Wherever
you go in poker, you hear
plenty of poker stories,
usually of the bad beat
variety and various claims of
individuals running bad. But
what is running bad?
Most
people say they are running
bad when, for instance, their
top sets are constantly beaten
by straight and flush draws or
when their pocket Aces get
beat by pocket Kings when a
King hits the flop. The
stories are often accompanied
by "he hit a gutshot",
"he hit his
one-outer", etc.
Did
you know though, that there
are actually two or more
different ways of running bad?
It is important to understand
the differences.
You
can also run bad with the
cards you
–
and this is relative. Finding
Kings three times in an hour
would be considered running
good. But if every time that
happened an opponent found
Aces, then that would be
running bad, right?
Getting
it in with a set against a
flush draw and losing is
running bad, but making a
flush against a better flush
is running bad too. If
you’re using a tracking
system, your EV will show that
you should be winning in the
first instance but losing in
the second over a lifetime.
It
is situational. You can play
perfect poker, find big hands
and still lose because:
- You
get sucked out on.
- You
find someone with a better
hand; this is not running
bad, as getting outdrawn
is situational.
There
is also potentially a third
"running bad":
besides the hole-cards
you’re dealt and the river
cards you hit, there are the
cards your opponent has and
the actions they take.
By
contrast, running good can be
that you find big hands and
they win or it can be that you
get it in with the worst of it
and suckout on your opponent.
It’s important to understand
the difference. You can play
perfect poker and make all the
correct plays but still lose
– that’s running bad.
You
may have heard players talk of
variance. This is the
statistical measure of the
dispersion of your results.
Running good or running bad
does affect your bank roll,
but you should try and look at
poker as a lifelong poker
session and not look at
sessions individually. I
realise this can be difficult;
this is often because you are
playing bigger than you should
be and the result can hurt if
it goes against you.
Try
to think of it as a game –
no more, no less – and try
not to get emotional. What is
important is that you continue
to make the right decisions
day in and day out, session
after session.
