[ScottMc]

I read tons of forums and one thing they all have in common is "The Bad Beat" posts and threads. However after reading several of them I often find that the beat the player took was not particularly a bad beat at all.

I am not the foremost expert on poker. I have however played close to 500 hands a night 4-6 nights a week for 3 years or roughly half a million hands.. I will let you do the math. I have seen every hand you could ever get, I have seen every draw possible and I have seen amazing cards fall to kill me but I very rarely every use the words bad beat to describe them... even when they hit a 1 outer on me.

Here are some examples of bad beats. and yes I remember every detail like I was sitting there last night right down to the shirt the guy was wearing

I was at the Stardust Casino in 2003 August. I was playing $2000 max buy in NL and had been sitting for close to 8 hours. I had only managed to double my stack and was sitting at a little over $4000 when I was dealt AQ suited in the cut-off and was looking at a $60 raise. I made it $180 to go and it was all folds back to the raiser and he called it. The flop came AAQ for a flopped boat. The other guy made it $300 to go which set off bells in my head. He can only have very few hands here AQ just like me in which case we chop it QQ in which case he is dead to me and I clean house and last AK in which he has 3 outs in the deck making me a 90% favorite in the hand. I pop it to $600 and he raises to $1200. At this point I put him on QQ and raise him all in which he calls almost as soon as I say it. I was a little off on his hand, He had AK and was about to puke on the table until the Dealer dropped the turn card as the K of spades ending my day.

As he was raking the chips and I was packing to leave 2 of the other players piped up and said that they had both mucked K's leaving only the one King in the deck as the turn card. That is only one of 2 hands I have ever really considered a bad beat.

What is it that YOU consider a bad beat?

[UofTNick]

I agree with you Scott in the sense that the term "Bad Beat" is vastly overused. Like you said, a lot of hands discussed on poker forums as being "bad beats" aren't really that bad at all. I'm not really sure how to define a Bad Beat though.

I played a low buy in heads up sit and go today at PokerTime with my free $10. I had about 1100 chips to my opponents 900 when i saw JJ on the button. My opponent had been wildly going all in the past couple hands and showing his or her weak cards, so I simply called instead of raising - expecting him to go all in - which he did. So i called. He had Q2 offsuit - I was happy to see a bad hand, but knew that i was a long way from taking him out. Of course the river turned out to be a Q, and I was down to about 200 in chips. Now this sucked, and i wasn't happy - but it wasn't THAT bad of a beat. He had an over card, and he happened to hit it. The real kicker came a couple hands later. I managed to double up through him once, and had ~400 in chips now, when i saw JJ again. Not one to be superstitious, i played them again anyways (i regret that decision now ) He called my 350 chip raise with 10 7 off suit. I was looking great as he didn't even have an over card. The flop came KQ7 off suit - pairing his 7s and making me sweat a little. The turn was a blank, and the river was another 7 giving him trips to beat my jacks. Needless to say, I wasn't very happy. I consider this one to be much worse of a beat. He willingly put in about 1/4 of his stack with two unsuited under cards (he didn't know that, but it wasn't a good hand). I was a huge favourite preflop, and even postflop - and got screwed on the river. That, to me, was a bad beat.

Simply defining a bad beat isn't easy - i really think it depends on the case. I can't really think of any set "guidelines" for determining whether a beat was bad or not. Unless you look at percentages and say that if you are a 90% favourite, and lose - that's a bad beat. SOmething to that effect

[nxtyear]

Bad beat is a term overused quite often

in general, a bad beat should be, like the posts above mentions, when you are a favourite of 90% or more and u happen to lose, that sums down to about 2~3 outs with the turn/river to come. or requiring runner runnners etc.

another thing i think that should be taken into account is that bad beat is a word that should only be used when you actually outplayed someone and was a huge favourite but lost.

eg. preflop hands getting cracked shouldn't count as bad beat. Aces getting cracked by whatever hand hitting flush, i don't consider bad beat (ok, maybe a little bit, but that's just an ugly way to lose).

anyways, i've seen one of the recent 2005 WSOP main event episodes, some guy calls a guy's all in, JT v 99
in the end, 99 is a slight favourite, and JT should lose just a little more than half the time.
it doesn't matter who wins how, it was all in preflop and at that time, it's almost 50-50.

flop came AKQ, JT getting the nut straight, turn came 9, river came Q, giving the other guy 9's full.

bad beat? not really, phil hellmuths puts it " an ugly way to lose, but not a bad beat, he was a slight underdog preflop so it doesn't matter HOW he lost"

now this differs quite alot if u actually "PLAY" the hand and ended up all in.

if ur holding the nuts, but disguise ur strength and make the other person move all in who thinks they have the best hand. then a bad beat could occur.

u have to best hand, with over 95% to win, the other person thought he had the best hand so he moved all in, but turns out he was beat and now has only 2 outs with the river card to come, and it hits, then it's a bad beat.

because u played your hand the best possible (best one could hope to play with the strongest hand on the board), if you lose, by that 2-3 outer, then it's a bad beat.

it's hard to explain what i'm saying. but bad beat involves some sort of play.
if u played recklessly but turned out u had the best hand and lost, it shouldn't count.
only when u played the hand the best way possible and the other guy had only few outs and lose is ita bad beat..

[Slayre]

Scott Scott Scott..

He had the better hand before the flop... AK > AQ

technically, according to Phil H. that is not a bad beat... it just feels like one.

Jen H. was bad beat with her Q's.. ( FH I think ).. dude had no business in the hand at the turn, and the river brought his one outter for a str8 Flush.

That is a bad beat..

If I have AA and you have KK and the flop/turn are rags, and you hit a K on the river.. I don't see that as a bad beat..... however, if I have AA and you have 64o(you Scott).. and flop is rags, turn is 6 river is 4, that is a bad beat...

Perhaps if you feel pain, then that is all that is necessary for it to be a bad beat, no matter what the cards are..

[JasonKirk]

If through playing well I sucker someone into making a horrible call against me for all their chips and they hit their 1- or 2-outer...bad beat.

If I have AA and I lose to 8-3 suited who calls after six others do the same....not a bad beat, just someone calling with odds.

This is why I like the "Bad-Beat-O-Meter"...it tells you just how bad you really took it.

[Phoenix29]

Originally Posted by nxtyear

it's hard to explain what i'm saying. but bad beat involves some sort of play.
if u played recklessly but turned out u had the best hand and lost, it shouldn't count.
only when u played the hand the best way possible and the other guy had only few outs and lose is ita bad beat..

I understand exactly what you're saying because i've suffered those kinds of bad beats and those are the ones that hurt the most.

[AGreen]

That's a pretty ugly beat to start this thread off. I know most consider a bad beat when it's 80:20 and the 20% to win wins. What I would like to know is, does limit/tourny buyin affect the definition of a bad beat? I was recently playing a tier tourny on Tilt (buyin for $4 ,win that and get into a $26, come in top 5 and get into a $75 sag) and had just completed the first tier with a win, securing me a spot in the $26 level. I grinded out for 2 hours and came in 4th, which is just barely good enough to make the final level.


My Bad Beat
The first hand of the $75 sag, I'm dealt pocket 8s one seat to the right of the button. (8h8c) I'm raised by the 4th seat and just limp. The flop is 567 all hearts. It's just me and him, and he fires 300, a little over half the pot. I've played with this guy before, lucky me, and really put him on some junk over cards. I just think to myself, I could win $310 all from $4.40. He types in "I think I have the best hand". Now I really don't like this guy and think he's yankin my chain, so I move allin. I figure I'm a slight dog. He calls in an instant, with AcQd. I'm thinking, what the heck is he thinking? According to cardplayers.com's poker calculator, I'm 89.1% to win. The turn is a queen, of clubs. He goes 2:1 on me and doubles up on the first hand, knocking me out. (River was 2d)

I guess this is different because both of us were there on a $4.40 ticket, instead of the full $75. We had both spent the hours turning $4 into a token, and the token into a $75 buyin. With how loose he is, turning $4 into that buyin might have seemed like free money. Or he just likes to bully me around, I'm sitting with him now.