Texas Hold'em poker (or Texas Holdem) can be a brutal game, especially when you are playing with No Limit stakes. When a player makes mistakes in a No Limit Texas Hold'em tournament, they usually don't last long and end up talking to themselves while leaving the game. Even professional poker players make mistakes, and anyone who has ever been knocked out of a poker tournament because of making a mistake knows that it can be a brutal kick to your psyche as well as your bankroll. What's even worse though, is when you do the right thing in a No Limit Holdem Tournament, and lose by way of the weaker player's dumb luck. This happens more often than any good poker player would like to admit, but we've all been there, and one such incident happened to me yesterday. I did the right thing, and was rewarded by being knocked out of the tournament. I was playing in a 2-table sit and go (SnG) tournament with a $10+$1 buy-in on Party Poker, and I had played my way into the money winning positions. The field of 20 had been whittled down to the final four players of the final table, and each player was guaranteed to be a winner. The payouts were 1st=$80, 2nd=$60, 3rd=$40, and 4th=$20 with the other 16 players going home empty. So, there I was having just made it past the bubble and I had the third largest chip stack. I had around $2700 in chips, as did the other players except for the huge chip leader who had around $10,000 in chips (each player had started with $1000 in chips). We had played a couple of hands since getting down to four players, and it was pretty tight so far. Then, on my big blind of $200, the two middle players folded to the small blind who was the weakest player left in the game, but 2nd in chips, and he raised my big blind by double to $400. Most likely the guy was bluffing, and since I had Q-J offsuit, I just called knowing I'd have position on this guy after the flop so I could let him bluff into me again. The flop came up with a Queen, giving me the top pair, and there was no flush or straight draw out there yet. The other guy had to go first, and he very quickly bet $1000 even, which was about half of each of our chip stacks. By the way this guy had played, and because you would be stupid to bet out with that much money if you had a good hand, I knew for certain he was bluffing because I had a Queen myself along with a good kicker. I pushed all in to take advantage of this guy's mistake of bluffing into someone's big blind that had hit on the flop. I thought he would fold, and that would have been fine since he bet such a huge amount when he bluffed. He wasn't done making mistakes yet, though; he went ahead and called me with nothing, hoping that I was bluffing him and that he might win somehow. The cards come up for the turn and then the river, both are hearts, and the guy got extremely lucky to hit a runner runner flush because he was holding two hearts, the ten and the 4. He had high card ten when he bluffed me and then called my all in. I had a winning hand, and I read my opponent's moves correctly. Then he made an even worse mistake to call with nothing but a runner runner flush draw in a no limit tournament. I'll win that hand matchup 70%-80% of the time. I did the right thing, at every point in the hand, and I lost out anyway. Sometimes, that's poker. I still cashed for a $20 prize, but losing to such a poor player was brutal. With his chip stack (that he was practically handing me), I would have been in good shape to make a move on the leader and win the whole tournament and the $80 for first place. With my chip stack, the other guy continued to play stupid, and lost it all to the leader a couple of hands later and finished third. Sometimes, in life and in poker, when you do the right thing, you can still lose. There is even a famous bumper sticker that proclaims a similar wisdom. It happens. If that tournament had been a $10,000 buy-in at the WSOP or on the WPT, and I took a similar knock-out but on or before the bubble and not after it, then I would be finished mentally, emotionally, and financially. For only the $11 buy-in, even if I had lost before making the money positions, it would have bothered me for a minute, but it wouldn't have really even fazed me. That's why it isn't a good idea to play above your head in poker where the stakes are so high that you cannot afford to lose. Ditto for life.

Source: Poker In The Hole