Acknowledge When You Run Good

Poker Strategy / Matthew Pitt / 11 July 2011 / Leave a Comment

I never hit my draws when I need to. Ace-king always hits for my opponents but never for me. Why do they always have aces when I have kings? How often have you heard or read these statements and questions, or have come out with them yourself when discussing a cash game session or a recent tournament you participated in? Quite frequently I would imagine.

But how often do you hear tales from the other side of the coin, such as "I played like a total donkey and managed to suck out on the river," or "I called villain's all in with nothing but a gutshot straight draw and busted villain's top set." Almost never would be my guess.

Poker players tend to have this biased view on their play, and that of their opponents, because they almost always believe they are better players than they actually are. When they win it has to be because they outplayed their opponent and they are more skilled than them, but when they lose the only reason they can come up with, at least the only one they will accept as true,is that their opponent got lucky in the hand.

Thinking in this manner is dangerous for any poker player and it is a mindset that is only going to set them up for failure in the long run. The human mind is a powerful tool and if a player constantly reassures him or herself that they only ever run bad and do not receive their fair share of luck then they will eventually believe this is completely true. When this happens they will recognise even more when they are on the receiving end of a bad beat, when their flush draw misses or when they run into an overpair or set on the flop. This then makes the possibility of going on tilt increasingly likely, which in turn makes them play worse, lose more money or chips all whilst their opponents continue to get lucky time after time against them, or so they believe.

One way to combat this is to acknowledge when you have been running well or have enjoyed a spell of positive variance and reassure yourself that you do actually have some good fortune when you play poker. Go through your hand histories at the end of a session and look at every hand you were involved in. Use all the filters you have to hand to see how often you flopped a set and were up against an overpair, or when you hit the perfect flop from the blinds, anything that will show you that not all of your winnings were down to your skills being superior to those of your opponents.

Remember that running good is not just cracking an opponent's aces or winning coinflips but also picking up strong hands when they also have a hand strong enough to pay you off with. Acknowledge when you have run good and I guarantee it will make the times that you run badly seem much less severe.

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