This is a section that I will keep brief. Why, you might ask? Well, quite frankly, it bores me, and I have many better things to do (such as polishing my coin collection). Suffice to say that bad beats are a big part of this game we all love, and they happen to everybody. Bad beats are as common as pimples on a fat man’s ass.

I don’t want to hear your bad beat stories, and you will never hear me tell mine. Luck is a powerful force in poker, plain and simple. And with luck comes bad beats (poker is the polar opposite of a game like tennis, where the best player can win again and again). Also consider that for every bad beat you have endured, you have probably inflicted one on somebody else. You just don’t remember.

So if somebody calls off all of their chips on a gutshot straight draw, and then nails it on the river, don’t put their head through the felt. Don’t call them an asshole and an inbred sister fucker, and don’t dump your pint in their face. Be a gentleman and say “nice hand”. Make them feel like they made a good call. Bring them a hot towel and jerk them off. After all, you want a loose idiot like this to stay, not leave (more than 9 out of 10 times the gutshot draw will miss and you’ll get paid off). In poker, you make your money by being the best player at the table, not the worst.

As for advice about going on tilt? It’s pretty basic – don’t do it. Tilting out is the signature of the amateur player. Does the fact that you have two aces in the hole mean the pot should be conceded to you? Of course not. Poker is a 7-card game, not a 2 card one, with decisions to be made on every street. And if your bullets do get cracked, suck it up and move on. The cards have no memory, so why should you?

If all else fails, take comfort in this thought if you find yourself absorbing more than your share of bad beats: Good players get sucked out on more than bad players. Good players get their money in with the best of it, which means they typically lose when their opponent comes from behind. Relax, and know that over time the cards will turn around, yielding the expected results from playing with the edge. If you can’t do this, its time to dust off your tennis shoes.