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Here's the thing: bad beats never stop, particularly when you're playing good poker against bad players. I know when you're getting stacked over and over, it makes you think that the laws of probability do not apply to you, and the "in the long run" conversations can often make you think “in the long run, this donk will take my chips and just give them to some other donk.” I think from this post one of two things is happening.
The first is that you’re winning money at a fairly steady rate, and you just think that you should be winning more because you’re taking a bad beat or two every day. If this is the case, then you need to get real and stop steaming, because that’s how it’s supposed to work. Even if you get all your chips in the pot pre-flop with AA vs. KK five times in a session, the odds are you’re going to lose at least once, and that number of goes down dramatically if there are other people in the pot. Is it really a bad beat? If KK is supposed to win that percentage of the time, are we really justified in steaming about it? And that’s one of the best possible situations! It’s even worse if you’ve got KK, an absolute monster, against AQ, or even A2! The reality is that poker isn’t about lock hands or situations, it’s about aggressively exploiting edges, and also realizing that these edges generally small enough that you are going to lose pots not just every once in a while, but frequently. Otherwise, you’re doing something wrong. Too many players have tunnel vision about “bad beats” and lose sight of the pots they won with an edge for the pots they lost with an edge. Then, of course, they give up their edge.
I think what is absolutely critical in poker is to realize several things. First, poker is gambling, and I think any good poker player understands that. The best poker players make money because they know how to pick and choose their bets in such a way that they have an edge. Not a certainty (although it's nice when that happens), but an edge. It’s easy to get this part—it’s intuitive and even people who say “poker isn’t gambling” get it (they just misspeak). What a lot of players do not understand is that part of poker skill is learning how to accept and adjust to a game in which there are no guarantees, or even a “right” way to play, and therefore to get better one has to (a) accept responsibility for the outcomes, no matter what they are, or how improbable they are, and (b) adjust their game accordingly.
The second possibility in this post is that you are taking "bad beats" and posting losing sessions. In this case, no matter how improbable the beats were, no matter how well you played, you have to accept that you lost in a game of skill and force yourself to look towards how you could have won. Did you absolutely act optimally in each situation? It’s highly doubtful, because it’s nearly impossible. Poker is a game of incomplete information in uncertain situations—we have to focus on making correct decisions in the variety of situations—and then focus on results. There are so many things to focus on in the game, I think its easy to just look at the final odds when the chips are in the middle, rather than focusing on the much more complex question of how and why they got there.
Just based on things that you’ve written, here are some things I’m noticing:
1. If you’re getting stacked so often, I’m curious if you’re really quick to commit all of your chips on too many hands, particularly high pocket pairs. These are most difficult hands to play in NL for a reason: they are powerhouses pre-flop but once the flop comes, unless you have a set, you just have a concealed top pair. You have to play accordingly and have to discipline to make the right reads and stick with them.
2. When players talk about “bad beats” they often discuss hands in which they committed all of their chips either pre-flop or on the flop. But realize that the best players are more reluctant to do this, because it dramatically increases their variance, and forces them to accept gambles where they have little information about what they are up against. If one of us was sitting at the big NL game in Vegas, with Phil Helmuth on our left, and Phil Ivey on our right, it would be in our best interest to play ulta-aggressively and push either pre-flop or on the flop frequently. It forces them to give up their edge and puts us in more coinflip situations, which in this case, increases our chances of winning. The opposite is true if you’re a good player against a worse one. Let’s say you have JJ and the board comes Jh-9h-6c. You raised to five times the big blind pre-flop in middle position and were called by the CO and the big blind. Then, on the flop, you do what you should do and bet pot with a nice bet, about 2/3 of the pot, hope to induce some action. The C.O. min raises you and the BB folds. Do you push? It really depends. You know you have the best hand, but you also know it’s vulnerable, and your edge is huge but probably not invincible if he’s got a straight or flush draw. Sometimes, the right move is to push, sometimes the move is to just re-raise, and sometimes a smooth call is the best. Let’s say you know the player is pretty loose and aggressive, and you’re moderately sure that he’s on a pure flush draw, and is trying to see if you’re c-betting, but you’ve seen him call all-ins with flush draws on the flop before. Should you push here? Sometimes, but a good move is also to call. Now the turn comes a 3s, and you pop it with a pot-sized bet. Now, you’ve just put our flushie to a tougher test. One, he’s more likely to fold, and you’re more likely to take down a decent pot right there. But even if he calls, you’ve got a much, much bigger edge, and he’s making a bigger mistake to call getting only 2-1 odds. In this hand, let’s say he folds, and the river would have been a h. You win a pot you would have lost otherwise lost to a “bad beat.” It’s not that you didn’t have an edge, but if you’re worried about losing, then focus on pushing even bigger edges. Sometimes you should 3-bet it, because you know the player will just call if he’s on a flush draw, but you also know that he’ll come over the top and push all-in if the poor sap is willing to do that with two-par. Then you know he’s drawing almost dead and you’re going to take all his chips. And sometimes you should just push, depending on your stack sizes, and the player. The point is that these decisions have a ton of variables, and they all have to be taken into consideration.
3. While I’m saying that you should, without a doubt, take the results of each session seriously, at the same time you have to stop thinking about the money. Poker is a game. People who succeed at it view it as a strategic game and largely forget about the meaning of the money they play it with. They just focus on winning in that particular moment. You need to do that too.
4. Finally, poker is a psychological game, and there’s an aspect of it that I call the metaphysics of winning. You have to expect to win. You can’t be thinking about the bad beats, you can’t be scared of the odds, and you can’t have a lot of doubt in yourself. If you recall the times when you’re losing and when you’re winning, I bet you’ll also recall the feeling you had in your gut both before it happened and as it was happening. On the days when you won, before the game you felt ready and lucid, and during the game you felt the “groove” and won as expected. On the losing days, I’m betting you felt kind of out of it or in a bad mood, and as the session wore on felt a sort of fog taking over your play and mindset. Suddenly, you’re playing not to lose, or to get even, and you’re thinking about your bankroll and trying to make it up. The best players figure out how to “feel” like they do on their winning sessions more, and minimize the amount of time they play when they feel like they do on their losing sessions. Moreover, good players always expect to win. They are fearless, but skillful, and they put themselves into situations to get lucky, and to make great plays. A large part of a poker player’s “edge” comes from confidence. If you don’t have it, don’t play, especially no-limit.
That’s what I can think of right now.
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