Bad Beats

Author: Jesse McLean

Summary: The dreaded bad beat – we’ve all been there

If you’ve played more than about 10 hands of poker, the odds are that you have suffered a bad beat. For those of you who haven’t, a bad beat is basically when your good hand loses to some garbage.

Bad Beat stories are a staple of poker literature / conversation. Nobody particularly likes hearing them, but telling them helps release steam.

I’ll share one, so you have an idea how gut-wrenching probability can be:

700 person Multitable tournament that I’ve qualified for via satelite (that’s a tournament that pays out in places to a bigger tournament), so this is a big deal for me. We’re down to about 140. Seventy places pay, and I’m in the top ten of chips. In other words, I am fairly confident that I will cash, and hopefully cash big.

I get dealt AA on the button. The guy to my right makes a raise of 5BB. I raise all in, and he calls me (I have him covered, but not by much). He has A7 – at least it was sooted.

He needs either 2 of the last 3 sevens, or 4 cards for a straight or 3 for a flush. In other words, I am a big favourite (www.twodimes.net has a very useful hand analyser). In fact, you should head over there right now and test this one out – I’ve learnt some useful things from running test hands through their poker analyser.

Anyway, now you know how much of a preflop favourite I was, we’ll continue.

The flop comes A72, giving me a set (three of a kind), he gets two pair with no flush draw. So, what cards does he need to win?

That’s right, both the remaining sevens. Pretty slim pickings.

Of course they came, and I busted out a couple hands later when I pushed JTs in a semi-steal and was called by A2o.

Let’s just say that I was not happy.

So, what should you do when you suffer a bad beat?

It doesn’t have to be anywhere near that bad to really make you mad. I know people who lose what is basically a coinflip (for example 77 vs AKs) and start yelling. But as sure as eggs is eggs, and as long as there is poker, people will be getting all worked up about losing hands they thought they were going to win.

Anyway, getting angry is bad, it definately does not help your poker. In fact, a bad beat is one of the easiest ways of going on TILT (which is bad).

So, how to deal with a bad beat? Well, the key is to find what works for you personally, but here are some ideas.

1) Remind yourself that in the long run, good play (getting your money in when you have a better hand than your opponents) will be rewarded. It’s true. Visit twodimes, and work out how much of a share you had in the pot. If it’s more than the share of the money you put in (50% 2 handed, 33% with 3 players, if 4 are in and you have over 25% then you’re doing well, if there’s 5 players all in, then let me know where you’re playing – 20% is the magic number, but 5 people allin, I want some of that looose action).

2) Yell abuse at the screen. It’s perfectly OK to call the suckout artist a “monkey-fingered inbred moron” or “mister stupid-head so stupid he dropped himself on his head as a baby” or whatever makes you feel a little better. Just make sure that you’re venting, rather than feeding your anger.

3) Take a walk. It’s easier to do in ring games, but even in a tournament, after a particularly nausiating bad beat, I’ll pace up and down the room for a little while, folding anything that isn’t AA, KK, or AK. If I’m playing cash games and I can’t get my head straight after a series of beats, then I just sit out (or leave the game entirely) and watch TV for a while, or play pacman, or head down to the shop and buy an icecream.