If there’s anything that can ruin poker for me, it’s catching a ton of bad cards in a row.  It’s almost like the slump that people who play other games and sports experience but it is even worse.  You can’t control the cards that you’re dealt and worse yet, you might try to force things as the bad cards keep piling up.

I know that when I’m stuck in this bad stretch of cards, I start to play tight when I should be playing more aggressive or even revert to the opposite and play too aggressive when I should be reigning things in more. 

But in my opinion, the worst thing one can do if they truly like playing poker is lose their liking for the game.  I’ve known a few people who’ve soured on Hold’em after experiencing a bad run with what’s in their hand.  I’ve always tried to look at it as if everything will even out in the end and the good cards will eventually come.

There’s been times when I don’t want to wait though and this has always been a good opportunity to switch from playing Hold’em all the time to something else like Omaha.  I may not be that great at Omaha but it’s a nice break from the norm.  Sometimes I’ll switch the limits that I play in Hold’em as well to change things up a bit and hopefully get away from the bad cards.

Sometimes stepping down to a lower limit and playing with people who aren’t as serious about the game can be a big relief from getting bad cards.  The bottom line is though that I try to do anything to avoid just stopping my poker playing period.  If I just stop playing because of some bad cards, then I’m not having fun with poker.