There are times in poker when your fate is pre-determined as soon as the dealer shuffles and cuts the cards.

Those times when the poker planets align against you and you’re dealt K-K and run into A-A are going to happen, and it’s always agonizing to sit back and wonder if there was any way, in hindsight, that you could have avoided going broke.

With a few notable exceptions, the short answer is no. As a poker player, it’s much easier to accept that you’re going to get unlucky once in awhile, and you’ll also get brutally, insanely unlucky from time to time. So if you flop a set of jacks against a set of queens, you need to just be content with the fact that you WILL go broke on that hand, and forget trying to find a way to make super human laydowns, because only a few select humans are capable of them.

You and I are not among them. The first time I went broke with kings against aces was a painfully memorable experience. Down to 10 players in a $220 casino buy-in tournament that paid nine, I was in the big blind when the player in the cut-off seat put in a standard raise. The small blind, to my right, looked down at his cards and immediately moved in. I looked down at two red kings and didn’t hesitate to push all my chips forward.

I was devastated when the small blind turned over his pocket rockets – slowly, I might add – and bubbled me out in 10th place. I was not a short stack at the time, either. I agonized on the ride home and wondered if I called too impulsively, and if there was any possibility I could have avoided going broke. The way I view the game these days, I’ll never second-guess myself if the situation comes up again. It’s just one of those things that happens in poker.

I remember recalling the aces-kings story to a friend and also telling him that, coincidentally, I had never lost to set over set. Of course, I notched that poker milestone a week later when my trip 10s ran into three kings and busted me out of another tournament just short of the money.

I rehash those anecdotes because a recent hand I played in an online tournament reminded me of the “sometimes you’re just going to go broke” maxim that all poker players should live by. Sometimes it happens pre-flop; this time it was post-flop.

I was playing a one-table sit-and-go and the player to my right, the small blind when I was in the big blind, struck me as a somewhat weak player. He never raised out of the small blind when it was folded around to him, and when he bet the flop he usually had at least top pair. I know this because he insisted on showing me his cards whenever I folded. Of course, when he checked the flop, I could bet and automatically take the pot down. This guy put the A, B and C in A-B-C poker player.

Truth be told, I kind of respect tight players – I admittedly am somewhat of a tightwad myself – particularly in the online game because they are so rare. But while this guy was tight with his chips, he was liberal with his words. Whenever hands were turned over, he would usually criticize the loser in the chat box with some comment about his play. Once, when six players limped with the blinds at 15-30, a loose-wild player went all-in from the big blind. The button called with A-J suited and the wild player turned over Q-9 of hearts.

The A-J held up, but Mr. Tight Weak called both of them donkeys for their play. I would usually agree, as I think A-J is a horrible hand to call all-in with for 1,500 when you’ve got 30 in the pot, but I actually thought it was a good call based on the obnoxious behavior the al-in player had already shown. Mr. A-J probably suspected he had the best hand, which he did, and, like the rest of us, was tired of seeing the guy try to run over the table so early in the contest.

Even so, Tight Weak had to have his say, which sets the backdrop for the key hand between him and I. Whittled down to about 900 chips with blinds at 50-100, he again limped from the small blind when it was folded around to him. I looked down at two red kings and decided to pause before hitting the raise button. As tight as this player was, I reckoned, he probably won’t even call if I put in a mini-raise here. I decide to roll the dice a little bit, check my option, and hope he gets a piece of the flop. The flop came down J-10-3 with two hearts, not a terrific flop for my hand but not terribly threatening, either.

Tight Weak checks and I bet $100, the minimum. Then, of course, he did something he hadn’t done all night … he check-raised me to $400. Fantastic. This guy hadn’t raised a hand the whole game, much-less check-raised anyone. Something told me I was in trouble; however, he could have J-9 here, Q-J or some other top-pair hand he suspected was good, and maybe this was the one time he was going to prove to everyone that he couldn’t be pushed over all the time.

On second thought, something tells me I’m beat. But he has only $400 left in his stack, I have him well-covered and, if you muck pocket kings to this flop against this player in a heads-up pot, you will be making a mistake 95 percent of the time or better. So I re-raise enough to set him all-in, knowing he’ll call no matter what he has. Tight Weak gleefully turns over a set of 3s – of course I couldn’t see his expression, but I imagine it was in the gleeful ballpark – and looks poised to double up at my expense.

I’m sure his ecstasy turned to pain when the turn and river came runner-runner queen, ace to give me a straight and send him to the cyber rail. To me, this was the perfect example of all the money going in because of some sort of poker destiny, and I made a comment along the lines of “Tough hand, nothing either one of us could do,” as the virtual chips scooted toward my avatar.

Naturally, Tight Weak wanted none of it. He proceeded to call me a donkey, a moron who didn’t know how to play pocket kings, etc., and insisted that my inferior play was rewarded and that he must be the unluckiest player who ever lived.

Now yes, his set getting cracked was unlucky – but how about the 80-percent-to-win kings getting cracked for bad luck? -- but if you think about it, how could the hand not turn out the way it did?

All the money probably should have gone in pre-flop anyway. Most players will raise from the small blind with a pocket pair, and I haven’t seen many players, particularly of the online variety, who will ever fold a pair blind-on-blind and particularly not when they are short-stacked.

The most likely way for this hand to play out would be the small blind moving all-in with his pair and getting called instantly, or putting in a raise, getting re-popped, then deciding to go with the hand. There are only a few players in the world capable of dumping the hand to a re-raise in that situation, and I admittedly am not one of them. The only difference in this hand is that he caught a miracle flop and his tight style almost paid off.

My point is, Tight Weak just didn’t get it. He was destined to go broke on the hand, he just didn’t know it. If I were in his shoes, I certainly wouldn’t blame my opponent for raising all-in with two kings on that flop, and when the hands were turned over, I would respect how unlucky the flop was for him. I would also feel a little snake-bit at the outcome of the hand, but I’d know there was no way it could have been avoided.

Tight Weak was too busy calling me an idiot to hear the logic in what I was trying to say, but if he reads this, maybe he’ll spend less time bemoaning his bad luck and learn to better cope with the inevitable fates of poker.