Tag Archives: bad beats
Bad Beat Poker It Happens
If you ever see an angry poker player carrying on and throwing a fit about a hand, you can generally assume this player has taken a bad beat. “Bad beat” is a poker term referring to having a strong dominating hand lose to a much weaker hand held by another player.
If youve read my previous uplifting article about bad beat jackpots, you might be excited about the possibility of experiencing a large bad beat in a brick-and-mortar casino, but most players hope they can defy the laws of the universe and never have to experience bad beat poker.
It doesnt matter whether youre playing online poker or brick-and-mortar poker, players are constantly getting frustrated and complaining about bad beats. If I had a dollar for every bad beat story Ive heard in my life, I wouldnt be sitting here playing a $20 online multi-table tournament; Id be vacationing at the beach.
Generally its the better and more experienced players who are amazed at losing to large underdog hands. Newer players often dont realize the odds of a bad beat poker hand like pushing all in with AdJc and miraculously beating AsKs by spiking a Jack on the river.
Experienced and educated poker players need to take a step back and realize that bad beats will always happen when playing poker. Most decent poker players always talk about how amazed they are when they experience a bad beat, and they try to claim that it always happens to them. One thing that experienced players dont realize is that if they are constantly playing with weaker opponents and experiencing bad beats, its because they always have the dominating hand.
You hardly ever see an advanced poker player lay down a bad beat on a much weaker player, especially in a no-limit game. The reasoning behind this is because as the better player, he generally has the better hand going into an all-in situation, so it seems like weaker players never experience bad beats. Players have to learn to take pride in generally making the correct play with the better hand and simply brush it off when they finally experience a horrifying bad beat.
Another common topic arises when talking about bad beats: how bad beats seem to happen far more often while playing online poker than when playing in a casino. For years players have spread myths and rumors that online poker is rigged. These players accuse the online card rooms of creating large action hands for the players involved in a game to drive up the size of the pot, which spikes up the casino rake. These myths and rumors are exactly that: all fake. All online poker rooms experience rigorous pattern testing and verification to provide completely random hands for all games at all times.
The truth of the matter is, when playing online poker, you see far more hands than when you are playing in an actual casino. Playing brick-and-mortar poker, you might be dealt around 30 hands an hour, depending on the game, the dealer, and the other players at the table. However, while playing online poker, you are probably seeing 50+ hands an hour. You might be experiencing double the number of hands as compared to casino poker, which might make it seem like bad beats are dealt more often, when actually their occurrence is generally about the same. If you are playing two tables at once in an online poker room, you are easily seeing 40-50 more hands per hour than if you were playing one table in a brick-and-mortar casino.
One last fact about online poker and bad beats is that the majority of players are more hesitant about calling large all-in situations when playing in actual casinos with actual money chips in front of them. Often online players, especially newer players, dont have a problem pressing the “Call” button on their monitor, even in situations where they shouldnt be calling. After all, it only takes one click of a mouse. If the same player were forced to push out $85 in chips in a $1/$2 brick-and-mortar casino no-limit game, he might think twice about his hand strength before throwing his money away.
So, all in all, no player can truly avoid receiving or giving bad beats in poker. Taking a hard bad beat sticks out in your head much longer than laying a bad beat down on another player. To keep your game sharp, you must learn to simply blow off bad beats, remain focused, dont get frustrated, and understand that other players making bad calls is exactly what you really want. These are the players who keep you in the money and make you a winning poker player.
As I finish this article, I am dropped from my multi-table tournament, 6 spots before the money, when my pre-flop all-in with AK gets called by KQ, and my opponent turns a Queen. It happens, thats poker, next tournament please.
Internet Poker Betting and Casino at
Poker Strategies: Bad Beats (Page 1 of 2)
Bad beats suck. Sorry, there’s no way to pretty it up. If you have been playing online poker for any amount of time, you know exactly what I mean. Whenever there is a confrontation between luck vs skill, no contest. Luck ALWAYS trumps skill. Fortunately, there are ways to lessen the influence of bad beats.
It is a fact that even 72 offsuit will beat pocket Aces a certain percentage of the time. You can be in about as dominating a position as there is, let’s say set over set going to the river. Your opponent has only one out. He’s roughly 2 to win and end up losing to someone who called your 4x preflop raise with 73 ’cause they were suited. AAARRRGGHHH!!!
And that’s exactly why I say to avoid these tournaments unless all you want to do is goof for a half hour or so. In addition to the low level of skill normally found, I’ve also found an unfortunate trend of so-called players getting into these events and intentionally playing badly for no other reason than to try to ruin the game for the beginners who are honestly trying to improve. These guys live to put on the ugliest of beats and have no intention of trying to learn to play properly or improve their game. They don’t respect the game or the other players. I don’t need the aggravation. My blood pressure is high enough, thank you.
So. While you can’t eliminate the bad beats and the resulting aggravation from your poker life, there are some things you can do to reduce their impact.
The first thing is to accept them as part of the cost of doing business as a poker player. There’s no defense against a lucky donkey. Second, if you’re playing one of these Freerolls or low-limit buy tournaments, you will need to adopt an extremely conservative style for the first stage and into the second.
The poor players will usually, but not always, have weeded themselves out after the first hour or so. After that, you can start playing poker instead of bingo.
Higher limits
It’s axiomatic that the higher you go in limit and/or buy-in, the fewer instances of wild play will be found, thereby reducing the number and frequency of bad beats. That’s not to say your AA won’t get cracked, that’s always a possibility, but it’s not going to happen as often. (If you have AA and the other guy has KK or QQ and they catch, that’s not really considered a bad beat). People have a lot more respect for a game that’s costing them $50 or $100 or more to play than they do the micro games.
Once you’ve developed your skills a bit, do yourself a favor and step up to real money as soon as you can. Moving up in limit is the best way to get out of the bingo parlor.
Online or Live?
If you have the opportunity, play live in a casino as much as possible. Even the lower limits. They have $1/$2 tables in most poker rooms as well as relatively low cost sit-n-go’s. I much prefer playing live to online because it’s easier to hone your reading skills, the games aren’t as fast so you get more felt time for your dollar, and just the fact that you’re at a live game as opposed to online will in itself cut down on the ridiculous play. One of the reasons the play is as bad as it is online is because it’s so anonymous.