When you bust out from a cash game or poker tournament thanks to a bad beat the first feeling is one of disappointment, then anger and then back to disappointment at the injustice of it. You then need the reassurance that you are still a great player and that it was not your fault that you busted out so you seek out a willing pair of ears to whom you passionately tell your tale of woe. Only nobody wants to listen! More injustice! This article is going to look at why people seem to avoid listening to bad beat stories.
Poker bad beat stories are among my favourite stories to listen to. It’s actually quite funny to know that as things were seemingly going so well for a player things are going to come crashing down and the comedy of how it happened often has me laughing out loud. Perhaps that is my weird sense of humour, but often the bad beat stories are so cleverly told they would not be out of place at a comedy festival. Most people believe they are unlucky so watching their astonishment when luck does not go their way can be amusing, but try and control yourself without laughing in their face.
I am in the minority of people who just listen and enjoy these stories. At the bar of a poker tournament bad beat stories are avoided and even mocked. It is the warlord mentality that every player has had a worse bad beat than you and if they had to endure it then you must have your pain too. Players do not like being reminded that poker is a skill game that is frustratingly laced with luck and those moments of bad luck serve to mutate what would otherwise be excellent results for skilful players. Players forget luck is what convinces a bad poker player to return believing, often erroneously, that they can win in the future.
Poker players also forget that bad beats are offset by moments of good luck. I remember when I was playing in my first ever poker tournament and I made a terrible call and was given a “get out of jail free card” by a miracle river card. My opponent took it very well to his credit, but busted out soon after. I went on to repeat my miracle river trick and later won the tournament. 99% of the time I would have been out of the tournament on one of those occasions. I worried after the tournament that all my good luck had been used up!
Every card that is dealt can be classed as good or bad depending on your hole cards. If the cards are face up in an all-in situation the belief that you are unlucky or lucky is heightened, but really it is just the cards being dealt and you rarely have the nuts at any point in the hand before the final card is dealt and the pot awarded. Players do not like to be reminded that poker is not an exact science and their unbeatable monster that got outdrawn could only have been outdrawn if it was mathematically possible to do so, even if that chance was small.
When there is big money on the table to be won in a tournament you can understand the frustration of days and days of playing to be undone by a cruel deal of the cards. But it is part of the game. It is a part of the game that many players want to forget about, so bad beat stories are not welcomed as part of everyday poker conversation. People would rather talk about a fantastic fold they made or a bluff they made against a good player, rather than the luck involved in what is a very streaky and often cruel card game.
We still love it though.
By Malcolm Clarke
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