Running Cold - Dealing with Bad Beats
As a poker player, no matter how skilled you may be, you will run cold and either not catch a hand for a long stretch or catch bad beat after bad beat. The length can vary from a few hours to weeks on end. When you find yourself in this situation, it is often times a good idea to take a break if your bank roll is suffering. In this time you should truthfully evaluate your play to make sure this loosing streak has nothing to do with your strategy and make sure you are following sounds poker principals. This time is also good because it can allow you to collect yourself and let your confidence have some time to mend.
I am speaking from experience. I recently came off a really bad streak on sit n go tournaments. I won’t go into each situation, but looking back, every time I was knocked out of the tournament I had the lead in the hand, so my money was in good. I wasn’t short stacked either. I made the occasional bluff and entered a decent mix of pots. I built my chip stacks up and never left the tourney more than 5 of 9 places. I was playing sound poker. It just so happened that when I got into a big pot, I would lose from dominating positions (like pre-flop all in, AK vs KQ, while trying to take down blinds in late position). It’s not like I was putting my chips on the line every other hand either. This run went 10 tourney’s in a row. I had to take a break to evaluate my play. I looked at the hand history from my recent tournaments. Honestly, I could not have played it any better. Sometimes you just run up against it.
In the case of running cold and not catching cards. Don’t be tempted to start playing any two cards. You will only lose more money. In either case it is important to remember to continue to play sound poker when you return, because odds are, if your money is in good, you will win most of the time.
