Dear Reader: This post is transcribed from episode 8 of The Eightfold Path to Poker Enlightenment. (Which happens to be the free gift you will receive when you sign up for my newsletter below. 🙂 )
When it comes to handling bad beats, this is why we practice non-resistance. This is why we practice seeing reality in the moment and looking it right in the face. We train ourselves to come to terms with the fact that we just lost money. And the reason we lost money is because your opponent caught the card he needed, and there were only four cards he could win with, and one of them came up, and that is what happened.
It sounds so simple, and so obvious, to just not add on to that reality, and just live with it, and live in it, and it’s so hard to do. But there’s no other thing I can offer as a remedy for the suffering that’s caused by bad beats other than moving your awareness out a level, from your absorption with the injustice and unfairness and all the other thoughts. It’s all about awareness. It’s about being aware of the actual mental activity in your mind, and calling it what it is, and saying the whole reality: The card came, I lost the pot, and this wind is causing my mind to stir up like the surface of the lake and it’s creating waves, and only by continuing to go outside like that, like layers of an onion, another layer, another layer. By seeing the actual thought formations arise in your mind, this is the way to end the suffering.
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