How Do You Cope with Constant Bad Beats? 😤

[Pitonealal]

Hello everyone,

Lately, I've been dealing with what seems like an endless series of badbits—those classic moments when you're 80— 90% favorite, and somehow the river ruins your dreams again. You know the feeling: KK vs. AQ, all-in on the preflop... and the bass is ace on the river.

It's annoying, especially when you play solid poker, read cards well and still can't tear yourself away. I understand that variance is part of the game, but sometimes it seems like it never ends.

So I wanted to ask you guys:

How do you psychologically cope with prolonged periods of bad bits?

Do you take breaks, review handouts, meditate, or just keep working?

And have you noticed any patterns that help you recover faster after heavy workouts?


As for me, I began to focus more on thinking — breathing, calmly looking at my hands, and reminding myself that if I make decisions with +EV, the results will eventually come. But it's easier said than done when you lose three coins in a row at the bobble 😅

It would be interesting to hear your thoughts and strategies on how to stay calm, confident and motivated when the deck is constantly beating you.

Let's be honest — everyone experiences these kinds of downturns. Maybe sharing how we handle them will help us all become stronger players.

So... how do you deal with constant bad bits? 💭

 

[Mundug]

When you have a small bankroll and play, you often end up losing to bad beats. So my advice is: make sure your bankroll is big enough before you play, and never go all-in carelessly. If you get unlucky or things don’t go your way, don’t get angry — just take a break or sit out instead.

 

[hobojim1247]

Poker is a game of mathematics. It does not care about bad beats. They will happen.
1. I review my play to see if I played correctly. I do not worry about whether or not my opponent played correctly since I have no control. I will assess their play and if it was careless or reckless I will make a notation for future reference.
2. I do number 1 and then forget it before the next hand happens, thus giving my full attention to playing the next hand correctly

 

[martDdart]

Keep playing good solid poker.If the bad beat puts you out mental balance take a break until you bring good solid poker to the tables again.

 

[LuTsu]

Yeah, I feel you, man.
Sometimes variance hits like waves. You play perfect, the math is on your side, but the river still cuts deep. When that happens, I try to zoom out and remember: poker isn’t about one hand, or one session. It’s a lifetime graph of decisions. Each +ev move is a quiet investment in the future, even when the present looks brutal.
I take short breaks, breathe, review hands, and remind myself that emotion is part of the variance too, we just need to ride it with the same patience we use to wait for good spots.
Keep the rhythm, keep the faith. The deck always balances out in the long run.

 

[Cooking]

Nowadays that I don't play poker that often anymore, I just take a break of days (or even weeks) and come back fresh. I think it's probably very difficult if you're a professional poker player and needs to handle long periods of bad days.

 

[valanddon]

Take a break and see if your luck changes in awhile.

 

[Natox]

Hey there,
that's the beauty about the game. It won't change. All you can do is putting more volume in. Sounds like you are a technical good player, so it should balance out after time. If not, well be the one who ask the questions. Perhaps reviewing is not enough, go deeper and work on improvements both technical and mental. I guess focusing heavily on mental aspects and fixate that one thing in your mind helps: It's a life long marathon. Your preparation and dedication is what really matters. Results well, even if they won't come as expected and you running consistently bad. You have to push through that with lots of determination. Sure poker is played for money, but you can take it as an ultimate test of your resilience. At least, it's not all about the money. You can also find some healthy ideas if you follow my threads.

Stay patient,
Natox

 

[puzzlefish]

If you keep getting it in good and keep catching bad beats, session after session, just withdraw your bankroll and take a break. Play some freerolls or community games, or just do something else entirely.

You can meditate and do breathing exercises all you want, but at a certain point you are going to break if your luck doesn't turn around.

Personally I don't like waiting to find that point. If I'm not enjoying playing anymore, I will just leave and come back in a month or two to see if anything has changed.

 

[fundiver199]

Well pretty much all the things, you mentioned. Like others have said, if I dont enjoy playing, then I stop. Sometimes that just mean an early end to my session, other times it could mean taking one or more days off. If you feel like, a longer break is needed, thats fine as well. You can also try to get more objective about, how bad you actually run. I recently discovered, that even for tournaments you can make PT4 display your results in big blinds including showdown winnings, non-showdown winnings and all-in adjusted results.

And checking this for 2025 I am running around 3.000 BB below all-in adjusted EV on pokerstars, so there I have definitely had some bad luck at least in this part of the game. For cash games this would be a full 30 BIs, so its pretty significant. However on ACR Poker I am running very close to the all-in adjusted EV. So if my results there are not as good, as I had hoped them to be, I need to look for other reasons.

 

[dannystanks]

Yeah getting a bunch of bad beats in a row is definitely annoying but it’s just the way it goes sometimes. I remember a trip I took to Vegas a couple years ago and I had three days in a row like that where it was bad beat after bad beat and it’s not like you can talk to anybody because no one cares lol. So I would just take long walks afterwards on the strip and ask myself if I could have done anything differently, using it all as a teachable moment while walking. Then it goes away and things go right and you forget all about it. Poker is weird like that but this is what we sign up for when we play, we pay for the pain and the glory.

 

[Igor Popadyk]

Selective memory and variance work, you need to play a lot and understand that this is part of the game and if not e, the game was too predictable and attracted so many players