Why are bad beats so costly?

It's my biggest pet peeve in poker. Today I spent 3 hours grinding up an extra $20 at 5nl and I lose $12 of it in 2 hands to bad beats.

I know there's bankroll management strategy and I'm definitely rolled well enough for 5nl but it's just so frustrating when three hours of work goes down the tube in 2 minutes.

I never seem to have the opposite happen either where I make a ton of money in just a few hands because I play ABC TAGG at 5NL.

How do you guys deal with this frustration?

Generally I'll just stop playing after the first bad beat if it's tilted me that much. Then look back over the hand and check that it's a genuine bad beat and I got my money in good...

I think winning slow and sometimes losing fast is why it's called grinding...

If I still have the urge to play (typically after I walk away for ten mintues) I change tables. I find myself seeking "revenge" on the person who gave me the bad beat and then I start leaking like crazy and making bad decisions out of spike.

You really ought to post the bad beats to determine if they really are bad beats. Most situations are clear cut, but I Think a lot of times there's a level of mis-play where you may have paid off a bad call making it "not" a bad beat.

The biggest reason that Bad Beats are so expensive? Because they effect you long after then had has passed.

Also. When you only have 100bb in front of you, getting stacked with top pair top kicker is a lot more acceptable than when you have 350bb in front of you. Getting stacked like that is a HUGE no no.

Rarely when we get our monies in, are we a 100% (or even a 90%) favorite to win. This provides our opponents with many opportunities to suck out on us.

It also accounts for 95% of poker-related mental-illnesses.

The more you grind, the more bad beats you see, and the less they sting when you get them. They are simply an inevitable part of this game that you've just got to accept. Some days you'll see more than your fair share, and some days you'll see less. Try not to go crazy on the former, and try not to get cocky on the latter.

how do I handle it: If it truly is a "Bad Beat" I would make a note on my opponent on how grossly he missplayed his hand, and try to get into that exact same sitaution in the future, and make money, lots and lots of money.

The bad beats cost you money, but not the hand itself. Over the long run you should get closer and closer to what your expected value was over all hands that you played. For example you really want your opponent to make -EV calls with draws, or call you preflop with weaker hands (same concept)... that's whats making you money.
Maybe visualizing your equity helps. If you get it in as a 70/30 favourite - only 70% of the pot is yours. 30% belongs to your opponent.

I agree however that it's still hard to deal with over the short term. I thought I was pretty bad beat resistent, and I can go on 5 buy-in downswings and more or less shrugg it off, but this month I'm running 50% under my expectation over 30k hands for €1000, and that's still hard to stomach. I won't get that money back, but at least I know that over the course of the next 100k hands it won't matter.

A big part of the psychology of it is that you got emotionally attached to the pot, but the pot is not yours if you don't have the winning hand on the river. I made it a ritual to click reload at almost every all-in situation, just to prepare for loosing the pot. The beats that tilt the most are when you fully expected that the pot was yours.

Originally Posted by Revolver123

I know there's bankroll management strategy and I'm definitely rolled well enough for 5nl

If you know this is the case then what you need to do is find where your insecurities about losing are coming from and deal with them.

Bad beats are not costly, by their very definition. If losing all your money in an all-in situation was unlikely to happen then you can't possibly say your decision cost you.

The cost of bad beats are mostly emotional.

you say that you're rolled well enough for 5NL. if you're overrolled, then you should be able to easily shrug off the beat and not even feel any change in your overall BR

All of the times when your hand was good when the money went in and it held up, in a sense you robbed a portion of the pot from your opponent (that portion equal to their percentage chance of winning). Just look at bad beats at the end of your session as the luck evening out. Because of your skill, you still ended up ahead.

Originally Posted by a500lbgorilla

The cost of bad beats are mostly emotional.

Stop trying to put words to it, guys.

I've broken a mouse, headset, and oh yea, another mouse this month. Total cost of tilting= $55

Originally Posted by bigspenda73

I've broken a mouse, headset, and oh yea, another mouse this month. Total cost of tilting= $55

Cost of letting go of your emotions....priceless

Originally Posted by allabout

Originally Posted by bigspenda73

I've broken a mouse, headset, and oh yea, another mouse this month. Total cost of tilting= $55

Cost of letting go of your emotions....priceless

actual, I just put an actual price on it

Originally Posted by bigspenda73

I've broken a mouse, headset, and oh yea, another mouse this month. Total cost of tilting= $55

Honestly, I lol'd this one, the guy in the cubicle next to me actually asked what made me laugh.

Originally Posted by Revolver123

I spent 3 hours grinding up an extra $20 at 5nl and I lose $12 of it in 2 hands to bad beats. ?

You're too concentrated on the money earned. Think of the 3 hours spent more like experience gained. Eventually you'll move up and that $12 lost will really feel like nothing.

