On Luck and Bad Beats

My congratulations to you for having a great site! I often visit this site. Most probably once a day. And just like your most visitors, I also have some poker problems and questions. In fact, I drop by because I wanted to ask something about luck and bad beats. I tried to go over just a while ago but I haven’t found anything that is somehow related to my problem.

Well, I don’t know if I’d be a having a sound inquiry for I know poker and most card games are about mathematical odds. But for me, unfortunately, is totally different. Black cloud seems to follow me when I’m gambling or playing cards.

Whenever I play for high card, figuring out dealer in a home game, I often get a 2 or a queen and a player who is two ahead of me will pick a k. Never in my entire playing moments I have ever pulled a high card.

And I don’t know if you will believe this but as I’m writing this, I’m playing 3 hands online. Every instance I try to flop two pair, I am always rivered by all three hands. I actually started with not so bad hands, pocket q’s(lost to j5 suited, k-q suited, flopped 2 pair, lost to a straight on the river, last hand was pocket a’s, raised it a lot, person called with a 9 10, flopped 2 pair and beat me) but the odds, they really haunt me.

I know the odds thing, in a way, sounds really absurd. But this is not a joke, and I’m not exaggerating anything or overreacting. I know I can and do win at poker. But the way to winning is always unusual for me. I’m not a good, skillful poker but I’m not a bad player either. I’ve also made some efforts before, researched, made excel sheets, etc. but I can’t figure out what’s wrong with how I play. Was everything because of bad luck? And is there a way to avoid this and eventually earn big bucks?

I know, at some point, my concern is quite silly for poker is mainly about math and not about luck or the like.

Thanks for your time reading this. Hope to hear some advise from you.

John

John,

While poker is a game of odds, there are times where the variance is plain silly. One night I played 5 heads-up tournaments. I was all-in with A-Q vs K-9, A-A against 6-6, 9-7 vs A-A, Q-Q vs 6-5, and J-J against 10-9. The only hand that won was 9-7 vs A-A. While I was head in the other four, they were all outdraw.

This type of variance happens. Sadly, sometimes bad runs of cards seem ridiculous. At the same time, when you go on a really good run, sometime you have just as ridiculous runs.

I don’t think there is anything wrong with your play. You are just in the middle of a bad run.

Tags: bad beats, dealer, high card, luck, river, Texas Holdem, tournaments