How to survive a poker storm

15 May 2025

Intermediate

This material is for medium-skilled players

Poker is a constant rollercoaster. However, I prefer to express myself in nautical terms, and I prefer to say «calm» and «storm». The other day I had a bad session, as many people do.

At first I was playing for about breakeven and rolling the blinds back and forth, and then I got caught by a storm: at first I was just losing a lot of small-medium pots, and then I got into a real storm, when I was covered by waves for a whole stack every time. But sometimes I managed to win back the losses, and therefore everything ended not so badly.

In this material, I will show you an instructive part of this session and give some working advice on how to overcome hits during periods when you are stormy, tossed and you are about to drown.

Your pirate ship is sailing straight through rough waters, with violent waves, rain and wind whipping at it. At this point, you are at a crossroads where you have two options:

• Turn around and avoid the storm (this is about stop loss and abrupt pause in play). And the alternative:
• Start navigating through the storm - sometimes with a fight - and perhaps emerge in a much more beautiful place than where you started (this is about the jumps in emotions and the cashier when a happy ending arrives for a few buy-ins).

However, the storm will always catch up with you again, because cash games are one long distance, and each session in it is just a mile in the journey. And just because the ship turns around and waits out the coming storm, future storms will not go away. So getting caught in bad weather is inherently inevitable, and it's only a matter of wasted time - when it catches up with you. Therefore

So, you decided not to turn around and go forward. At first, you are a little stormy, when you are hanging around at zero, sometimes winning, sometimes losing small pots. And then suddenly - boom - and a huge wave almost capsizes your ship. - Then you lost a stack (maybe even in a deep stack) and you began to be stormy also in terms of emotions.

I'll show you some typical spots that will show the nature of the storm.

Hand 1: When the wave hits, but only slightly

I'm in the BB with 67o. The short fish on the BU limped - I'm playing for free what was dealt. On the flop I catch the bottom two pairs, and this is a good reason to play for stack with the fish. Especially with the short one. But he eventually hit his out, catching two pairs higher. I lost -26 bb or so here.

But such a bucket of water on the head should not stop a self-respecting poker player, and so I move on without delay.

Hand 2: Back to normal sailing

I was dealt QQ, I flopped top set and made it on the flop and turn. On the river, the opponent folded and maybe I should have made another bet, but I didn't get it. Or maybe he was drawing firewood - who knows. Either way, I'm back on the «normal course» of the trip.

Hand 3: The wind hits the sails again

I raise - he calls, and then the opponent bluffs. No need for a detailed story here. But now I'm in the plus, and quite a good one.

Hand 4: A Huge Wave Almost Drowned Me

I was stomping around for the next hundred hands, and then it was like I was knocked off my feet when I suddenly lost my stack in a 3-bet pot with TPTK from AK because my opponent hit two pair on the river.

I opened AKo in MP, and my opponent 3-bet AQo in SB and I called as usual. He c-bet - I raise (there were good reasons for that) - he calls. I shoved on the turn and my opponent called with TP and a second kicker, but the river almost blew my ship to smithereens and I started to feel like I was in Davy Jones' locker because my opponent had beaten me in the pot by almost 240bb (minus rake).

But this shouldn't throw off the aspiring poker player. I'm sure you know what I mean when I talk about a storm or tempest: the player is initially just chattered, and then knocked off his feet ...

And now I want to give you 7 consecutive steps on how to survive this storm without major losses and, perhaps, even find yourself in a calm, quiet harbor on a tropical island, where treasures lie right on the shore.

Step 1: Consider that you are now caught in a storm

Assign / name / admit that this storm is just beginning. You are already starting to be tossed by serious waves and drawn into whirlpools. And then this can only intensify. However, at the poker distance, you can’t escape from this - you remember this, and therefore it is better to go into the storm right away, and not take a break for a day or take other stops.

The first step here is the most important, and the most important thing you need to do is to refresh your head and turn on the fighting mode in your brain - a brave warrior, and not a meek coward. Tell yourself an encouraging phrase like

• «I’ll do it!»,
• «I’ll teach them a lesson!»
• «It’s my turn to show them what I can do!»
    However

Step 2: Pull yourself together

Once you have the will to win or do everything possible (within reasonable limits), you should come to your senses. Take a deep breath. If you are very emotionally sick, you can sit out and take appropriate measures to return yourself to the fight.

If you have played many tables, then now leave the minimum - it is better to tune in to the optimal wave and go calmly than to rush at full speed, jumping on the waves and sooner or later end up completely overturned. You get the metaphor.

Step 3: Smile

Of course, we don't want to be happy that our entire stack was just taken away. However, we don't have to be happy about it - from the heart, as they say.

There is an expression «Fake it till you make it», which means imitating until you do it (really). The working thing regarding a smile in particular is that when we have a smile on our face - even if it is fake - then the body still gradually releases 3 types of hormones into the blood, which help us feel much better: dopamine, serotonin and endorphins.

They, in turn, send a signal to the body that you are good. And, damn it, gradually you will really become more cheerful and better.

Step 4: Make a commitment

That you will really fight, do everything reasonable and possible, and that you will survive this storm. And after you have come to your senses emotionally, start the game. But!

Step 5: Play calmly

Measuredly, with feeling, with sense, with arrangement. In the game you need. And do not force unnecessary action while you are still a little heated up by emotions, and the brain does not work at the former 100% of its capabilities. And here I want to give you a short strategic plan on how it will be more profitable to play when the poker winds are blowing against you, and not against your sail.

