How could that guy have beaten me? I was 80% to win!

Well, that means 2 times out of 10 you’re going to lose. Sorry buddy. I’m pretty sure you didn’t whine about the other 8 or so times you won with your pocket aces against that flop.

The bad ones have a way of burning into your brain while the good ones just fade into the background. Of course I won! Why wouldn’t I? And we forget those. All we remember is the ones we were supposed to win but didn’t.

Today I was lamenting these bad beats that seem to cling to me like a stink. Why me? Why I am doomed to endure these bad beats?

This on a day when I left $70 up from 3/6 limit. Not a fortune, but I played a good solid game and won money. Yet I seethed over the stupid hand(s) I lost.

I began thinking like a superstitious gambler. I lost to the exact inverse of last week’s bad beat story. Instead of my low pocket pair full house being beat by the psycho with the K-4 making a higher full house, I was the guy with A-K who hit trip kings and lost to the guy who made a full house with trip threes.

But page 299 of Caro’s Most Profitable Hold’em Advice saved me from the gamblers’ disease. If you’re only playing good hands, it stands to reason you’re going to take more bad beats. People who play janky hands lose a whole lot of hands, and only a few of them are bad beats. When you’re playing good hands, you lose a whole lot fewer hands, but those few losses are going to be overwhelmingly bad beats.

It’s pretty obvious once you think about it, but those bad beats can really get a hold on you. My wife even argued for playing bad hands on these grounds. She used several bad beats we experienced as examples of what happens even if you play good hands.

Bad beats are a psychological trap. They don’t really matter. There is simply playing correctly, and not playing correctly. Bad things that happen when you play correctly…well, they’re just that 20%. When you’re losing, it doesn’t feel that simple, but it is. When you play that 80% hand, don’t forget you’re still going to lose that 20% to someone who is probably going to be a sucky player.

Hey, if you want less bad beats, there’s a simple solution. Just play crappier hands, and you’ll have all kinds of beats, and those big beats will just be background against the white noise of your frequent losses.

In closing, stop the bitching. If you’re playing well, most of your losses are going to be bad beats.

Bookmark to: