The REAL Bad Beat
He had the nuts for the whole hand and they got cracked on the river making a losing hand into the winning one. Sometimes you play the hand correctly and things like this happen.
What the hell???!!
Well, a lot of players talk about bad beats they have at the tables. Sometimes they’re not really bad beats, they just seem like bad beats at the time of play because whenever we loose a hand it’s a bad beat for us.
You go all-in with pocket aces, the other guy calls with AK suited, he draws to a flush, hits and you lose. You’ve just been beaten, badly beaten. But that’s not really a bad beat. That is not what we mean by bad beat. That’s just the variance in poker, the thing you either hate or love, no in-between. I personally love it, especially when I’m on the receiving-the-money-and-chips end. It makes the game interesting. Sometimes I hate it, especially when I’m playing solid poker and I lose to a better hand.
But you got to question yourself, did I do the right play here? Did I really give him enough pot odds to allow him to draw to the flush? Because sometimes we bring these beats onto ourselves.
But…
…sometimes it’s a real bad beat, no questions asked. A couple days ago I was playing with my gf and 2 friends of mine… just chips, no real money… just our way of killing a boring night. My friend (Mark) has pocket 7s and my girl-friend (Krissie) pulls pocket 10s. Mark raises from the button to 3x BB, I fold on the SB (with 9-2 may I note) and Krissie on the BB calls.
The flop comes 7-J-J rainbow giving Mark the Full-house and Krissie the two pair. Krissie checks, Mark decids to slow play this and bets 2x the BB which Krissie instantly calls.
A 2 of clubs on the turn helped no-one and they both knew it. Deciding to slow play and trap each other Krissie checks and so does Mark. This was a particularly good play from Mark since he already had a full-house and letting an opponent draw to a club flush and maybe hitting that flush would ultimately result in Mark doubling up.
On the river comes a 10 of spades, a disastrous card for Mark and the exact opposite for Krissie. Krissie goes all-in and Mark instantly calls with what he thought was the best hand. As Krissie flipped over the full house (Tens full of Jacks) Mark went berserk. His full house (Sevens full) had been cracked by the better full house and he lost all his tournament chips.
Analysis
What can I say? That’s a REAL bad beat. He had the nuts for the whole hand and they got cracked on the river making a losing hand into the winning one. Sometimes you play the hand correctly and things like this happen. But that’s poker. On closer analysis one can see that this was a good play.
| Street | Mark [7h7c] | Krissie [ThTd] |
| Pre-Flop | 19% | 81% |
| Flop [7d Jh Jc] |
83% | 17% |
| Turn [7d Jh Jc] [2c] |
91% | 9% |
| River [7d Jh Jc 2c] [Ts] |
Lost 1500 with Full-House Sevens Full |
Won 3075 with Full-House Tens Full |
Until next time,
Good Luck and Good Skill
deBulletMan
