What, you say? Good fortune? But poker isn’t a game of luck, I hear you cry. Let me explain. Bad beats, for example, create a sense of pessimism. You’re going to get a period of play, no matter who you are, when your opponents seem to continuously hit miracle cards to win pots that were yours for the taking. Consequently your game is affected as your confidence dips. Conversely when everything’s going well – winning your coin-toss hands and filling your flush draws – the optimism such good fortune induces leads to a completely different playing style.

Here’s a basic example. You’re holding pocket Queens and an aggressive player raises into you. You know this opponent is the type that will have some kind of strong hand and will not relinquish it should you move all-in. With abundant confidence you’ll put a gun to your opponent’s head and move all-in. However, if you’re on a bad run where you seem to continuously come out second best in the classic ‘pair versus two over-card confrontations’, you’re likely to just call and look for a flop with no Ace or King on it.

With the way things are going, the flop will, of course, come King-high and you’ll pass to any bet. Naturally, the bet will have come from your opponent who missed with his A-J but sensed your weakness and lack of desire to get involved in a big confrontation and successfully preyed on it. If not for the pessimism, things would have gone entirely differently and instead of losing chips, you could well have doubled-up.

Try to create and maintain a rush, but don’t get overly despondent when things aren’t going well. Unless you’re a natural born cooler, luck will even out in the end and you don’t need to put yourself on tilt to try and reverse it – it’s a sure-fire way of losing even more and creating even more pessimism in your play.