Tips to deal with bad beat

Here are some tips, how to overcome unfortunate situations in poker! 

First of all, let’s see what a bad beat is - you have a strong hand (e.g. ♥A♣A, ♥K♠K) and your opponent has lower cards (e.g. ♠7♣2). Prior to flop you are the absolute favourite of that play. The flop brings neutral cards ( e.g. ♣5♥T♣J ) however, 7s come both at the turn and river. Therefore, your opponent could win a seemingly already lost play eventually. It is brutal to live through plays like this as a poker player. Luckily, there are few tips how to handle such “losses”. Here you can find four of them:

1. Remember that there is luck in poker

You had a good pair, did everything by the “playbook” nevertheless, you lost the hand. You need to accept that however low (1%) the odds of losing is in the above scenario with KK in hand, you could end up on the losing side. And also take it into consideration, sometimes you are on the lucky side [3].

2. Don’t let yourself distracted

Stay focused. It is easier to said than done I know; however, your mind needs to be shifted from the memory of bad beat to stay in the game. You need to calm down and concentrate to the upcoming play where you will be able to recover the losses suffered. Stay positive!

3. Breaking the session

In case you are overwhelmed with frustration and you are not able to cool down you might take a break and quit from the table (regardless of real of virtual). You need to go for a walk to have some fresh air to clear your mind and “recharge your batteries”.

4. Yoga

It might sound weird at first but yoga can be handy “in times of bad beats”. By doing yoga you will learn how to calm down your mind by exhaling and inhaling. It is very helpful in order to regain your control over your mind and stay in present.

Bad beats never come at good time. However, by implementing some of the above tips you might be able to mitigate the effects especially if you have the best poker deal already [4]. And don’t forget – it is just a game!