Losses In Poker Are Inevitable: Learn to Accept It

Accept That Poker Is About Your Ability to Endure Repetitive Failing

Even the most profitable players in poker constantly lose buy-ins, pots, and hands — because if they didn’t, they would’ve already won all the money in poker. This isn’t an exaggeration, but simply the nature of variance, something you can verify with any decent variance calculator.

For example, if you calculate variance for a full-ring NLH cash game with a 5 BB/100 win rate using the PrimeDope calculator, you’ll see that even after 100,000 hands, there’s still a 1.19% probability of overall loss

And the probability of loss only truly disappears at very high volumes — assuming your win rate stays constant. For instance, the simulated distance at which the probability of loss drops to zero is around 470,000 hands.

The average number of hands per hour on a single 6-max or 9-max NLH cash table is between 60 and 75.

Let’s say you play 12 tables simultaneously. To reach 470,000 hands, you’d need between 522 and 653 hours of play. Even if you put in 10 hours a day, that’s still 52 to 65 days of non-stop grinding — all while maintaining the exact same win rate, without the slightest deviation.

If numbers don’t convince you, look at the graphs of any professional poker player. No one has a straight upward line — there are always swings in both directions. They just fluctuate at different rates. For example, take the stunning graph of fan-favorite poker streamer Bert ‘girafganger7’ Stevens on PokerStars as of March 20, 2025.

All of these examples show one thing: you can’t avoid failures, losses, and downswings — even if you can beat them with volume. For your own sake, it’s worth learning to make peace with that fact.

Restructure Your Perception of Results in Poker

In the mid-20th century, American psychologists Albert Ellis and Aaron T. Beck introduced a practice of shifting attitudes and perceptions toward negative events, thoughts, and misfortunes. They called it “cognitive restructuring” — the foundation of cognitive behavioral therapy. And yes, you can apply it to your poker mindset.

A simplified version of the method includes these steps:

1. After a negative experience, use pen and paper to describe what happened — especially your feelings and reactions in that moment.
2. Highlight the most intense feelings and reactions.
3. List all the thoughts you had during the stressful situation and describe how they relate to those intense emotions.
4. Analyze each thought through the lens of rationality and accuracy.
5. Create a rational rebuttal to each irrational or exaggerated thought.

One of the best ways to analyze your thoughts is through the Socratic method: ask leading questions and check their logic — either alone, with an impartial friend, or with a mental coach or psychologist.

Let’s say you’re very sensitive to losing pots or getting busted from tournaments. Every time it happens, you feel angry, annoyed, bitter — and ready to chase your losses. What thoughts pop up? Maybe: “I can’t believe how unlucky I am!” or even “I never win anything!” The first thought fuels your annoyance, and the second deepens your anger and bitterness.

How do you restructure those reactions?

For the first one — questioning your luck — ask: have you ever received anything in life just by responding to an opportunity at the right time? If you’ve even once benefited from timing, then technically, you are lucky. So then, why do you believe you’re not? Review the results of your all-ins to get a fuller picture.

As for the second — questioning your ability to win — check your stats and win/loss ratio. Do you really never win, or are you just more focused on your losses? Go over both wins and losses and evaluate how accurately they reflect your decisions.

If you practice cognitive restructuring regularly, you’ll start to notice how your emotional responses shift, and how your resistance to tilt increases. More importantly, it will help you build a stronger foundation for analytical thinking in stressful moments — allowing you to acknowledge losses without making them the center of your story.

Become Poker Frodo: Try to Practice Radical Acceptance

Every Tolkien geek knows that the real hero of The Lord of the Rings is Samwise Gamgee. But as admirable as his loyalty and kindness are, those traits won’t help you accept poker losses. Frodo Baggins, on the other hand, is a good example of someone practicing radical acceptance — according to licensed American therapist Jonathan Decker.

Radical acceptance means saying “yes” to life as it is. Applied to poker, it means seeing the game as a mix of wins and losses — and being okay with that.

If you’re unsure how to begin, here’s a simple exercise: break the game of poker into two categories

1. Things you can control — your actions and emotions, studying routine, game selection.
2. Things you can’t control —  RNG, everything room does, minds of other players.

Write these lists on separate sheets of paper. Set the “things you can control” list aside and focus on the second one. For each item, write down how it makes you feel and why. Then return to the first list and write how you can influence those factors — and how to do it better. Keep both lists somewhere near your playing area.

Now for the hard part: practice mindfulness during sessions. That means noticing and writing down the emotions you feel while playing, giving yourself space to experience them, and identifying which list they belong to.

Reviewing your lists will help you realize what can be managed with specific tools — and what you simply need to accept and move forward from.