Dear
Mark,
Get this for a bad beat in a Texas Hold'em tournament
I recently played in. With nine players remaining
I'm dealt a pair of Kings in the hole.
The flop comes King, 3, 3. Naturally I go "all
in." Across from me a player was holding 6, 5,
suited, then matches one of the 3's. Then he catches
on the turn a four of hearts, then the five of hearts
on the river to give him a straight flush. Out of
the tournament, and out of the money (only the top
eight got paid). Now that's a bad beat. Tom A.
By
policy and design, Tom, I steer clear of "bad-beat"
stories. I'm sharing yours because it illustrates two
points. What a bad beat is, and of course, a bad beat
story.
So what counts as a "bad
beat"? First, the obvious: you have to lose the
hand. But secondly, you lost in a spectacularly unlikely
way when you were the odds-on favorite to win it.
With your full house on the flop,
you couldn't possibly
have been expected to do anything less than go "all
in," putting all your chips into the pot. The
bad beat was that the other dude got amazingly lucky,
and you lost in a way that seemed inconceivable
until you saw it happen. Getting KO'ed from the
tournament and being one slot short of prize money,
well, I'd call that a Class A bad beat.
Then there is the ever-popular "bad-beat story"
contest. Most gamblers,
especially (but not exclusively) inexperienced players,
love to compete
with stories about how rotten their luck was. I've
listened to countless gambling anecdotes over the
years, and I'm confident I've heard or seen them
all, and, Tom, they are not exclusive to the game
of poker: The dealer who got a seven-card 21 at
blackjack; red and white 7's on the payline; the
blue seven one line below on a progressive slot
machine; and the dreaded back door cover in sports,
where a last-second touchdown beats you on the spread.
I've taken enough bad beats in sports that it finally
put me in therapy.
I do realize that some
readers of this column do enjoy a good bad-beat
story. Heck, we've all, on occasion, lost so improbably
that we feel compelled to tell the story, but, some
readers would just as soon watch paint dry for four
hours as to read another. I'll keep listening because
it's part of my job description, but readers, if
I fail to chronicle your bad-beat narrative, please
don't take it personally.
