Losing with AA – who hasn’t? (and how to learn to accept it)

If you want to play poker, you need to think and have some fundamentals well fixed. Perhaps one of the most important is to work on the psychological side, learning to deal with defeats, celebrating victories, and not collapsing when your pair of A loses to an unlikely hand. Okay, I know it’s very difficult to accept sometimes, but I want to believe that after reading this text you will be better prepared to deal with this frustration.

Let’s start with the easy side: the victories. We have the habit of celebrating a victory, even a small one, but we don’t always remember the whole way to get there. It’s possible – and very likely – that you have succeeded in a situation where you weren’t the favorite to win. We always ‘forget’ the small bad beats we apply to our opponents when we should think much more about them. Okay, we won the hand, but was it really the correct way to play? Is it a profitable move that will take us forward in the long run?

We have to think about poker itself and the almost infinite combinations that can make us win or lose a hand. If you have AA before the flop, you are favored to win the round. But after the 3 flop cards come into play, a new scenario appears. We should never analyze a hand just by the cards you have, we need to consider who your opponent is, what form you and he are playing at that moment, how many chips each one has, whether you or he have odds to continue in that hand trying to hit some monster or whether it’s worth shutting down that hand at that moment to take advantage of a new opportunity very soon.

Well, I listed only a few variables in a poker hand. Have you, who play with your friends, ever stopped to think how many of them there are? And what other ones do you think fit in this situation? Believe me, there is much more to a poker hand than just having the highest pair in the game and thinking you’ll win at the end of that board.

With all that in mind, think with me: it’s not going to be in a good or bad hand that you’ll win the game. A hand is just a small part of a long road that you’ll need to travel. So why would you, who are intelligent and believe that experience and knowledge can lead you to victory, think that only one hand can solve your problems? TV tournaments show big and decisive hands happening every minute, but we can’t forget that it takes hours for those hands to be filmed, selected, and edited. Poker tournaments usually last for 3, 4, or 5 days. You don’t have to decide your life or death in a single round.

In summary, I would say the following: if a hand can be important to your climb towards victory, at the same time it is just another hand. You need to get used to the fact that it’s impossible to win every hand, including those in which you’re the favorite. And when you lose one of those hands, remember that many others will come and you need to be ready to make the best decisions. It’s essential that you learn to control your expectations and frustrations and be ready to move on, as new vital decisions will need you at your best. Focus on this a lot.

Losing with AA is normal, more common than you think. Try to think of that 48o you played and hit a 567o on the flop, and you won’t always be able to remember. In the worst case, listen to some music in moments of despair and you’ll see that regaining your calmness is just part of what you need to win.

This text is part of the book “Little Lessons about Poker“, a collection of texts written by me during the years I worked for the Brazilian Series of Poker. You can find my book on Amazon.

Poker, a social game that brings people together

Poker has reached the status of a mind sport. It has gone beyond that, bringing professionals around the world together in search of big prizes, fame, or just personal fulfillment, in the case of those who no longer aim for the financial side of this venture. For ordinary people, it has gradually become another reason to gather friends, take some time to have fun, and be used as motivation to gather the group.

If you have had any contact with poker, you may imagine that more and more people are using the game as an excuse for social gatherings. If football used to fulfill this function before, today we have in poker the catalyst for friendships. It is its function to provide a reason to humiliate your friends with incredible plays and others not so much, forming arguments and generating topics for the week that will follow.

A deck of cards, a handful of chips, and chairs around a table. With very little, you can set up a dispute between friends. Some add alcohol, others add challenges, and the more experienced ones are already increasing the value of this home game. And that’s how it goes in houses, in small and large poker clubs around the country, and in championships that are happening more and more regularly, from small regionals to big ones like the BSOP – the Brazilian Poker Championship. There is something for everyone, tastes, and availabilities.

Online poker makes people’s lives easier by allowing them to play from the comfort of their home, office, or wherever they are in the world, through tablets and cell phones. Gathering friends is no longer as complicated as it was in the days when we needed at least 2 teams of 6 people to play a soccer game.

In this book, I bring some stories, small tips, and valuable lessons that I have learned in the last 10 years, some of them dedicated to my work in the digital area of the Brazilian Poker Championship. I also risked myself at the tables a few times. Some trophies I have at home assure that I learned to defend myself well when necessary. If you have never played or do not know the basic rules, I suggest that you look for online content with the mechanics of the game before reading this content. And I hope from the bottom of my heart that some of these words will help you get to know poker better.

Welcome to the world of Poker!

This text is part of the book “Little Lessons about Poker“, a collection of texts written by me during the years I worked for the Brazilian Series of Poker. You can find my book on Amazon.