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BAD BEAT: when Lady Luck wasn't there for me.
GOOD BEAT: when Lady Luck was on my side.
DEFINITION: examples that define a poker term.
BAD PLAY: an error made during a hand.
LAYDOWN: folding a possibly beaten hand.
QUIZ: test yourself
I faced not just one, but two bad beats in a day. It's weird how that happens sometimes. It's also weird that the bad beats were pretty much the same kind of bad beat. My opponents needed a gutshot to hit their straight and they needed running cards to hit them.
This is the type of hand that frustrates the shit out of me. I'm so far ahead, so ridiculously far ahead, that my opponent basically needs a runner, runner to get a full house for a win. Once the turn hits, he can't even win - I'm freerolling at that point. But Lady Luck being the cruel vixen that she is, grants this guy a chopped pot on the river. I wouldn't have been so mad if he didn't act like an idiot and continue to raise. I'm really sick of this game and if it wasn't for my dogged determination to beat it, I'd have quit a long time ago.
I recently gave a beat similar to this, but not nearly as bad in my opinion. Surprisingly, I'm just an 88% favorite pre-flop. It seems like I'd be further ahead, but not apparently. The flop worried me a little because that dumb spade showed-up. Nevertheless, I go up to 92% as a favorite.
Then another spade shows up which lowers me down to 80%. What's so maddening about this hand is that I finished 9th and a 7th place finish puts me in the money. I was definitely on tilt and called with KJ against the chip leader who was pretty tight the entire way and knocked me out with KK. That added insult to injury. The point is, never give up.
Sometimes you take it, and sometimes you give it. I gave it this time, though I was never in any danger of busting out. I do believe that having a bigger stack gives you an edge at times on PS and this is just another example of that.
I've been reading Gus Hansen's book and in it he talks about math a lot. He calls a lot of raises because he is usually getting the correct odds to call.
In our case, I decide to try to steal by being on the button. Little did I know the villain had pocket aces. It was probably a bad idea to raise with 83o especially against a short-stack, but I wanted to be aggressive. So let's do some analysis.
When I raise, the villain re-raises the minimum just to extract a little more money from me. Usually, a minimum raise like that, especially when you're the short-stack, indicates a very big hand. I knew this, but with a minimum raise, I'm getting close to 4-to-1. He's closer to being a 5-to-1 favorite so my call is still pretty bad. However, I obviously didn't know he had aces, so if he had something like AKs, I'd be correct with calling.
The villain wanted to keep extracting money from me and his check is very good. He led me to believe he didn't hit anything with such garbage on the board. He's a 3-to-1 favorite on the flop. I'm getting about even money when I put my bet in, so it's a bad bet.
Thankfully, Lady Luck had me in mind and allowed me to sneak one past the villain with a runner runner flush. It's pretty sick and these are the type of beats that make you want to quit.
Sometimes you'll go on a rush and you'll win hands you shouldn't. Sometimes you'll go on a losing streak and you'll lose hands where you're ahead. It's sick, but it's just part of the game.
In this first hand, I'm a 91% favorite. Only the gutshot can beat me. Why would this guy call? I'm just glad I didn't bet the river.
On the very next hand, I get my money in and the guy calls with a weaker kicker. Once again I'm a huge favorite at 84% on the flop. The guy must have thought I was bluffing.
Omaha usually doesn't give you much of an edge when you're playing. Much of the time, you're barely ahead, so having a made hand and being an 87.5% favorite on the turn is about as much as you can expect. I thought my opponent needed a J or a T, but apparently a 2 would also help him to get a boat. Darn that river!
