Dealing with bad runs
 

I'd like to direct this question to all of you who play basically for a living.

How do you deal with bad runs of cards/luck. When you go long stretchs without any good cards, and when you do get good cards they get beat?

Do you set a limit for the day? If you lose $X then you quit for the day, or do you just keep plugging away until i t turns?

Re: Dealing with bad runs
 

standard: poker's a lifetime game, play every hand as well as you can and it works out in the long run.

Re: Dealing with bad runs
 

that may be the standard responce but for us non robotic types playing your best when losing can be tough and there are some things the poster can do to help him psycologically when running bad. if you have control problems and tend to go off for big numbers you may want to set a stop loss.
if your confidence is shaken put some wins together. play some shorter than normal sessions and lock up some wins, getting your confidence back is one of the hardest things when running bad.
stay in the moment, and try to make every decision as well as you can now. its seems obvious but it can be difficult to realize when your getting killed. you cant affect the past or the future but you can make good decisions NOW, so make sure you do. concentrate on making one good decision at a time.
matty

Re: Dealing with bad runs
 

Ice-cream always makes me feel better after a tough beat.

Re: Dealing with bad runs
 

Beats are tough to clear out of your mind, but you just have to remember:
Baldwin said after the 1981 tournament. 'But if they want to better their game and better their emotional state while playing, they should realize it's a mirage. If you are an excellent player, people are going to draw out on you a lot more than you're going to draw out on them because they're simply going to have the worst hand against you a lot more times than you have the worst hand against them. There's no way you're going to draw out on anybody if you don't get all your money in there on the worst hand.'

in short accept people sucking out on you repeatedly, this means that you were getting money in with the better hand. proper BR management will help you not worry so much, as will keeping sharp accounting records ie PokerTracker.

Re: Dealing with bad runs
 

Remember Your "Good Beats"
A "good beat" occurs when you are the lucky idiot who misplays his hand, catches a miracle card, and wins a large pot. Because we want to believe that we play well, but are unlucky, we remember bad beats, but forget good ones. This pattern protects our egos, but causes lots of anger.
So if you remember those outrageously lucky good beats, you won't get so upset when someone sucks out on you.
You may pretend that you never make such mistakes or get that lucky, but everybody does it. You are just as lucky and unlucky as everyone else.

Re: Dealing with bad runs
 

I find getting a day job to remind you what money actually is helped for me. One day of filing some dudes file cabinet helped me remeber why I need to seriously consider every single decision when I play. keller wrote an article about keeping that kind of fear in you in the latest Card Player, althou he didn't put it that way. Also, drugs and alcohol are a great way to foget anything.

Re: Dealing with bad runs
 

I am a newbie - and right now, the hardest thing for me is when I run what I call "flop dead". I can handle getting crappy hole cards because then I can just get out of the hand. However, I recently had a run of excellent hole cards that just never hit the flop. Like JJ and the board comes AKx - or AK and the board comes 789 - and so on.

Then, I started getting the worst cards to follow that - thinks like A8o, or KTo - hands that, under ordinary circumstances I probably wouldn't play, but which I am now going in on because I start feeling that SOMETHING has to hit for me.

Re: Dealing with bad runs
 

I do not play for a living, but i do not see reason to set limits to losings or winnings for stopping to play.

Play as long as you play well and better than the other players at the table. Stop if you play bad or worse than the other players.

Re: Dealing with bad runs
 

i think setting limits for yourself is a bad idea, per se. What I mean by that is you have to stop when you have become emotionally attached to the amount you have either lost or WON.
I am turning around now on a 3 month dead flop on tournaments, cashing in my last two. It has been a hard experience, I read a book about Zen and Poker and it helped. Howard Lederer on howardlederer.com has a great article about Zen and Poker, which I also find helpful (especially knowing I am not the only one looking this way).
Always remember:
River Happens!

Re: Dealing with bad runs
 

If you can continue to play optimal poker, there is no reason to set a limit on your play. Even the best players can get razzed after playing a couple hours and not winning a cent, and this is certainly an excuse to quit for the day. Find something better to do with your time if you don't think you can play optimal poker (I swear this is what twoplustwo was created for). If you are playing for a living, keeping yourself educated is most certainly valuable time spent as you need to stay one step ahead of your opponents, plus it will pump you up for the next time you sit down to play. If it's really bad, take a day or two off, you may just be pokered out.

Re: Dealing with bad runs
 

Thanks to everyone who replied, this was very helpful. I don't play for a living, I have a full time job, but I do play about 3-4 hours a night, and as much as 8-10 hours on weekends. I don't win enough to pay the bills, but I win more than I lose.

What I was trying to get at was not really how to deal with bad beats, although that is part of it. But more what Hank
mentions. I went through a long period of bad cards (Which I easily folded) but it was the good ones that never improved, or improved enough to let me stay in, only to lose to a better hand. (Like flopping a set, but the flop is suited, doh!)

Then, like Hank said, I found myself playng hands like Q10o because I felt I had to hit something, or I hadn't seen 2 cards that high in an hour. Anyway, I went through about 4 buyins in 1 weekend when I rarely ever lose an entire buyin much less two in a single session. I kept saying "I should just quit for the day", but I kept playing, and admitidly playing poorly. I actually sucked out a few hands I had no business in, and at that point I realized I was on tilt, and definitely needed to quit especially since I just sucked out twice on the same guy in about 5 or 6 hands (rivering the flush both times). So that prompted me to think maybe I should set a 1 or 2 buyin limit for myself so I don't get to that point where I am so annoyed I am playing cards I shouldn't be.

I know I shouldn't let the bad runs affect my play, and usually a bad beat doesn't get to me all that much. It is the long runs of bad luck and bad cards that eventually get me playing poorly.

I was just curious if people who rely on their winning for a living do something similar.

Thanks

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