Taking a Bad Beat Smoothly
In many instances, poker is a roller coaster ride. One moment, you could be on top, controlling the action, having a huge chip lead, and catching cards left and right. Then in the next moment, you can be short stacked with only 3 Big Blinds left and are near the bubble after a ‘bad beat’ you took the hand before. When really, they went all in on a flush draw to your top set and got lucky to beat you for the chip lead.
Losing gracefully is a lesson not learned from any book from the pro’s, but by experience. As you start to badly commentate and try to tell everyone how bad there play was, you start to lose more and more chips. Eventually, you will be out of the tournament thinking that you were playing with a bunch of drunk donkeys, mad that you didn’t make the money. Then, you will eventually think you are over that and go onto the next tournament or cash game, only to go off on the first pot you lose.
I’ve seen this happen time and time again both live and online. I have to admit, I have even done this once in a while. Poker etiquette is one of those things people don’t think about, but is a must when making a table image.
Lets take Mike ‘The Mouth’, and Phil Hellmuth for example. When you watch them, what do you think? Do you think that there the greatest poker players alive, that they are idols? I know I don’t. I think they are childish, ignorant, and are rude to both themselves and others. I am almost sure most people don’t want to play with them just because of there table image. And that is key to any poker game, how others perceive you.
When leaving a cash game, tournament with no money, or even play chip game online or live, you must always put on that there is nothing wrong with you. If you start to go on a rant about how bad everyone there played, start cursing out everyone, and making a scene, then no one there would want to play with you, you would look bad, and you will start to lose money easily. In order to stop this from happening, just walk away. Simple as that, walk away, go take a break, go for a walk, hit the gym, read a book, do something that will allow you to either let go of that stress, or release it. I have learned from experience that when doing some relaxing excercises (could be anything from finding your inner peace to going for a long run around the block), that you will save your table image, earn more money, and have people around you who want to be around you, not just to play poker with you.
Related posts:
- Tournament Poker 101
- Victory Is Mine
- Poker on TV
- High Stakes Online Poker at Full Tilt
- Protecting Your Chip Position
Categories: Poker Strategy
