Texas Holdem Poker Losing Streaks
Texas Holdem Poker Losing Streaks are Common
Poker odds play out in streaks. Some of these streaks are good and some are terrible. Nothing feels worse than being on a poker losing streak. Playing our beginning Texas Holdem poker strategy already tries your patience. Add the stress of watching your poker stake dwindle slowly lower and you’ve got the recipe for depression, anger, or worse...going on tilt.
Evaluate Your Texas Holdem Poker Game
When you go on a Texas Holdem poker losing streak it is extremely important that you don’t lose hope. If you are playing the odds they will eventually turn back in your favor. To be certain that your losing streak will end you must evaluate your game. Make sure that the losses you suffer are expected as a part of our beginner strategy. There are two infrequent situations where you will lose a lot of money yet still be on the right side of the long term odds. The first is bad beats and the second is pushing in with a big hand when someone else has a bigger hand. Both of these situations are to be expected and should not upset you.
A bad beat is when you have the best hand, put all of your money in the pot, then someone sucks out on you. If you play this strategy correctly you will almost always be ahead when all of your money goes in the pot. When you are ahead it will be by a huge margin. Most of the time your opponent will have less than a 35% chance of beating you if he sees the river. Usually his odds are between 8% and 19%. Think of yourself as running a casino where you win more than 65% of the time. Every bad beat should be celebrated because without bad calls from your opponents you won’t make money. Let me repeat that again. Without bad calls from your opponents you won't make money playing poker.
When you push all of your money into the pot with a set after the Texas Holdem flop or with KK before the flop and get called by a bigger hand don’t let this depress you. The odds of a bigger hand being in the pot with you is so low that it pays in the long run to just get your money in. It hurts to watch that money slide to the other side of the table, but you’ll be ahead more often than you are behind so just stick with the Texas Holdem strategy.
If the above two situations are the only cause of your Texas Holdem losing streak don’t get depressed. Just keep playing. I’ve had losing streaks that are eight times the amount of the maximum table buy in. So that could be a $400 Texas Holdem losing streak if you are playing the $50 no limit Texas Holdem poker tables. These times will terrify you because you’ll be only $100 away from losing your entire poker stake. Don’t lose hope. If you continue to play, the odds will play out and your money should come back. The odds have always played out for me so that I’ve never had a losing month.
Identify Your Texas Holdem Leaks or You are Doomed to Lose All of Your Money
If you are losing big pots for any other reason than the two mentioned above you are doomed to lose all of your money. Calling big bets with shit hands or drawing to sucker straights and flushes will cause your losing streak to continue for ever. You have now become the type of player that pays those of us who stick to the strategy. For more information look at our Poker Leaks, Texas Holdem Flop Turn River, and Poker Hand Ranking pages.