Step 6: Continue to play according to the characteristics of the opponent, observe and take notes.

It is possible that more and more new ones. All this will be more profitable than the standard game, supposedly an absolutely unknown opponent.

Step 7: Play according to a simplified strategy during the storm

• Play in position

This means entering hands much less often preflop, unless you often have a positional advantage postflop, which greatly simplifies the game and dramatically increases its EV. Therefore, now play less often on the blinds against free positions, play as often as possible specifically on the SB, which will always be out of position, and also greatly narrow the ranges of entry in early positions in the hand - if your relative position is not very cool, then at least let the strength of the range compensate for this in excess. This is how it should be.

• Don't be afraid to use thoughtful aggression

Usually after losing a huge bank, most people hide not only in their ranges, but also in their actions, essentially turning into harmless nits, with whom it is quite easy to play. - So keep yourself in hand! - If there is information that the opponent, for example, overfolds to steals / 3-bets / 4-bets / 5-bet all-ins, then ... you need to do exactly that action that exploits this clear leak. Or if the opponent overfolds to check-raises, then it will be better to check-raise when a convenient spot for this is provided (the texture is in your favor, as a simple example). - As if you were in a normal state of mind. Get used to acting correctly, even after receiving a blow to the mentality.

• Choose bet sizes consciously

You should not limit yourself to «standard» bet and (check) raise sizes, when any number options are available in a no-limit game. Always ask yourself what is the best optimal sizing to use in a given situation. Open 2 bb - why? Continuation bet half the pot - what is the point? What are the alternatives? And so on.

• Think in advance about how your opponent will react to your actions

This follows from the previous two pieces of advice about bet sizes and aggression. Every action has its consequences. Often, they can be thought out quite well, even though poker is a game of incomplete information. Thinking through the consequences of your actions when your opponent still has the move is advantageous.

Or gives you the strength and money to survive the second part of it with dignity. Now I want to show you one hand in which I felt like I was spat out of a whirlpool into calm waters.

I open khah for 3 bb in MP. A loose-passive player with 38/14 stats in 59 hands calls me in CO. The rest fold.

On the flop we are in a heads-up pot, in which I play out of position. The board comes , so I have a ton of equity even though my hand is not a made one yet. Against a more or less active opponent, you can play this hand any way you like, but against a passive fish, I'd rather continue betting at a price that's acceptable to me, get a call, and look at the turn, while simultaneously building up the pot a little bit for a possible hit in one of the many combinations my hand is capable of.

This is a pretty passive fish who plays the flop like a calling station, and in this sample of hands he never raised anyone's c-bet. As a result, I consider the continuation bet to be the optimal move. The turn is a blank , so my equity drops by 2 times, but it does not help the opponent either.

The fish's stats indicate that he gave up on turn c-bets 1 time out of 1, and also that it is better to put a second barrel (50+% of the pot) and thus get a high percentage of folds from the opponent. My hand still has a lot of equity and beats all his draws and other unmade hands, but (1) the passive fish has weak pairs that can fold, and it is still desirable to do so, because I will hit my outs less often than his pair will hold and (2) his non-flush draws have their outs to make a good combination. Therefore, it would be good to get them out of the pot as well. Well, if he has a naked flush draw, then he is gonna lose his stack almost always.

But why did he suddenly decide to raise me on this turn, which was a complete blank? Whoever the opponent is, usually their big hands are raised right on the flop, both protecting them and collecting value in case I hit the flop at least well. This is not a regular who has gotten to the point where he plays it safe on wet flops and carries his aggression onto blank turns because it kills two+ birds with one stone. Overall, I don't see much value in his aggression, but knocking out his 8-out straight draws is going to be nice, so I decide to 3-bet-push my stack as a semi-bluff.

The fish called me on . So, gave him a straight draw, which I thought about in general, but not so low (although for a fish it is normal). And if we do not take into account my hand, then perhaps the fish relied on his hand as having 15 outs and still decided to play it actively - he has the right. On the river came a blank and, thus, I won a large pot on A-high against the fish.

• The point here is this:

In «Pirates of the Caribbean» there was an expression «Davy Jones' Locker», which meant the grave of sailors - something catastrophic. In our case, the scale is not so fatal, but the consequences of the incorrect work of the mind still have serious significance. Usually this manifests itself in two ways.

• In the first option, the player interrupts the game and ends the session - Davy Jones has dragged him to the bottom here morally.
• And in the other option, he continues the game, but now plays excessively cautiously, does not think much and hopes purely for the distance, in the sense that it will «return» to him in general, and maybe specifically in this very session (although here a lot depends on perception, right?).

So, the player plays without much observation / without thinking through ways to exploit opponents / without using the solutions found by hand, and as a result does not use the opportunities provided during the game. For a while he marks time or slowly loses chips along the red line, but sooner or later the wave hits him again.

It happens that a player was really unlucky in both stack dumps. However, he didn't win much between them. And the truth is that this is usually caused by overly cautious and passive play, in which he didn't even try to win hands and put pressure on his opponents. A further 100+ blind dump can be caused by various reasons, some of which could have been prevented if Hero had played much more aggressively and confidently. And at the same time, he would have taken down the blinds from his opponents. But he records the loss of two stacks and ends the session angry.

Therefore, the next time the RNG gives you a kick in the pants, you shouldn't go into deep defense ahead of time and not try to resist your opponents and try to win at least some pots that your opponents aren't very interested in. This will help to support morale and the game as a result, and in the long run it will bring much greater profit than a passive game solely for survival, floating with the flow in the violent waves of a poker storm.