"Well, he couldn't have known that his hand wasn't best"

[Duke]

I play a lot of poker, I play very good hands, so it happens that I take a fair number of bad beats. People sweat me at times, and see various beats.

Let me preface this by saying that I'm not giving license to everyone to post their bad beat stories in this thread. These are presented for illustrative purposes only.

The "not bad" beat:

Say you have Aces, and another guy has Kings. You smooth call heads up pre-flop, and on a raggedy flop you go for a cap, then a cap on the turn, and then the miracle king hits on the river. You call 1 bet or maybe bet and call a raise. And yes, he hit the 2 outer.

And then someone says to you: well, he played his hand fine, there is no reason to be mad at him.

The "bad" beat:

Then there is the retarded beat where (not mine, but it's my favorite story of all time): You have slick, flop QJTr, you go 6 bets on the turn and lose to quad 3's.

The response is invariable: whoa, that was a horrible beat!

The problem I have is that people seem to see these 2 situations in a different light. The one "is" a bad beat, and the other "isn't." And well, that makes absolutely no sense to me.

In my mind, I don't care if I misled Phil Ivey as to the strength of my hand and he unwittingly backed into a 1 outer, or if I'm playing with Corky from "Life Goes On" on Party and he pulls a 1 outer with 22 and I got top 2 with the nut flush draw. The only thing to be mad at in either case is your hideous short-term luck. Why would you ever hate the player?

Why is it not a bad beat if they were too dumb to realize they were beat, but it is if they know they're beat and are fishing for whatever they ended up hitting?

How can anyone think like this?

I guess it just doesn't seem rational to me, at all.

In either case, I play a LOT of hands of poker to reach the long run anyhow, and the results of a given hand mean next to nothing overall. However, I can't help but be boggled by otherwise intelligent people who seem to think that a bad beat requires bad play on the part of the opponent. Is not a bad beat just an extremely unlikely occurrence that causes you to lose a pot you would win 98%+ (or something) percent of the time?

Is a 1 outer not still a 1 outer?

Maybe I'm the crazy one. Lemme know!

~D

[Dov]

Technically, I think you are right.

I think what makes it worse for people, though, is that if they knew what you had, they would never have played the hand to the end. So their bad play caused the bad beat.

We already know that this is true, however, and this is of course the goal of a winning player - to be an overwhelming favorite every time you put money in the pot.

What is usually happening in a bad beat story, though, is the focus on short term results. We also know that this is the biggest trap in poker. Still, it takes a while for people to come to terms with the concept.

[jdl22]

I understand why you feel the way you do. I think the thing about bad beats is that you have a different definition than most people.

For you it's something like:
Someone drawing extremely thin against you and hitting their n outs for n < 5

For me and some others it's:
Someone not getting even close to the right odds to call doing so (or even raising) and hitting their draw on the river.

Actually using my definition the AA vs KK example is a bad beat. What I don't consider to be a bad beat and bad players often bitch about is something like this:

fish has A5
X has 89
flop: Q55
check, check
turn: 6
check, check
river: 7
fish bets twice the pot, X raises the pot, fish pushes, X calls. Can't remember the actual hand but the flop and turn action was check, check I know that.

(this is based on an actual chat I saw and 2+2er Klagett also witnessed)
fish: what's it like in X town, West Virginia?
X: not bad it's a small town
fish: must have a high crime rate the way you're stealing my chips

what makes this story even better is that the fish kept going on and on about it even after the guy left saying "hey come back here with my chips." Highly entertaining.

We all have different definitions of bad beat I suppose.

[RocketManJames]

Well, maybe I'm not rational, but the reason I see one as a bad beat and the other one as a (not so) bad beat has to do with my own pride.

Generally, bad beats are handed out to the better players by worse ones. It is less common for a good player to suck out on another player. Therefore, when you bad beat someone, even though you won, you are looked upon as an "idiot."

So, in your example where the KK catches his two-outer, I put myself in his shoes. Would I have likely played it similarly and caught a lucky card drawing so thin? If the answer is yes, then it is my own pride telling me, I would have played it the same, it wasn't really that bad. Because, if it was truly a bad beat, then perhaps I'm a fishy player.

Take an example outside of poker... you're driving your car in your own lane. At this point there is VERY little chance you're going to get into an accident. Then suddenly the car next to you slams into you on the right. Turns out the driver wasn't paying attention to the road and was changing the radio station at precisely the wrong time as she hit a big pothole causing her car to go left uncontrollably. OK, you got bad beat.

