Bad Beats

The worst part of poker is being outdrawn when you have a great hand. This is called a bad beat. You can come across a bad beat in many different ways. Some people consider a hand like 910JQK suited (a straight flush) getting beat by 10JQKA suited (royal flush) a genuine bad beat. As a regular poker player I can tell you that getting beaten by hands of less value than a straight flush or a royal flush also qualify as bad beats.

Have you ever flopped a nut flush in no limit Hold em and went all in only to have a big pocket pair call your bet, then have to watch as their pocket pair turns into trips on the turn and then a full house on the river? OUCH! This is a more common form, that you see regularly, of a bad beat.

How to Deal with Bad Beats

Bad beats can be so frustrating. You almost feel cheated when you go in on a nut hand and get rivered out by an inferior hand. More times than not it is a bad call made by your opponent chasing for his miracle cards to come. You have to learn not to take bad beats to heart. After a bad beat you should assess the situation and ask yourself the following questions. Did I misplay ? Did I not bet enough? Why did my opponent make that call? Sometimes there are no answers to your questions, it's just a bad beat and you must move on without going on TILT (getting emotional and making plays you wouldn't normally make because you are mad, upset or frustrated at what has happened). Editor's Note: Check out Full Tilt.

Losing money always sucks, no matter how you look at it. Losing money when you start the hand with the nuts and get beat anyways sucks even worse. What is the best way to deal with bad beats? I have known some players to even quit playing or take a break from the game for a length of time. It's like breaking up with someone who has hurt you. I have heard some people keep track of their bad beats by putting a penny in a jar every time a bad beat hits them, like a small compensation that adds up after time. I used to get angry and upset when this would happen to me; now I just shake my head and move on.

Bad Beats and Whiners

When playing as much poker as I play, you can always count on there being a whiner at the table that may constantly blurt out things like: UNBELIEVABLE! Or COME ON! I have even seen players go so far as to say (in online poker) that the cards are set up to come out that way purposely as a tactic to get more players betting, making the rake (portion of every ring game pot that is taken by the house every hand) bigger for the house. No such thing goes on in online poker. Hands are not set up - they are dealt by a random number generator tested by the proper authorities. If you chose to constantly blurt such things out at the table, the only thing that will happen is you will be marked as The Whiner, leaving yourself open to derogatory statements from fellow players. For a long time, my favorite term to call these whiners was "Hellmuth", after Phil Hellmuth the whining king of bad beats himself.

Bad Beat Jackpots

Most live and online card rooms have Bad Beat Jackpots. There are certain requirements - one of which is that the 2 players involved in the bad beat must both use both of their hole cards. What beats what depends on the card room where you are playing. One card room's bad beat jackpot may require a minimum of 4 of a kind (quads) getting beat by a straight flush. Other card rooms have progressive bad beat jackpots (pots that build over time). As time goes on and the pot gets bigger, and no bad beats have happened to win the jackpot, the requirements lower a notch. Say one week it is 4 of a kind getting beat by a straight flush - a few weeks later it may be dropped to aces over kings full house getting beaten by quads.

When a bad beat occurs the person with the best hand wins the pot and a small portion of the bad beat jackpot. The player with the beaten hand gets the bigger portion. In some card rooms in Las Vegas any player playing in one of their card rooms when a bad beat occurs gets a very small percentage of the jackpot. Last time I saw it hit, I believe every player sitting at any one of their 4 card rooms each got around $300.00 - not bad for just sitting there!

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