Bad Beats and Egotism

[Awesemo]

As I have played more and more poker, the way I perceive the game matures. Every day, people come into my dorm room at college and tell me about their bad beat stories. Most of the time the bad beat stories are dubious. Sometimes the bad beat stories are even where they outdrew somebody, and then they caught one of their outs and won. No matter what the bad beat stories are, they all have one thing in common. The person who feels that they took a bad beat feels that they were more deserving than the other player to win the hand. One great thing about poker is that the cards even themselves out over time. Every player has a equal potential for winning by the rules of the game. Obviously ignoring bad beats is optimal for playing good poker, but is this a way I can convince myself to ignore them? Whats the best way to teach yourself that bad beats are just a way of deluding yourself?

[EliteNinja]

Just play multiple tables and thousands of hands to numb your brain to bad beats.

[soko]

When you get a bad beat, then in another hand, you use the same bad beat to beat your opponent out of a bigger pot when he had a bigger hand something clicks and you go wow, everybody get bad beats. and the irritation turns in to accecptance. They will always be somewhat irritating though.

[Al Schoonmaker]

Remember your "good beats."

A good beat occurs when you are the lucky idiot who sucks out. For every bad beat there must be a good beat, but we hardly ever hear of them.

Why?

As you put it, egotism. We want to believe, "I'm a good player, but I am sooooooooo unlucky."

When people suck out on me, I remind myself off two atrocious plays. Both times I misread the situation so badly that I capped on the turn with one out. Both times I caught that miracle card.

And both times the other player did NOT whine, rant, call me an idiot, etc. They acted like gentlemen, and I feel obliged to do the same.

Remembering the good beats keeps me from feeling too bad about the times that others suck out on me.

Regards,

Al

[Grisgra]

[ QUOTE ]
Remember your "good beats."

A good beat occurs when you are the lucky idiot who sucks out. For every bad beat there must be a good beat, but we hardly ever hear of them.

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually, that's not really true, is it? It's a bad beat to be chased to the river by some guy hunting a runner-runner sucker straight, for instance -- that happens to us ALL the time, but rarely are we doing that to the other players.

I read somewhere that the better a player you are, the higher your bad beat/good beat ratio will get, because after all, we're not looking to suckout nearly as often as the people we're playing against [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img].

[Ianco15]

A lot of people tell me their bad beat stories as well. Often times I find that it wasnt actaully a bad beat. Instead, the person lost the hand because they played it wrong, but dont realize it.

[Duke]

[ QUOTE ]
A good beat occurs when you are the lucky idiot who sucks out. For every bad beat there must be a good beat, but we hardly ever hear of them.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's because "we" don't usually discuss poker hands with idiots.

You take more bad beats than you "receive" good beats, unless you're a horrible card player.

~D

[Duke]

[ QUOTE ]
Instead, the person lost the hand because they played it wrong, but dont realize it.

[/ QUOTE ]

A lot of times people come up with ways you could have won a hand by playing it more aggressively, and can't comprehend that you actually made more by letting the other moron bluff with a hand that was 20-1 against instead of making them fold it earlier.

~D

[Al Schoonmaker]

I agree that better players have more bad beats than good ones, but EVERYBODY has good beats. And the biggest whiners about bad beats are NOT the good players. They are people with no perspective.
I remember one player who had sucked out twice in the previous round. He was FURIOUS when someone sucked out on him. I must add that he lost that hand to someone to whom he had given an atrocious beat. That player was a gentlemen both times.
I encourage players to remember good beats to keep their perspective and their manners.
Regards,
Al