Now, what if that driver slams into the right side of your car, but this time it's because some dog jumped out in front of the car causing the driver to react nearly spontaneously? Both times you were a huge favorite to not get into an accident. Both times you ended up losing. Do you see both drivers similarly? One did something that a "good" driver wouldn't do, resulting in the accident. The other was a "good" driver that maybe was unaware (or perhaps "too dumb to realize" as you put it) that this area was KNOWN for dogs jumping out of nowhere and that extra cautionary measures should be taken while driving.

To me, this driving analogy explains how I see the (not so) bad beat versus the true bad beat. I personally would be fuming calling the first driver a total idiot, while the second driver would probably not get any true anger from me directed her way.

-RMJ

[donkeyradish]

Personally, I don't think bad beats are bad anyway.

If catching a miracle draw encourages a player to keep drawing, by all means let them win that big pile of chips 1 time in 40. Its just a short-term loan /images/graemlins/wink.gif

[jwvdcw]

There are no 'bad beats.' The underdog hand wins just as much as it is entitled to over time, as does the favored hand.

[andyfox]

My experience is that most players consider both bad beats. There are two kinds of bad beats, in most players' minds: 1) Where you get drawn out on, even by a great player. The pocket kings had only two outs and got there on the river. 2) Where a poor player plays cards a better player would have folded.

Most players don't mind the first situation as much as the second one. They reason that the player with pocket kings had every "right" to be involved in the hand on every street, but that the bad player should have folded the pocket threes when the flop came Q-J-T. They too would have played the pocket kings the same way, but they would have folded the pocket threes.

[LetsRock]

There are bad beats and what I call "stupid beats". A bad beat can be delivered by a competent player who played the hand correctly or by a fool who just got lucky. To me, a bad beat is derermined by the likely hood that his hand would get made. In your Aces vs. Kings story it was just a bad beat. If you had made some noise before the flop, and on the flop and on the turn, it's closer to a stupid beat, but since you didn't raise preflop, he had no reson to fear AA. (How he wouldn't fear a set of some kind I don't know with all that betting, I don't know, but I'm getting off track.) He had a good strong hand, played it strong and you just got unlucky.

I would definately call the quad 3 story a stupid beat. It was a bad beat for sure (although he did have 10 outs on the river to beat the nut straight), but runner runner quads is pretty brutal. If the holder of the straight was pounding away on the flop, there's no reason for 33 to believe he has a chance in hell of winning that pot. That's just plain stupid luck. (I hate those guys. It just isn't right...........)

[Josh W]

I've said it before, and I'll say it again.

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A BAD BEAT.

See, lets take a bunch of freeze-frame photos of a poker hand.

You are dealt the cards. You have a certain % chance of winning. THIS MEANS THAT YOU WILL LOSE a certain %, as well. Even if you have AA, and are up against A6, A6, 55, 65, and 65, you can still find ways to lose...easily. Let's say you are an 80% favorite. This means you lose 20% of the time.

ON THOSE 20% OF THE HANDS THAT YOU LOSE, YOU WEREN'T UNLUCKY. Statistics dictates that you will lose that matchup. On the flop, you may be a 90% favorite. That means you lose 10% of the time. On the turn, you may be a 95% favorite. This means that you lose 5% of the time.

Losses happen. Stats dictates as much. And when you lose, regardless of how big of a favorite you are, it's just poker. If you opponent had the proper odds to draw, tell yourself "well, that's poker". If they didn't have the proper odds to draw, and drew anyways, then tell yourself "it's a good game, thank goodness for the long run".

When you play poker, you accept that it is about the long run. When you lose one pot, you acknowledge that it has nothing with the long run. You aren't unlucky when your opponent hits a few-outer on the river. You are just unhappy.

I honestly don't know what a 'bad beat' is. If you are a preflop favorite and lose, is that a 'bad beat'? If you are a huge favorite going to the river and lose, is that a 'bad beat'? Or is it a bad beat based on your opponents play (i.e. in Duke's example, losing the AA to KK may not be a bad beat)...

Please, let's get this outta our minds. No more "bad beats". Just "poker".

Josh

[eastbay]

[ QUOTE ]
I've said it before, and I'll say it again.

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A BAD BEAT.

See, lets take a bunch of freeze-frame photos of a poker hand.

