Gamers and people, in general, have to deal with the occasional bad beats. A poker bad beat might occur over the table at a poker room. A poker bad beat might also occur in video poker where one card alone stands between the gamer and a Royal Flush.
Bad beats might come along cumulatively. At Jackpot Capital, a gamer playing video poker might have several hands where one card prevents a big win and he or she is left holding the bag. Even if a gamer deals well with the first bad beat, he or she might not be able to handle several bad beats in a short online gaming session.
What Exactly is a Bad Beat?
In poker, it means losing a hand where the odds were overwhelming in your favor to win. As we said, there are bad beats in many other areas of life and as grown-up adults, we need to have the emotional fortitude to deal with them. Here are a randomly selected number of real-life as opposed to casino-driven bad beats:
- A person loses out on a promotion they thought would be given to them based on their years of experience and job performance.
- The man or woman someone thought they were destined to marry breaks up with them.
- The house you had your heart set on buying is bought by someone else.
- The stock that you thought was a sure thing loses money.
- When you go to change a flat tire, you discover that the spare is also flat.
- You accidentally drop your cellphone in a place where it is a total loss.
- You are one number away from winning a billion dollars in Power Ball. This is truly a bad beat jackpot!
The list is genuinely endless. The key, then, is be emotionally able to get over the bad beat and move on.
Dealing with a Bad Beat in Poker
Many of the tips for handling a poker bad beat apply to everyday bad beats as well but some apply primarily to a game such as poker.
Make Better Judgments
The only enduring way to make better judgments is to learn, at long last, the many facets and nuances of poker math. Start with learning how to calculate outs and the odds of getting an out.
It isn’t necessary to have a better than 1-1 chance of getting an out to stay in a poker hand. Here we need to combine the odds of getting an out with the pot odds we are being offered.
As we progress in our knowledge and understanding of poker math, we will be able to use what many poker players see as cold, hard mathematical reality. Yes, math may be cold and hard! The point is that when a poker player learns to apply math to poker hands, they make better decisions and avoid many bad beats.
Look to the Future
The next hand is coming quickly. If a player lingers on thought of what coulda, woulda, and shoulda have happened he or she will miss the essential nature of the next hand.
Looking to the future without abandoning the past is one of the hallmarks of the emotionally mature adult. In contrast, a kid might suffer a minor injury and continue to cry about it long after the pain has disappeared. Adults who react in a similar manner at a poker bad beat probably do so in many areas of life!
A Major Part of Life is Looking to the Future
Without people who “live” in the possibilities of the future, there would be no innovation, no entrepreneurship, and nothing new under the sun if anyone actually knew what they bright ball high up in the sky was!
So, a bad beat in poker or in anything else is an opportunity to focus on a more positive future!
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Take a Break
Everyone needs a break from time to time. In poker, a bad beat might be so hard to overcome that the only “correct” move is to leave the game and take a break. Combine the advice in the previous section about looking to a more positive future with taking a break and we can see that a well-timed break can be a very helpful and emotionally positive act!
Take a break and do something good! Robert Pirsig stated in his classic work, “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” that sometimes a mechanic is just stuck. At times the only way or the only “best” way to deal with “stuckness” is to take a break.
Here is a list of “somethings good” a gamer can do while he or she is taking a break:
- Read another chapter of a literary classic.
- Cook an exciting ethnic dish.
- Paint, draw, or sketch something outside your window that you can turn into “anything”.
- Tinker under the hood of your car.
- Trim a bush.
- Declutter a room or a chest of drawers.
- Take a long walk in an area of town you usually don’t walk in.
- Write in your journal.
- Read political stuff online and send in your comments.
- Call up a good friend or your parents.
- Go to a club where you can meet new people.
We could go on and on but you get the idea. A bad beat is never pleasant but there are a myriad of ways to turn that unpleasant experience into a very positive experience.
In Poker, All Players Face Bad Beats
Let’s say that you are in a hand against one opponent. You have x outs and your opponent has x outs. Your pot odds and her pot odds are the same. You both are facing a kind of bad beat!
Accepting the ever-presence of bad beats makes experiencing them less problematic and it makes winning a borderline hand all the more sweet!
Emotional Maturity Defeats Bad Breaks All the Time
Emotional maturity combines taking responsibility for one’s actions and errors, staying calm in a situation where others might panic, being flexible, seeing life in general as a long-term learning experience, believing in oneself and also believing in reality, and maintaining a good sense of humor.
Jackpot Capital is a Top Online Casino
JC, as we are often called, offers about 300 casino games. We offer several variations of poker including video poker, the three Caribbean Poker variations, and Pai Gow Poker.
Even though a gamer might be playing slots or Banana Jones, the possibility that a bad beat might happen is always present. The two most important things to keep in mind are that we can handle a bad beat and there are also many, many “good beats” which are happy wins for our gamers!
We offer many excellent deposit bonuses and often add free spins to our promotions.
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