Poker can be a funny old game. You will have sessions where you can seemingly do nothing wrong, even if you try. Your Ace-King will hit against a pair, you will flop sets like they are going out of fashion and you will hit your draws for fun, especially when you need to. You will often sit back and smile, look at your inflated bankroll and think to yourself, “easy game!”
Sir Isaac Newton once famously said what goes up must come down and although he was primarily talking about gravity it also applies to poker to some degree. Whilst poker seems the easiest game on the planet when you are running well the complete opposite can happen and in an instant poker can turn ugly.
Your opponents will outdraw you like there is no tomorrow, you will forget what a set looks like and the times you do hit a flush someone will have a higher one or hit a full house on the river. At this point you will hate poker with a passion and trust me when I say these periods of running bad will feel like they will last forever.
How you cope and deal with running badly will define whether or not you are a winning player or not. The late Chip Reese once famously said that his A-game was no better than that of anyone else but his B and C game, when he was running badly, was much better than that of his opponents. According to a story told by his close friend and 10-time WSOP bracelet winner Doyle Brunson, Reese once lost $450,000 in a single poker session but said that any lesser player would have lost a couple of million.
The best way to deal with running bad is to accept it is part of the game, part of the game that allows you to enjoy the highs much better. Although it can be difficult to accept you have to work hard to do so. If you play poker online you could always try to play more hands by playing on several tables at once so that the streak is over quicker and if running bad is starting to affect you mentally and not allowing you to play your A-game then you simply have to move down in stakes and ride it out until the cards start falling in your favour once again.
