Learn Texas Holdem

Question: I finally got together a bit of bankroll to play poker with over the past few weeks, but I'm truely starting to believe that I'm just an unlucky player.

I went to play $2-5 spread limit last weekend and in about 3 hours of play I had the same player hit four of a kind on me (on the river, naturally). I ended up with Aces full of Kings on 1 of those and the nut straight on the other. I find that I will be way ahead on the flop or turn and bad calls will get me on the river. Yesterday I flopped top pair with 10,9 into a 10,5,5 flop playing NL. I bet the pot each round and this guy called me down with pocket 9's and caught the last 9 in the deck on the river for a boat.

I find this happens to me a lot. I've had pocket Aces lose to Queens on various occasions. I can think of several hands when I went all in or called an all in and was a 4-1 favorite and the person would catch their trips on me. I've had people call my pocket Kings all in when all they've had is a pair of jacks, only to turn and river consecutive Jacks for 4 of a freaking kind on me. I used to be terrible about keeping my composure in situations like that. I'm getting better about it, but I still find that I lose a lot of hands to players when they shouldn't even be calling me. I deal with it better in limit play because I basically expect it.

But I end up losing a lot of money when I'm betting my hand as a huge favorite. I never slow play anymore - I've been outdrawn so many times that I just won't do it.I keep trying to tell myself that they are just going to lose it back, but that doesn't help me much. Can you talk about the luck factor in poker? Are there good ways to deal with it? I've read that some months will just be awful for players - I'll admit I haven't been able to play months at a time, it's more like a session here and a session there with a friendly home game in between. Maybe if I was just able to play alot more these things would even out...?

thanks,

Paul

Answer: It certainly feels that way sometimes. There isn't a day that goes by that I play cards that I don't see a horrible player end up losing all his money except a stack, only to get it back plus a rack or two and leave. But if I honestly believed that there was such a thing as luck in cards, then there would be no reason for me to play. I don't really like gambling that much. I like games of strategy and I think poker is that.

Viewing poker from a mathematical sense, there can be what appears to be luck if you look at a small range of hands. Let me give you an example of this. Let's say you have a hand like KJ and the opponent has a hand like A4. You both go all-in preflop. Technically he is ahead right now, but the amount he is ahead combined with the results only being taken from one event equates to a coin flip. Only if you were to repeat this scenario over and over, probably a hundred or more times, would you start to see that the A4 does win a bit more than the KJ heads up. I think this is what you are facing right now.

You have edges in each of the hands you are in, yet you aren't playing enough for those edges to fully manifest themselves. Now, poker will take care of itself; it is math (given a fair game). What you need to worry about is how you deal with the game. I find it very difficult at times to put up with bad beats day after day, even though I know that eventually things will get back to normal. A few things that I do to keep myself playing well and not angry are to:

1. Switch environments. If you are at a large enough cardroom to change tables, that can be an emotional break from the bs. If you are playing live, try playing at a different room or online, or vice versa if you are an online player. Let's say you play at X cardroom online but are getting slaughtered day after day, try another one. Sometimes I just want a change in faces when I'm running badly so I move limits or cardrooms.

2. Take a break. Poker is very taxing. It is a constant battle and if you wear yourself down, you will be more likely to go on tilt.

3. Try not to dwell on the hands that you have lost. Let's say I got my Aces cracked by some moron calling me to the river with bottom pair or a backdoor flush draw. What is important for me to remember is that I played the hand well and he got lucky. If I focus too much on how lucky other people are against me, it just does my game harm. Let it go and get to the next hand. If you remind yourself of anything it should be that good play is rewarded in the long term and bad play is always losing -- no exceptions.

4. Get a buddy to trade stories with. This helps me a lot. I find that when I talk about my bad beats with a friend that we end up making jokes and laughing and it takes a lot of the stress away from the last session. Now don't do this at the cardroom. No one likes hearing about someone else's bad beats there. Save it for the ride home or another time. My friend and I talk about cards at the gym. This eases the pain some plus it boosts your confidence to hear that what you did was correct regardless of the negative outcome.