Playing poker can be an extremely rewarding experience. It can also be one of the most emotional, heart wrenching, unforgiving experiences you could have as well. Yes, we all can recall more than our share of bad beat stories at the drop of a hat. Poker will do that to you. The funny thing is that no matter how well you play we never seem to remember the days when we ran good for very long but the bad beats seem to last a life time. Why is that? I believe it is simply because of our human nature and quest for improvement. When I was a 19 handicap golfer I never remembered all of the great shots I made in a round but I could tell you every single thing about how I screwed up a hole with one bad stroke.

Perhaps it is simply the competitive nature of us people that play the game. Either way we all need to realize that when things are going good it is OK to enjoy the ride for a while. When things are going bad we also need to realize that over time the cards do even themselves out. I have a quasi-famous saying, “The math ALWAYS catches up to itself.” that I tend to live by when I am taking beat after beat. It always seems a lot worse than it is when the cards are not falling or your hands are not holding up. So remember that the next time things seem to be going down hill.

“The math always catches up to itself” -Curtom