Bad beats as you will know if you play any form of poker be it free poker games or high stakes card room are the very deepest embodiment of "bad luck" known to poker humankind!
Physically, if there are just a few very unlikely cards that your opponent needs to catch in the river in order to win a very large pot and one of them falls, you cannot recover the hefty stack of chips that passed from your hands to an undeserving adversary. Unlucky you just got bad beat. This sort of bad beat can even see you knocked out of a tournament. You may not be able to recover your physical seat in the poker table (unless it's a rebuy tournament, and you rebuy).
Suppose, in the example above, your opponent has A-J and you have A-K, and the board is A-3-7-10. You've got the top Pair and top kicker. Your opponent has top Pair with the second best kicker that he thinks it's the best, and he moves all-in. At that point, moving all-in will cost you 90 percent of your stack.
You call with the hope that your opponent does not have A-10 or something, and he flashes A-J. Brilliant, the best of news! He has to catch a Six and you figure that there is only a 6.82% chance of that, it is literally the only way for him to win. A 6 comes.
Bam! Bad Beat!
You are left with one-tenth of what you have before the hand started. Or you might even be the one knocked out.
Psychologically, how do you redeem yourself from such a cataclysm? It is easy. Think, would you want your opponent to call with A-J in this situation if you had A-K? If that is a "yes" then you have nothing to complain about.
You played your hand in the best way you can (you might have even read him with, like, an A-5 or A-4, and you're close to your read) So you want him to call. He did. All your circumlocutory plays like acting weak, betting small for him to pounce, etc., are effective.
He did what you want to happen. Should he call you know you will be 93-7 favorite. Would you prefer to be on the 93 side or 7 side? Ask that question to yourself. You have not made a bad play after all. Your opponent made it.
You might be knocked out of the tournament after that hand, should you have lesser chips. But you need to be thankful that there is someone willing to put his chips in on even just a 90-10 proposition in which he has the 10. 90% of the time he does it, he will be knocked out. Your loss will fall only on the 10% side.
So you can redeem yourself by saying that you made an intelligent play, after all. Basically, that you play better poker than the one who messed you up. And this point made, in the future you can exploit many players who might be willing to make bad plays but who didn't realize that these plays are in fact bad.
Sometimes to feel the ease of victory in which you are a 90-10 favorite, you should be ready to take the 10% hit sometimes.
But if you have not been knocked out you can try to save yourself. Don't spend energy worrying and stressing over how unfair it was that the card fell. That card emerged, and nothing can change it, not even the wind. Now apply your mental focus and continue to play right next time, perhaps a calculated all-in will bring you right back up.
And when you're on the end of a stream of bad beats go play poker online for free and get your confidence back before returning to the cash tables.
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