Bad beats or am I doing something wrong?

How do you tell the difference?

I feel like lately, I've gotten a lot of bad beats. Things like losing with a king-high flush against an ace-high flush. Or a loose aggressive player reraises me preflop and goes all in when I'm in late position with pocket aces. He had a queen and an 8. Flopped one 8, and got another on the river to beat me.

And that's been happening a lot. Exactly that kind of thing, where I feel like I made all the right decisions, but still lost.

So am I just getting bad beats? Am I doing something wrong? Is there something I'm missing? How do you tell whether you've gotten bad beats or whether you're making mistakes? How do you tell if you need to just be patient and ride out a losing streak, or if you need to change your strategy?

If you're getting it in as favourite, you're doing nothing wrong. Losing with AA when all in pre flop is never a mistake. I'm no fan of the term "bad beat", but I guess that's what it is. Better would be to understand this as variance. You'll lose 20% of the time when you get AA all in pre flop vs one opponent, but you might lose three in a row. That's negative variance. You might also win ten in a row. That's positive variance. Over many hands, it averages to 80%.

If you're getting it in bad, then you might have made a mistake. It depends on your opponent's range. For example, getting in with KK against AA is fine, provided he can also have AK and QQ, which is a reasonable assumption. KK vs a range of QQ+ AK is a profitable all in, so when you run into AA, it's just bad luck.

Likewise, losing with the second nut flush is not a mistake, since your opponent could also have Q or J high flush, or sometimes worse. Over time, getting it in with the second nuts is going to be hugely profitable. But sometimes you lose.

The examples you give seem like bad luck, rather than mistakes.

^ just to add, if there's four of a suit on the board, the second nuts isn't so great. Don't stack a king in these instances unless you know your opponent is terrible and is stacking worse flushes as well as the ace.

huh thanks. I am still kind of sloe on different bets and strategies