Poker is certainly a thrilling game! All poker players experience an adrenaline rush when they taste the sweet taste of victory. By successfully maneuvering through strategy, poker math, assessing the opponent, and everything else that goes into poker excellence, poker players derive the greatest pleasure from the game.
Slots Play Casinos writes mostly about casino games but we diverge from the mainstream at times and this is one of those times!
But sometimes, fate deals us a cruel hand in the form of a dreaded “bad beat.” A poker bad beat is like a punch in the gut. After all, for the loss to “qualify” as a bad beat the player has to have played the hand “correctly”! All poker players experience a bad beat at some time or another although there are a lot of players who lose a hand and don’t even realize that they have experienced a bad beat jackpot!
A bad beat tests our resilience. Let’s take a look at the art of handling the bad beat blues with sympathetic understanding and a touch of humor.
What Constitutes a Poker Bad Beat?
A bad beat comes when you’re holding a great hand, the odds are in your favor, and then, out of nowhere, your opponent lands a seemingly impossible card to win the hand! It makes you want to scream! It makes you want to storm off!
Take a moment to calm down and you will see that the card that defeated you was not a seemingly impossible card for your opponent to get. In a game of Texas Hold’em with 7 players, a total of 18 cards have been dealt before the river card. Your opponent may have only one out. The odds against him or her getting that one card are 34-1. Those are long odds but they are not seemingly impossible odds!
The ART of Handling a Bad Beat?
Robert Pirsig wrote a book that was published about 50 years ago called “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”. In that amazing book Mr. Pirsig makes the case that motorcycle maintenance is an art form and by not recognizing that fact, many people turn motorcycle maintenance into a mindless and unemotional activity which belittles motorcycle maintenance and weakens the quality of the maintenance.
Pirsig also says that the “motorcycle” is each of us, which brings us directly to the art of handling a bad beat!
Gather Yourself
Everyone lives through many bad beats in the course of their lifetime. You might be relocating and looking for a house in a nice neighborhood in your new city. Suddenly, your dream house is up for sale. You make a bid expecting to negotiate the final sale price only to find out that another home buyer also made a bid on the house larger than your bid!
You will certainly find another nice house but it won’t be your dream house!
You are buying flight tickets and see a great deal. There are only two seats left at that price. You fill in all of the pertinent information and find out that someone else beat you to the deal by mere seconds!
When that bad beat hits, take a moment to collect yourself. You can take as many moments as you need as long as you are still in the gathering yourself frame of mind. It’s totally understandable that your emotions are under stress. Take a deep breath. Let go with a dramatic sigh. Get up and take a short walk perhaps just around the room. Wash your face. Drink some water. The next hand is fast upon us and the possibilities are endless.
What if the Bad Beat Costs a Player a Lot of Money?
First, if the player is playing in a game that is too rich for his or her bankroll, then the bad beat is as much on them as it is on the vicissitudes of poker. After all, poker has no “mind” of its own but players do. If a player is playing too high for his or her means, the decimos to assume that a bad beat couldn’t happen was the exact “mistake” they made on the hand.
Second, assuming that the player can afford the financial setback then the bad beat is all about their emotional state. We might say that the bad beat is the cost of learning something about oneself and furthers the growing up process.
There is a great poker player, one of the best in the world, who has yet to grow up enough to maturely handle a bad beat. We won’t mention his name. Suffice it to say that is amazes poker people that such a big crybaby can also be one of the best poker players in the world!
Learn from the World of Stand-up Comedy
Many stand-up comedians make fun of themselves. They say that laughter is the best medicine. Even good health is strengthened with laughter. Just ask the many people who have been helped by the Gesundheit Institute! Embrace the bad beat as a moment of absurdity. Let the bad beat help you to channel your sense of humor.
Picture your opponent looking silly in a garish outfit. Picture yourself looking silly in a garish outfit. If it turns out in the end that the bad beat was just a “bad beat” it becomes a funny story to tell your grandchildren.
Speaking of Grandchildren, What Really is Important to You?
Looking at the big picture, a bad beat is a small blip on the screen of life. So, maintain the proper perspective; see the bad beat as a learning opportunity. You can learn about yourself and you can gather important information about that opponent. He or she might stay in to see the river on many subsequent hands and, if the odds are with you, you might win 34 hands to the one hand he or she wins!
You might need to make adjustments in your feel for the game. You might need to fine-tune your strategy or pay closer attention to your opponents’ actions and expressions. Accept that poker is a fickle enterprise and be thankful that the bad beat was only in a poker table and not on the operating table! Use the bad beat as motivation to improve your skills and rise above the adversity.
Slots Play Casinos Extolls the Virtues of Poker
Poker is a beautiful game, combining skill, strategy, and luck. Bad beats are an inevitable part of the luck side of the game. Players should learn to embrace them and to turn the frustration and momentary anger into longer lasting humor.
Slots Play Casinos serves the online casino gaming public. We offer timely advice on many casino games all of which have the inevitable element of the bad beat. For weekly articles, casino reviews, guides, and gaming deals COME TO SLOTS PLAY CASINOS OFTEN!
