You had it…you thought…the nut flush, then some @#$%@# idiot called you and got a full house on the river. Why would he call you? You had the &*#@ flush!!! He had two pair!! Welcome to the wild world of online poker, where everyone who has watched “Poker After Dark” or “Celebrity Showdown” is an expert. Your biggest challenge right now isn’t to double your stack, or figure out what your tournament chip standing has become. Your biggest challenge is to calm down. I know that sounds like either obvious or useless advice, but it’s at moments like this, when you can picture ramming the cards down your opponents throat, that you have to take charge and calm down.

I don’t know how many time I have been the ‘bad beat’ on one hand, then thrown all my chips in on the next only to find myself sitting on the sidelines for the rest of the tournament. With a little careful thought, and trying to back off full tilt, you can regain your chips, and continue deep into the tourney. Believe it or not, you can even work this to your advantage.

Online poker attracts a few different types of players, we are not talking about professionals and amateurs here, but, rather, the personalities of the people who play online. During a tournament, you will find the “Bullies” (people who use their larger stack to hound other players out of the game), the “All-iners”, players who ‘all-in’ with just about anything, hoping to show how courageous they are. The “Strategists”, using online card calculators to figure out the odds, and betting only when it is to their advantage. Then there is the rest of us, using a combination of all three. Where we usually fall short if we allow our emotions to get the best of us, and we end up calling with a Q-6 offsuit because it won us a big pot in some previous tourney. The worst thing we do is throw in all our chips after a particularly bad beat, thinking the poker gods will favour our foolishness.

Instead of tilting, keep in mind that that player who bad beat you will go all in when his hand is not strong. He probably falls into the category of ‘all-iner”, and is calling more to steal blinds than figuring out the odds of a win with his hand. Wait. Be patient. One of the worst things than can happen now is that you go ‘off strategy.’ Eventually, you will pick a good pair or high cards and you can use his impulsive nature against him.

If, on the other hand, a ‘Bully’ is pushing you around, raising at every turn, then you have to be careful not to dwindle your stack by calling the blinds with one high card and a low kicker. Only call when you are prepared to go ‘all the way’ with your cards. A pair, A-Q or better should be what you wait for. This way, when you win even a small pot you will give the ‘bully’ something to think about next time.