 local indian cardoom. I stayed calm because in my experience I always recooped my suckout losses in the next pot I won. Losing the next pot, although it truly did make me crack up... it did upset me because live play and online play are different for me. Online play 3 hours means 450-540 hands. (50-60 hands/hr x 3 tables x 3 hrs) Live 3 hours isn't much, especially at low limit.

I'm happy at least that I don't tilt anymore live (online is a different story [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]). Once I can learn to accept that "it happens" and that I will be OK in the long run if I all of my decisions are +EV, then I think I will be in very good shape.

Thanks again

[nykenny]

how to ease the pain of getting sucked out badly?

1) make a note on this person and hope he shows up in your game again.
2) play many tables at the same time so u only have about 3 secs to think about this hand after it's over.
3) accept that this is the one of the many (few) 1:1000-shot-suck-outs you HAVE TO experience (mathematically) in your poker life-time. no matter how unlikely it is going to happen again the same way.
4) look at my records for last week and sympothize me [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Kenny