No matter where, what or how you play, bad beats will always be around. It’s not possible to escape from it. Poker is a game where luck is a significant factor and a game that is built around variance and pot-odds. When you stack off with a KK against an AJ pre-flop, you may think you’re far ahead of your opponent, but in truth, you’ll lose this hand 1/3 times.

Most failed poker players fail because they can’t tolerate variance or even come back from losing for months. A player’s psychology plays a big factor in how they deal with bad beats and experience is always a good thing. I’ve known many very successful players who eventually buckle down under the pressure of heavy variance.

Variance can be even more significant in heads up games. You can get sucked out on the river much too easily and even against the weakest opponents out there, you’ll need the volume to turn stable profits. We’ve all been in a place where we shoved on the flop as a 90% favorite, just to be sucked out on the river with something like a completed gut shot straight draw. One only needs to spend a few minute around the big poker news sites to find stories about players taking major losses, but the best players always bounce back.

So how do you deal with bad beats? Once you’ve lost upwards of a quarter of your bankroll, things can get pretty tough. Most who fail to cope with the pressure end up going on tilt. This often leads to very bad decisions, especially in NL hold’em games where you can lose up to $200 or $300 worth of buy-ins in just a second.

The best way to deal with bad beats is to simply stop playing asap. Find something that will relax you and take your mind off the game. All people are prone to emotion and negative emotions will affect your play negatively. If you really want to get back to the game to improve yourself, take some downtime to analyze rather than play and use some analysis software to check where you made mistakes, if any. Anything you can do that isn’t risking your money is usually the best bet.

As for avoiding bad beats altogether, the simplest answer is to just play as often as you can. Whether this involves multi-tabling or just putting no more time every day, the more you play, the less of a factor luck will be on your bankroll.