You are dealt the cards. You have a certain % chance of winning. THIS MEANS THAT YOU WILL LOSE a certain %, as well. Even if you have AA, and are up against A6, A6, 55, 65, and 65, you can still find ways to lose...easily. Let's say you are an 80% favorite. This means you lose 20% of the time.

ON THOSE 20% OF THE HANDS THAT YOU LOSE, YOU WEREN'T UNLUCKY.

[/ QUOTE ]

And a lottery winner isn't lucky, because he's going to win his 1e-8 share of the time?

A bit of a pointless semantics rant, if you ask me.

When I hit quads and am beat by a straight flush, I'll consider that unlucky. You can attach any word to it that you're comfortable with. Mine is "unlucky."

eastbay

[Josh W]

[ QUOTE ]
And a lottery winner isn't lucky, because he's going to win his 1e-8 share of the time?



[/ QUOTE ]

It is HIGHLY unusual for somebody to live through 100,000,000 weeks, in order to achieve the 'long run' for the lottery. Moreover, because the difference between winning the lottery and losing is sooo huge, the long run is even more of a necessity.

In poker, almost all (even casual) players achieve the long run. And since one pot isn't 8 orders of magnitude larger than any other pot, it isn't as important to exhaust every possible matchup like one must with the lottery.

You KNOW that you'll lose quads to a straightflush some percentage of the hands you play...YOU **KNOW** this. So why are you unlucky when this happens? Furthermore, you know as well as I do, that this is the most extreme of the extreme example. Most people discuss "bad beats" with a much more 'every day' theme...losing AA, KK, a rivered flush, a gutshot, etc. They discuss 'bad beats' on hands that are 2:1 dogs, or 10:1 dogs, or maybe occassionally 20:1 dogs. The long run comes quickly for those.

I lost AA to 22 a few weeks ago. Flop came KJ8, threebets. Turn 6. Three bets. River 2. No bets. I've seen it before, and I'll see it again...about one in every 22 times the preflop, flop and turn action is the same. I won't be any 'unluckier' next time it happens, cuz I KNOW that it must happen for poker to exist.

Josh

[StellarWind]

We INTJs /images/graemlins/wink.gif hate it when people redefine accepted language to promote an agenda.

Bad Beat: A poker deal lost because of an unlikely draw on a late street, especially if the winning hand played incorrectly by not folding before the draw.

Unlucky: Fortuitous and unfavorable.

[ QUOTE ]
When you play poker, you accept that it is about the long run. When you lose one pot, you acknowledge that it has nothing with the long run. You aren't unlucky when your opponent hits a few-outer on the river.

[/ QUOTE ]
Someday I will play my last hand of poker. If I lose that last hand to a ridiculous runner-runner will I finally be unlucky?

If I *know* that it is my last hand and I can never play again, is it wrong for me to play? I can't get even in the long run if I lose.

The result of every hand is final. Nothing gets made up in the long run. I won some money this morning, more than my hourly rate. As a result the expected value of my final lifetime winnings increased. Whatever happens in the future, I will always be better off for having won this morning instead of losing.

Smart gamblers are aware that there is such a thing as luck. They just realize that luck cannot be predicted. They base their playing decisions on factors that can be assessed: edge and risk.

[pzhon]

[ QUOTE ]
ON THOSE 20% OF THE HANDS THAT YOU LOSE, YOU WEREN'T UNLUCKY. Statistics dictates that you will lose that matchup. On the flop, you may be a 90% favorite. That means you lose 10% of the time. On the turn, you may be a 95% favorite. This means that you lose 5% of the time.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't agree that there are no bad beats. You usually have good luck when you win, and bad luck when you lose. It is common for people to ignore the good luck when they win, since they incorrectly feel they deserve the whole pot, not just the majority.

If you have AA versus 66, all-in preflop, you deserve to win 80% of the pot, so you deserve a net gain of 60% of the smaller stack, not 100%.

When measured correctly, luck averages to 0. If your perception is that luck is not 0 over the long run, you may be measuring it incorrectly. You may find it less stressful to throw out the idea of luck. However, estimating your luck in an unbiased fashion would be helpful because you could decrease the number of hands needed to determine your skill advantage/disadvantage. This is done in other games, such as backgammon, and it should be attempted in poker, too.

[Josh W]

[ QUOTE ]
Bad Beat: A poker deal lost because of an unlikely draw on a late street, especially if the winning hand played incorrectly by not folding before the draw.

Unlucky: Fortuitous and unfavorable.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think that this is the first time i've actually seen somebody try to define these terms.