Well you could look at it, that one day you will be playing at higher stakes and your bad beat will be even more costly. LOSING IS A PART OF THE GAME! Sorry to be so blunt but Somebody has to win, somebody has to lose. Pro's also lose hands so obviously, anybody can and do! WIthout the actual hand though, we have to take your word that it was actually a BAD BEAT and not a hand you got married to...til death (BB) do you part!
Better Luck in the NEW YEAR,
FLOW

THe point is being missed here. The question isn't why are bad beats so costly to one's bankroll because if they were costly to one's bankroll, then one wouldn't be rolled properly for the stakes.

The question is, why does one or two bad beats destroy 2/3 of the income that took two hours to grind up? It's so frustrating when you spend two hours in tedium grinding away at 6 tables, taking down small pots, getting closer and closer to the nearest benchmark, only to have almost all of that work done for nothing because some lucky idiot hit a full house with 69o when you hit your flush.

That is the question. And it isn't that some bad beats do that.. it's that almost ALL bad beats do that! Is there a trick to make these bad beats less costly so it doesn't destroy one's motivation to keep grinding in the cash games?

Apologies if it's been said, I skimmed a few replies


The questions are:

1) without the bad beats, would you have ground up that profit to begin with?

2) Why do you think the fish are sitting there for you to outplay them?

Stop looking at poker in terms of sessions and whether good luck or bad beats define them. Start looking at the big picture and be more results oriented in the long-term. And if you got your money in good and some fish made a horrible call and sucked out on the river, so be it because you'll want him to make that same horrible call over and over again.

...because I push my edges hard.

Fnord, you will be happy to know that I am Police Officer on the DF. At least here you are participating in legal activities ::thumbs up::

So you were still $8 up, almost 2 buy-ins.. after two horrible beats thats pretty damn good. Keep that in mind please.

Next session, there won't be those beats and you will instead gain 6 buy-ins.

The more bad beats you take, the better a player you are.. it means your money is in good a lot

O

Play play-money limit hold'em and raise every hand till your buy in is gone. It's way more fun losing money that isn't real.

Originally Posted by oskar

A big part of the psychology of it is that you got emotionally attached to the pot, but the pot is not yours if you don't have the winning hand on the river. I made it a ritual to click reload at almost every all-in situation, just to prepare for loosing the pot. The beats that tilt the most are when you fully expected that the pot was yours.

Probably my favourite post in this thread. I do the same.

If I feel prone to tilting and getting emotionally attached in a given situation I make a point to think over my decision once more, put all the money in, reload and look at a different table as the hand plays out and then try to forget about it.

In this, I am giving up the edge that the additional information (what he actually played this way) can give me in future hands (though I can of course always check the hand history), but I am preventing tilt, which allows me to play better for longer.

The situations that are most likely to cause tilt are mostly self created. Basically what you do is you envision one result as the one you are going for (you winning, typically), you get emotionally attached to that outcome and even if you might intellectually accept that other outcomes are possible, you do not prepare yourself emotionally for those other possible outcomes. So when they occur they still manage to shock you and that starts the whole rollercoaster of tilt.

I believe the trick is to learn to be intellectually and emotionally prepared for any of the remaining 47 or 46 cards to come with everything that entails, and to understand how that effects your equity before it suddenly comes around and slaps you in the face with the loss of a stack. I think a great way to build this resiliency is to analyse hands and situations to a point where you more intuitively understand how equity changes depending on what cards come. This should remove some of the surprise element and allow you to assess dispassionately whether your action was +EV in the first place and not get bogged down in whether or not the outcome in this particular hand gained or cost you money.

As some of the more experienced people in this thread also said - if you understand your equity against your opponents range on a given street calculate with winning your 70% and losing the opponents 30% in your head and in your emotions, ignoring the actual outcome of the hand - this should help tiltproof you. You do need to play mind-games with yourself and practice this particular perspective and technique for it to be effective, but it's a pretty important thing to do as playing on tilt will cost you lots more money than you can earn by playing well.

Bad beats are costly- suckouts are profitable.

Become better at suckouts and avoid bad beats. You need to really push hands like backdoor flushes, gutshots and underpairs/ undercards hard in order to become the Suckout King. Following the same line of reasoning you should fold whenever you know you are in front.

On a more serious note, maybe you are not pushing your edges hard enough? If you only push 70/30 situations and folding 55/45 situations your good hands need to hold up often to sustain a profitable winrate.

Couple of thoughts:

- You grind and grind until you lose a big pot- then quit.

- Losing feels worse than winning feels good.

- Suckouts are common for fish and sharks, not for TAG fish

- Everything is possible in poker. Sometimes you can not lose even how hard you try.

it just takes time, experience and discipline. comprehension of expected value and variance along with self confidence helps dealing with it.