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It only took a few moments for the rivulets of sweat on my brow to transform into salty torrents of tears streaming down my face. My hands were shaking, my teeth were grinding, and there was little doubt that I would need a new mouse after I had slammed mine into the ground. My opponent had just hit a one-outer on the river to win a monster pot against me, which sent me bolting to the bathroom to splash cold water on my face. After that, I had to take a long walk, muttering to myself the whole way, as I resolved never to play this stupid game of poker ever again. I mean – how could that buffoon not know that I had a set of aces on the turn after the board read A-Q-6-5? How could he move all in with just a set of queens? And how – oh how – could his gross overplay be rewarded with the fourth queen on the river? I was trembling with frustration and anger, and I did not know how I was going to survive.
I’ll get back to that story in a minute. But before I do, I need to fastforward a bit and share yet another brutal beat story with you. (Yes, there is a point to all this beyond me seeking sympathy for my bad beats). Just a couple of weeks ago, I lost another monster pot to another one-outer. Playing the Party 6-Max, $10-$20 blind, No-Limit Hold’em game, I was having one of my better sessions. I was playing six tables, and on the table where the hand in question unfolded, I had run my starting stack of $2,000 all the way up to over $20,000. Surprisingly, my opponent in the hand had also run his starting stack up quite considerably – by a factor of nine up to about $18,000. Indeed, it was the only time I had ever been in a $2,000 buy-in game in which any opponent and I both had such stacks. In this hand, I played pocket aces very deceptively, and managed to get my opponent to put his entire $18,000 in on the turn with the board reading: A-K-2-2. The pot was about $36,000 – astonishing for a $2000 maximum buy-in game. And as you may have guessed by now, the devastating fourth king hit the river, giving him quad kings and taking the pot from me.
As you can imagine, the psychological blow was tremendous. It ruined a fantastic session and left me cursing my luck for suffering such a brutal blow in such a monster pot. But this time around, I was surprisingly calm. Don’t get me wrong: I certainly wasn’t much fun to be around for a while. But in contrast to my reaction to the fateful pot introduced at the beginning of this article, I was far from devastated. Irritated – yes. Crushed – no. Soon after losing the 36k to the 43-1 long shot, I was able to laugh with my wife and play with my infant son. The pain from the blow soon dissolved into a mild annoyance. How is that possible, one might ask. Well, it’s because of the earlier one-outer. Reflecting upon that hand provided me the balance to maintain my peace of mind in the face of this one.
You see, that first pot occurred several years ago. The amount that I lost in that pot? Brace yourselves… It was… a whopping $65! Yes, that pot occurred in one of my first online sessions ever. I had just started playing poker for real money, and was playing in a 10¢-25¢ blind game with a $25 max buy-in. I had run that to about $65, and was really discovering both a love and a talent for poker. But when that one-outer zapped that entire buy-in, I suffered a psychological setback worse than I had ever suffered in poker. At the time, the $65 loss was not only unjust, but it was an amount that I could barely fathom losing. I was thinking that I should have stuck to chess.
Considering the $36,000 king now, I reflected on that hand from a few years ago. That $65 queen felt like the worst thing that could have happened to me. It really shattered my session, put a big dent in my poker bankroll, and left me questioning whether or not there was any skill involved in poker. Now, when I think back to that hand, I just laugh. The $65 is just an opening raise for me in the $10-$20 game and barely more than a big blind when I play $25-$50.
So what is the point of all this? Well, over the course of our poker careers, we are all going to suffer some horrendous beats. In particular, internet players, playing multiple games at the same time, are going to see many more hands – and thereby many more bad beats. And if you are a good player, consistently getting the money in the middle as a favorite, you will take bad beats that much more often. During these times, I think it is extremely important – both for your continued poker success, as well as your general happiness and sanity – to put the beat in its proper perspective. Although an atrocious beat might ruin an entire session, or even a week’s hard graft, it’s very rare that even the very worst of our beats are going to be significant in the grand scheme of our poker winnings. They will merely represent a blip on the radar in less time that you might think. This is especially true if you are an improving player – as you will likely move up in limits sooner or later – and the loss you have suffered will seem particularly trite when you are routinely playing much bigger pots. But even if you stay at your current limits, one bad beat in one pot – no matter how awful it may seem at the time – is not going to represent much in terms of your long-term poker results. And being able to step back and see it as such will often help you to continue playing well and keep from compounding your bad beat with bad (i.e. tilted) play.
Some wise guy called Anon. once wrote, “Grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, the courage to change the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” I am not sure whether or not Anon. was an internet poker player, but that maxim would certainly have garnered him a lot of success if he were.
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