Reference to good players -> bad beats?

[BRussell]

Greetings. I'm an academic psychologist working on a paper on decision-making, and I want to make reference to a poker concept.

The idea is that good players are more likely to experience bad beats than poor players. The reasoning, as I understand it, is that good players are more likely to have the odds in their favor, and so when they win it's more often just because the odds play out as expected, and when they lose it's more often due to a bad beat. Poor players are more likely to play long shots, and so they are more likely to win a long shot via a lucky draw.

Any ideas where this might appear in print? Basically, I just need a reference to some poker book that makes this claim so I can cite it as one of my references. I'm fairly certain I've read this in a poker book somewhere, but I've been looking for a while now and I can't find it. It may have been Ciaffone's "Improve your poker," but I can't find the reference to that concept in his book.

A couple of other questions:

1. The term "bad beat" in poker, as I understand it, doesn't mean quite the same thing as just bad luck. You can be dealt poor cards all night, and that's bad luck, but it isn't really a bad beat. A bad beat is when you have the best cards, but your opponent draws a lucky card or cards and wins the hand. Do I have that right?
2. Do most of you poker experts agree that this is basically true, i.e., that good players are more likely to experience bad beats?
3. Do you think this phenomenon is true more generally in life?
4. Is there a term for the opposite of a bad beat? Good beat? [img]/images/graemlins/crazy.gif[/img]

Thanks in advance.

[SpaceAce]

#1) That's a pretty accurate description. I think most players consider a bad beat to be when you have the best cards and you play them the right way (betting when you should bet, raising when you should raise, etc) and still wind up losing to what had been an inferior hand up until the moment it improved enough to beat you.
#2) I would not call myself an expert but I don't think that assessment is quite right. I think bad players are just as susceptible as anyone else to taking bad beats from other bad players. I do, however, think that good players are a lot less likely than bad players to deliver bad beats. This is because good players do not generally enter pots with crummy starting hands and they do not chase miracle cards against the odds. If you don't chase miracles, you won't get miracles so you'll only hand out bad beats on rare occasions (like when you have KK against someone else's AA and catch a King on the river to win - you were probably correct to play all the way to the river but that's still a bad beat for person with the Aces).
#3) Which phenomenon? People who take wilder risks sometimes reap bigger rewards, if that's what you mean.
#4) People do sometimes use the term good beat.

SpaceAce

[Mahoney]

Anyone can experience a bad beat. The question is do they realize it was a bad beat? A poor player may be completly oblivious to the odds, thus clueless to how unlikly their loss was.

[LetsRock]

I've read the same premise in more than one book, but phrased a bit differently. I couldn't specify the book(s), but I know it's been referred to from a slightly differrent angle.

Basically, it's more likely that a poor player will deliver (ie outdraw you) a bad-beat than a better player. Your premise that stronger players tend to be in hands with better cards is true, but even poor players get good cards that get outdrawn sometimes, hence they are equally capable of being on the losing end of a bad beat That bad beat could be delivered by a "strong" player (usually because a poor player underplayed his hand so much that the strong player could have no idea that he was even "trying" to catch a bad beat).

1) My "definition" of a bad beat is a situation where somebody caught the winning hand when he had very low odds to have caught it. The beat "feels" a lot worse when a very strong hand loses to it, but even a moderately strong hand can recieve a "bad-beat".

What is low odds? My definition of low odds for this purpose is less then 10% chance of catching the winning hand. I don't put parameters such as "having played the hand right" into the definition; one may have been able to prevent the bad beat by playing the hand differently, but it's still a bad beat.

2)See my above response. (I don't consider myself an expert - these are my somewhat educated opinions.)

3)I'm not sure what you're getting at here, but if you're refering to the premise that "good luck" results from a combination of education, preperation and execution, then yes, I say this theory extends to life outside of poker.

4) There's no such thing as a good beat. Anytime somebody "takes a win away from somebody" by catching a certain card or card(s), they have "beaten the odds". In some cases they could have as much as a 30% chance of getting the cards they need to improve their hand to beat the person with the "current" best hand. This is much less of a "bad beat" then the 10% type, but they have beaten the odds just the same. Stonger players tend to recognize when they have the best possible odds to catch what "could" be the winning hand. In theory any beat that you don't expect is "bad". One might think that just because the other's starting cards are better than his (that he didn't "catch" the winner at the end of the hand) that he was bad beat. ("What are the odds that you'd have those great cards when I have these great cards?") In general though, the term "bad beat" refers to the cards that arrive at the end of the hand.

