Mind Over Poker

“Just one time.”

“How could you make that call?”

“It figures; on the river.”

“Nice suckout.”

“If I could win 50 percent of the time that I’m a 90 percent favorite, I’d crush this game.”

“You’re so damned lucky!”

How many times have you heard variations of these statements? How many times have you expressed yourself in those or similar terms? We’ve all been there, when our big-favorite hands failed to hold up. How we react and continue to play after those hands have been played will go a long way in determining if we will ultimately be successful poker players.

In a free society, we all believe in justice. We hope that the perpetrators who steal our pots with their two-outers will be punished and their chips will be rightfully returned to our stack. In reality, and in all aspects of life, things are never that clean or simple. If you’re looking for justice, don’t play poker. Orson Welles once said, “Nobody gets justice. People only get good luck or bad luck.”

If you are an 80 percent favorite in a hand, you’re going to lose 20 percent of the time. That is not insignificant. Of course, you want all of the chips in the pot in those situations. You just have to suck it up one-fifth of the time. You can’t lament your bad luck, and you can’t suffer from a feeling of injustice. If you allow yourself to feel that way, you’ll compound that bad luck into something that will affect your play in a negative way.

Why do you think nobody likes to hear a bad-beat story? Because bad beats are part of the game. To indulge in telling one reeks of amateurism. Bad beats represent the cost of poker. It’s your tax for getting the money in with the best of it, for which you will be substantially rewarded in the long run. Take bad beats in stride. The best of the best experience them all the time, so act like you’ve been there before.

There is no justice in poker. Some sucker may take your chips and turn around and give them to the only other good player at the table. That happens. There will be times that you run really good and times that you run really bad. There is nothing that you can do about the luck except recognize it. Recognition is 90 percent of the battle.

Poker is not a game for the idealist. Throw away any preconceived notions of justice. Instead, play with a cold, calculating heart that is not affected by either the highs or lows of lady luck.

David Apostolico is the author of Compete, Play, Win: Finding Your Best Competitive Self. You can contact him at [email protected].