You say "unlucky" is unfavorable. I say it is statistically mandated.

You say 'bad beats' incorporate 'unlikely draws'. But these draws, we KNOW will get there some of the time.

In the real world there is essentially the same likelihood of me waking up tomorrow and me losing with AA again to a smaller pocket pair. Saying that it's 'unlucky' or 'a bad beat' for me to lose with AA to 22 is mathematically equivalent to me saying it's 'unlucky' or 'a bad beat' to me waking up tomorrow. Both are just as likely. (and, I can predict with the same accuracy, namely zero, when it will happen).

I have found that the more people blame/discuss/believe in luck, the more likely they are to lose. When a player has a 'lucky dealer', they play suboptimally, and will lose. When they have a 'lucky seat', then ignore seating position at the table, and give up huge edges.

And, conversely, the more a player loses, the more they like to blame 'luck'. It's a whole lot easier than blaming the real culprit, their own bad play.

How many times have you seen the following....somebody raises w/ AA, a few callers, flop comes Q75, rainbow. There's a few bets on every street, he loses to 55, and then bemoans the "damn two outer!". Yeah, the 55 had two outs when the first two smallbets went in. But when a majority of the pot went in, the 55 was WAY in the lead. But to the player with the AA, he thinks he was 'unlucky', even though he put in 3 times as much money when he was a huge dog as when he was a favorite.

Bad players don't realize this. They don't realize how much their play costs them in the long run. They just realize that their opponent hit a two outer. How unlucky.

When I realized that luck has nothing to do with ring-game poker (tournies are entirely different), I started to win a lot lot more.

Josh

[ACW]

[ QUOTE ]
I have found that the more people blame/discuss/believe in luck, the more likely they are to lose. When a player has a 'lucky dealer', they play suboptimally, and will lose. When they have a 'lucky seat', then ignore seating position at the table, and give up huge edges.


[/ QUOTE ]

This is 95% true...

The late, great bridge author Victor Mollo once wrote that you should always chose the lucky seats and cards when playing rubber bridge. Not because they really are lucky, but because your opponents think they are. Why let an opponent have the seat they want if you can make them play worse by giving them the "unlucky" seat?

[eastbay]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
And a lottery winner isn't lucky, because he's going to win his 1e-8 share of the time?



[/ QUOTE ]

It is HIGHLY unusual for somebody to live through 100,000,000 weeks, in order to achieve the 'long run' for the lottery. Moreover, because the difference between winning the lottery and losing is sooo huge, the long run is even more of a necessity.

In poker, almost all (even casual) players achieve the long run. And since one pot isn't 8 orders of magnitude larger than any other pot, it isn't as important to exhaust every possible matchup like one must with the lottery.

You KNOW that you'll lose quads to a straightflush some percentage of the hands you play...YOU **KNOW** this. So why are you unlucky when this happens? Furthermore, you know as well as I do, that this is the most extreme of the extreme example. Most people discuss "bad beats" with a much more 'every day' theme...losing AA, KK, a rivered flush, a gutshot, etc. They discuss 'bad beats' on hands that are 2:1 dogs, or 10:1 dogs, or maybe occassionally 20:1 dogs. The long run comes quickly for those.

I lost AA to 22 a few weeks ago. Flop came KJ8, threebets. Turn 6. Three bets. River 2. No bets. I've seen it before, and I'll see it again...about one in every 22 times the preflop, flop and turn action is the same. I won't be any 'unluckier' next time it happens, cuz I KNOW that it must happen for poker to exist.

Josh

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree that most people get upset over "bad beats" that aren't that bad. But I certainly dispute your notion that most players reach "the long run" in general. Yes, they may reach the long run in hitting sets, flopping flushes, etc. But I don't think many players reach anywhere near the long run in what happens when they hit quads. Or when they are at a final table of a tournament. The list goes on. Not every poker hand is equivalent - sometimes due to context; some are rare enough that it is very unlikely that you will ever approach the long run.

But still, you are just playing a semantics game with the word "lucky." If I flip a coin 1,000,000 times, I know I'll get several instances of 8 flips in a row going one way. I KNOW this, as you say. But when it happens, I don't see any problem in saying I got lucky (assuming there's some prize associated with it) _in that instance_. That's just how people use the word. Get over it.

eastbay

[StellarWind]

It's worth learning to play bridge just to properly appreciate the writings of Victor Mollo. He'll always be missed.

The Hideous Hog would have been the greatest poker player of all time.