I guess the closest thing to a "good beat" is the "nice hand" where you pretty much expect to be beat, but you're calling down to confirm it and you compliment your opponent on his well played hand.

[David Steele]

1. I think you have a very common definition however there is one subtlety worth mentioning. It is not automatically wrong to play for a long-shot as there could be a large enough reward (pot-size) to make it a positive play. A true bad-beat tag could be reserved for the long-shot hits where the odds were not there to take the chance.

2. Yes, one more reason being that experts are involved in far fewer hands.

3. Yes.

4. I have seen the expression used quite a bit.

D.

[biggambler]

The way you have your question worded," Who is more likly to suffer bad beats?" .. leads to the wrong answer. <font color="blue"> If a poorer player plays more hands, then he is MORE likly to suffer a bad beat because of sheer number of hands played. </font> Percentage wise the better player will suffer a bad beat more often per hand played.

[SpaceAce]

[ QUOTE ]
<font color="blue"> If a poorer player plays more hands, then he is MORE likly to suffer a bad beat because of sheer number of hands played. </font>

[/ QUOTE ]

I think you're wrong about this. To suffer a bad beat, you have to have to be playing a hand that is a strong favorite and weak players get dealt good cards exactly as often as the rest of us. You're just not likely to suffer a true bad beat with J2s no matter how many times you play it.

I don't consider it a bad beat when someone playing T3o flops a pair of tens, turns two pair and then loses to AA when the river brings an Ace. He played inferior cards, he was a dog before the flop ever came down and he finished up by losing. That's not a bad beat, that's just math. What I mean is that if it took a miracle for your hand to ever be a favorite in the first place, it's not a bad beat when your opponent catches his miracle.

SpaceAce

[James Boston]

I would add one more occurence into the bad beats category. Bad players, playing bad cards, making great hands that no one could ever put them on. I.E. AKo vs. 93o w/ a flop of 39K. How is the AK ever going to expect being up against 93 in what should be a raised pot? The 93 has every reason to be in the hand after the flop, but no reason to have ever seen it. So, after the flop he wouldn't really be playing a long shot. I only include this because I think most bad beat stories come from the turn or the river when players stay on a draw that they should give up. It's still essentially the same thing as playing with the odds against you.

[stripsqueez]

i'm not sure about a reference to the concept in a book but that is probably because i am poorly read on the topic

to elaborate a little on what has already been said - the strategy of winning poker players is to bet when they are in front - often described as betting "with the best of it" - this strategy means that winning players are more often than lesser players, in front when they are playing in a hand - as the player more commonly in front the winning player is more often susceptible to a bad beat - in other words the usual winning strategy dictates that a winning player will more often suffer bad beats (at least when viewed as % of bad beats per hands played)

"bad beat" is not clearly defined to my knowledge - personally if my opponent was behind before the end but ended in front by catching a lucky card i wouldnt regard it as a bad beat if my opponent did the "correct" thing by staying in the hand - i made the generalisation earlier that a good player will more often be in front but it is certainly true that it is often right to be behind in a given hand but correct to stay in the hand because the odds of hitting the right card to get in front are shorter than the odds offered by the $$ in the pot and expected $$ that will go into the pot (the latter concept is usually described as implied odds)

do i think this concept is true in life generally ? - as someone who plays lots of different games, not just poker i view it as the defining characteristic of poker as a game - if you can learn to endure the cruel fortune that poker often involves other misfortune pales by comparison - that notion is a worthy "life lesson"

stripsqueez - chickenhawk

[clovenhoof]

I think all he was saying was that bad players play the same hands good players play -- and so experience the same bad beats on those hands -- as well as all the crappy hands that the good players don't play.

The counterargument would be that the bad players don't play the good hands as well as the good players do, reducing their expectation and also the extent to which the beats on those hands are "bad".

'hoof