If you play poker you've been there before and you know exactly what I'm talking about. You get your money in the pot as a huge favorite only to lose the hand when your opponent catches that miracle river card.

Most players, including myself, get mad or upset when this happens to them. You say to yourself, or the player that just gave you that bad beat, "How can you call with that hand" or "why were you even playing that?"

Most poker players get upset at their opponent for making a bad call and then winning the hand. In reality, you should be glad that you are playing against such an opponent because they are giving you a great opportunity to win money.

Bad Players Give Bad Beats

Usually the people that are giving bad beats are bad players. It usually takes a bad call or a bad play for a bad beat to happen. If it wasn't for these bad beats, bad players simply wouldn't play poker.

Think about it, if bad players lost every time they got their money into the pot they simply would quit playing. Is this what we really want? The answer is no, because if there wasn't someone out there trying to give their money away, this game would be impossible to beat. The only people playing would be solid players that never make mistakes. Then the only people making money off of poker would be the casinos.

Not only do the bad beats keep the bad players in the game, in a way it prevents them from improving their game and becoming better players. The luck that's involved with poker can convince a bad player that they might be good. These bad players can have a winning session because of a few bad beats. Then on nights they don't win they can also convince themselves that it was just bad luck that they had a losing session.

Good Players Suffer More Bad Beats

Good players will suffer more bad beats than they will ever give out. The reason is good players get their money into the pot when they are ahead more often than when they are behind. This is the reason why good players are good.

Good players will pick their spots and make better decisions to get their money in as a favorite. When you are constantly ahead and everybody is trying to outdraw you, they're going to get lucky every now and then.

Conclusion

Poker players need to think more long term than they do short term. Think of a poker session as a life long project. Whenever you do take a bad beat and lose a big pot, think long term instead of short term. If you get your money into the pot 1,000 times in that same exact situation how many much money am I going to win? Just an example, if you get all your money in the pot 1,000 times with AA vs. QTo for $300 a pot, you are going to win about 836 times and lose about 160 of them. Over a 1,000 hands you will win about $202,800. So don't get upset over the 160 times you lose that hand and just continue your life long session and wait for you next opportunity.

Alan Bloomfield is a winning poker player and also runs the website http://www.pokerall-in.com

Back 09/11/2006.