To win playing poker you build a pot that you win having the strongest hand at the showdown. Whilst your opponent remains in the hand they too are building a pot hoping that they either have a strong hand already or draw to hit the necessary cards to improve to the winning hand. Once the hands are revealed, you may have done everything right during the hand in terms of bet sizing, raising or checking yet the one or two cards that your opponent was drawing for to win came out, thus costing you the pot. This is referred to as a “bad beat” meaning that luck rather than skill contributed to the winning hand this time. It can be very frustrating; no-one likes losing to a lucky player.

When the player hits their miracle card and wins the hand this can be intensely frustrating. You may have spent hours setting the villain up for this play only for the poker gods to plot against you. When they win despite our extra level of skill egotistical poker players feel the need to shout and scream about why we were unlucky rather than risk having players think we were outplayed.

The timing of the bad beat also adds to our ill feeling towards them. If you are deep into a large tournament after winning a satellite to enter a bad beat, whilst you dream of the big prizes on offer, may be particularly hard to take. This does not make the beat any less likely to occur unfortunately as luck will always be a part of poker whilst there are cards in the deck that can beat you. If you watch poker on TV then you will note throughout the hands there is a percentage number next to each player. This is the percentage chance, due to the cards dealt and what remains in the deck, that the player can win the hand and only rarely do players get the check mark (a tick next to their name) where they have a hand that cannot be beaten. This is something to remember that you are always exposed to bad beats even when playing excellently.

Bad beats can have an incredible effect on an otherwise balanced opponent. Often players go “on tilt” and play hands poorly. This can result in a player busting as a result of getting emotional over an unlucky moment that happened recently. This can give you a great advantage over a strong opponent if you are better at handling pokers bad moments than they are. Watching the action and being aware of their possible reactions to a moment where they were subject to a bad beat may win you their stack at a crucial moment. Watching how they react to a bad beat can also give you information on how good a player they are.

When talking about poker between players there is a communal distaste for players telling bad beat stories. As many professionals will point out, it happens to everyone and these types of stories are usually ridiculed. They are also possibly avoided because players do not like to consider that luck plays a large part in poker in the short term. Unfortunately poker players must understand that whilst an opponent remains in a hand there is a possibility you may lose the hand unless you hold the absolute nuts. Even a bad opponent can get lucky and this is what keeps them coming back for more so do not feel too bad about it.

A bad beat is not a moment during a tournament where you get all of your chips in with AK and fight it out with 88. That is a race and you have almost an equal chance to win. A bad beat would be if you hold 88 and your opponent has 77 and hits a 7 to get a set and win the pot. The more hands you play the more you will encounter these beats but as long as you are getting your money in with the best of it you should profit in the longer term. A player on a downswing sometimes encounters many bad beats in a row which can contribute to them having losing sessions. When you are analysing your statistics make sure you decide whether you are getting unlucky or you are playing bad, as some losing players claim to be taking beats when really they are just not good poker players.

Bad beats are a part of the game and we are going to look at specific examples of bad beats and why they are good for the game in future articles.

By Malcolm Clarke

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