Because most of the time the pot is getting shipped your way. You should be happy that there are players in your game willing to play this badly. The vast majority of the time when they play like this, they miss those four outs, one of the other 46 cards comes, and we win the pot with the best hand.Īs painful as it is to lose to something ridiculous like a gutshot straight draw, when you look at it from a broader perspective, you can just laugh it off. We get so angry sometimes when they hit their four-outer on the river against us that we forget the simple math of the game. The better players often are never in a position to draw out on you in the first place.īut it is important to understand that there will always be more value in playing against players who chase everything because of this simple fact - most of the time they miss. Higher-stakes players typically fold earlier in the hand than do many of those playing the lower limits.

Of course, this means that you are going to face suckouts more often. The reason why win rates are always so much higher in low stakes games than at higher limits is precisely because you have all of these bad players willing to call you down with anything. The key, though, is to understand that this is very much a good thing. The reason why is that there are so many more bad players at these stakes calling the whole way with bottom pair or chasing some ridiculous draw. Once again, it needs to be stated that at the lowest stakes (online or live) you will simply face more bad beats than at any other limits.

In this article I am going to give you a few tips on how I deal with all of the bad beats and suckouts that you necessarily will encounter in small stakes cash games.

I sometimes (half) jokingly tell people that I have probably taken more bad beats than anyone in history! When you are playing against people who like to call a lot and chase wild draws, it only makes sense that you are going to face more suckouts on the river.Īs somebody who has played millions of hands at the lowest stakes online, I know the feeling all too well. One of the hardest things to deal with when you are playing low stakes cash games is all of the bad beats.

Poker how to deal with bad beats