Putting a bad beat on someone and ETIQUETTE

[KOJAK]

I was playing 3-6 last night when the following hand came up:

The game was six handed. I get Ts4s in the SB. It's raised by an MP and an LP makes it 9. I'm getting kind of bored with my crappy cards so I coldcall (bad play i know, but i was honestly just trying to have fun).

The flop comes King high with two spades. I check and call the LP's bet. I forget what the MP did. The LP is the one to focus on.

The turn is an offsuit brick. I check and call again.

The river is a spade, making my flush. I check, the LP bets, I raise, he calls. I went for the checkraise b/c I figured he had KK or AA with his pre-flop 3-bet, and he didn't seem afraid of the King on the flop.

He threw down his flopped set of Kings in disgust.


My question is, how am I supposed to behave when I put a bad beat on someone? I don't do it often and I usually don't say anything after I win a pot, I just stack my chips, b/c nobody wants to hear anything from a guy that just took their money. I tend to neither boast when I win a pot nor sulk when I lose one. If an opponent starts complaining and asking how I called a 3-bet from the SB with my suited rags, what do I do? It wasn't a fun situation to be in. And table coaching isn't a good thing, it just gets your opponents to play better against you.




Any thoughts on this?
thanks much.

[Ed Miller]

My response to a table coach is, "I'm sorry... you are right... I'll never play that way again."

[KOJAK]

That's what I'd say at the Taj or some other B&M, but my opponent was a regular at this home game and that comment probably wouldn't have helped me much.

But I do like the comment and it's what I say when I play in a casino.

[Homer]

Just stack your chips, keep quiet, and try not to make eye contact with the opponent you just put the beat on (not to say you should make an effort to look away, just don't look right at him). Give him a few minutes to cool down. He will most likely take any reaction by you and turn it into something negative, even if there was nothing wrong with your reaction. If he comments on your play, there are a bunch of things you can say...

-- Tell him that in HPFAP Sklansky says its okay to cold call three bets from the small blind with T4s because everyone else has all the high cards, so there must be a lot of low cards left in the deck
-- Tell him that you think spades are pretty
-- Tell him that 10-4 has a special place in your heart because you used to be a trucker/cop/etc
-- Tell him to stop educating the fish
-- Tell him that you were potstuck (I already committed $1 to the pot, so why not $8 more?)
-- Tell him to STFU!

-- Homer

[KOJAK]

Haha, those are all good. I'll have to file them away.

[bernie]

anyone who bitches and moans doesnt understand the game.

do they really want you to fold that hand preflop? why? because you took down the pot? boo hoo. is he really that miffed that, when the flush got there, that he was beat? dont ya love entitlement....

i just grin as im stacking their chips if i thought i could aggravate them off their game a little more. after all, you played post flop fine. if they ask how you could play it, say ya had a feeling. or better yet, that you thought they were bluffing the whole way. basically something meaningless.

i have a bud that if i did this to id boast to him....but thats usually just with players i know. they know im full of it and it lightens up their beat.

otherwise, just stack your chips and go on to the next hand. it's entertaining to me to see them 1/2 later still thinking about that hand. it can really rattle some players...this is my normal route

one time i went to war with a good playin bud with T5os....it was a limit tourney, early on so the blinds/limit was small, and i was in sb, folded to me, so i decided to screw around and raised. he called. flop came rags, missed me, i bet, he raised, i 3 bet he thought and called...

turn was a blank, i bet, he thought a bit, then called...i knew what he had at this point....so we both checked the river...he took it down with JJ....now i have a tight image, so the look on his face when i flipped my hand was priceless. he'd never really seen me play this bad of a holding that way. however, if he had only overcards, hed have layed the turn down, which was confirmed in a later discussion...

the point of this? even had i sucked out on him and won, id be needling him a little about it, but that's because i know him. i used to needle him anyway when i raised. 'hey, i have that T5 again' haha...

this play actually got me some action on observant opponents later in the tourney who hadnt played with me much.

one of the benefits of playing this type of hand and winning, as you did, is seeing how they react to it. this can clue you in on their level of knowledge.

never feel guilty about dragging a pot.

b

[Clarkmeister]

If they give me too much crap, I look at them, put my index finger straight up in front of my lips and say "SHHHHH, I'm stacking your chips."

[bernie]

[tewall]

If he's a regular at a home game, just tell him the truth. You were just trying to have fun and happened to hit your hand.

[offTopic]

*shrug*

"You're right. I played it bad..."

This happened to me earlier this year. Got it down to heads-up with JJ against QQ (oops!) and nothing on the flop higher than a 9. Turn brick, river J. *shrug* What else you gonna do?