Tips for running bad in poker

Running bad is something that all poker players experience at one point of time in their careers. Even winning players can have losing sessions. You need to realize that Texas Hold’em is a game of skill and luck. If you have an edge over your opponents you will make more money from them in the long term, but luck is a major factor in the short-term. Quite often you will play in sessions where it can seem like none of your draws are hitting, or when you have AK you never hit on the flop.

As a poker player you really need to understand that large fluctuations in your bankroll are a part of the game. This is the main reason you want to practise proper bankroll management, to support the times when you maybe running bad and experience downswings of 10-20 buy-ins or more.

You will see online poker players sharing their bad beat stories on poker forums, saying how incredibly unlucky they were when their opponents hit the miracle one outer on the river. Sure, there can be times where we got the money in as a huge favorite and still lose hands, but as poker players we must admit to playing badly sometimes, instead of always blaming losing sessions on running bad.

I think this is a common trait of many poker players due to the inflated ego of many poker players. One one hand, it can be great to have an ego if it instills confidence in your game, but if it prevents you from being honest with yourself when you are running bad, then it can be detrimental to your game.

Admitting that you are playing badly is never an easy thing to do. But you are required to be honest with yourself if you are to fix the big leaks in your game and move up in limits. Here are a few tips to help you whenever you are unfortunate to experience running bad in poker.

Losing streaks are part of the game and believe it or not can be helpful. They will force you to have a close look at your own game to try and identify any big leaks which may be costing you a lot of money in certain spots. Yes, maybe you have just been card dead for the previous month, but have you been stealing the blinds and 3betting light in spots where you can easily take down the pot without a confrontation? You only need good cards when you get to showdown, so make sure to analyse your non showdown hands where there can be room for improvement. Buy poker tracker software (Poker Tracker/Holdem Manager) to help you analzye your game. Even the best poker pros have room for improvement.

If you have been running bad for an extended period of time and you are no longer playing your A game, take a break for a week or even more. Confidence is a huge thing in poker and if you are second guessing yourself at the table because you think your opponent will suckout on you again, well then you definitely won’t be playing optimal poker. Whenever you expect bad things to happen you might start to adjust your play and start to play more passively or the opposite may be true.

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