How To Handle Down Swings And Bad Beats In Poker
Those of you who have been playing poker for quite some time now are completely familiar with the fact that bad beats and down swings are part of (online) poker games.
Downswing can be defined as losing quite some amount of money in short period of time due to so called bad beats or cold decks.
With that said, I am pretty certain you have at some point in your poker »career« had or experience a previously defined downswing (if you haven’t then I guess you are quite new to poker).
This is nothing unusal of course, but (as mentioned above) rather something that every poker player can expect to happen (sooner or later). In this post, I am going to give you a couple of ideas about how to deal with downswings and bad beats in poker.
Before I do that, let me quickly give you one or two example of bad beat or cold deck situation.
An Example Of Bad Beat And Downswing In Poker
Imagine that you are holding pocket Aces on the Button (position before Small Blind). Players on the first two positions fold their cards the the player in the early middle position raises four (4) times big blind (standard open raise).
Every body folds and the turn to act comes your way. Naturally, you raise that player making it 10 times big blind. Small blind and big blind both fold and the turn to act gets back to the original raiser.
He thinks for about two (2) seconds and then shoves (goes allin) for the rest of his chips. Of course, you call very quickly (after all, you are holding pocket Aces, which is the best possible preflop hand you can get).
You see that original raisor is holding pocket Fives. You have him on the leash as only two remaining Fives can save him from getting busted.
The dealer spreads the cards and your opponent hits another 5 on the river, which means your pocket Aces just got cracked.
This is an example of so called bad beat or cold deck situation.
Such situations happen quite commonly when playing poker. When you experience several situations like that in short period of time (like 20 times in a week), this can be defined as downswing.
How To Deal With Bad Beats, Cold Decks And Downswings When Playing Poker?
With that said, lets now see what is the best way to deal with such situations.
Below I share a couple of tips or hints that are not necessarily the best way of handling bad beats and downswings, but can be useful if you apply them.
1. Expect Bad Beats And Downswings To Happen
Having bad beats and downswings when playing poker is something you can not and will not avoid in the long run.
Thinking it will not affect you is like sticking your head into the sand in the middle of nowhere and imagining you are on Bahamas. While you certainly can convince yourself that you are indeed on Bahamas, the reality will get you sooner or later.
It is therefore better to expect bad beats and downswings to happen. In such way, you will not look at them as the end of the world, but it will be easier for you to accept them as part of the poker game.
2. Eliminate Emotions From Your Poker Game
The biggest »problem« that players have to face when having a downswing is the emotions.
The fact that you have just lost a full buyin to some idiot who could not fold pocket Fives to your big reraise can be really frustrating, I know!
When this happens, try to deal with it without going nuts. By doing this, you will not only preserve your good mood, but also protect yourself from tilting.
The last thing you want to do is going on tilt and risking additional buyin to get that money back in the next hand.
If you cant stop yourself from being mad, pissed off or whatever you do after experiencing a bad beat, then the best thing you can do is stop playing poker for a while and instead go for a walk, call your girlfriend or whatever.
3. Stay Focused
Again, do not let bad beats and downswings affect the way you play your next hand and the hand after that one.
Instead, you should stay focused and keep playing according to your (hopefully winning) strategy as this is the only way to make money in the poker in the long run.
If your concentration drops, you could potentially lose more money in that session but not due to bad beat but due to bad decisions.
That is all for now from me about how to handle bad beats and downswings in poker.
I will be more than happy to hear it from you:
- How do you handle bad beats and downswings?
- Do you have any other advice regarding this matter?
You can leave your response in the comments below. Thanks and good luck!
Special poker offers:
Comments
Stay in touch!
