One of the inevitabilities of poker is that you are going to encounter losing streaks. Some only last for a few hands, some last days, weeks, or even months. They happen to every poker player regardless of ability. It doesn't matter whether you are a pro or a complete beginner, you are going to have times in your poker lifetime where nothing you do seems to works out right. The important thing is how you deal with these swings of "bad luck".

What tends to happen when most players experience a streak of bad luck or a run of bad beats, is they tend to alter how they play poker. It is very easy in these instances to "push" a little too much. You play hands you shouldn't. You call bets after talking yourself into thinking your opponent was bluffing. You go all-in without thinking about what cards you might be up against. I am not really even talking about going "on tilt" though. I am talking about little subtleties that creep into your game without your even noticing.

Maybe you become too conservative because every strong play you make turns out bad. This is very easy to have happen after experiencing a series of bad beats. I noticed this in my own game over the last week's worth of play.

I had been on a terrible losing streak after about 2 weeks of winning pretty much everything I played. On one day alone, in two different tournaments, I lost two times where I flopped a full house to a four of a kind in each instance! Talk about bad luck!

In one case, I had pocket K's and when the Flop came Q-K-Q, my opponent had pocket Q's. The other time I had pocket J's when the Flop was K-J-K and my opponent had pocket K's. Hands like these can really make you question everything from your decision making ability to why you even are getting out of bed in the morning!

I had pocket Ace's cracked at least 4 times over the course of a couple of tournaments. At least 3 or 4 times when I had pocket Q's or K's, I ran up against pocket Ace's which, of course, I failed to crack each time. It seemed like every time I had a big hand I ran into a monster that someone else was holding.If it wasn't a monster before the Flop, many times it was a monster after the Flop!

To top it off, I was leading a multi-table Sit n Go when I made a 4x Big Blind raise pre-flop with A-K. I got a call from the Big Blind. After the Flop came 9-A-2 rainbow, I ended up losing an all-in to my opponent who was holding 9-2 off suit!!! That's when you know you are running bad, when your pre-flop raise is called my some moron with 9-2 and both the 9 and the 2 pair up on the Flop. Unbelievable!

I noticed after this string of hands over the course of a few days, that I was becoming to cautious in my play. All the bad beats had gotten to me. I was limping into WAY too many hands. I was playing scared and allowing players to beat me with hands that they shouldn't have, simply because all the bad luck was getting to me. It was in my head and affecting my mental mind-set.

In any case, my point is this: do not allow losing streaks to affect the way you play poker. Now, if you examine your game and find some aspect of your play that is not sound, that is one thing. However, if you are just having some bad luck, as we all do from time to time, you need to just shrug your shoulders and move on to the next table or tournament. Do not let it push you to "tilt" and make poor decisions and do not let it make you too tight, as it did to me in the previous examples. Keep playing your game and if it is fundamentally sound, the luck with catch up to you and you will be on another positive run soon.