Secret HQ Poker Forums

Reading an interesting thread on another site concerning how to handle bad beats. Here are some wisdom nuggets I thought we all could appreciate:

I hate the term bad beats. If something has a 15% chance of happening, then 15% of the time it is going to happen... and it's not bad or good; its just a statistical fact.
So when a guy hits a 15% on me I just realize he has to, I mean not everytime of course but in some instances, 15% of the time to be exact, he is sposed to win.
Why get mad at something that is supposed to happen? Try to realize its normal.

The people who often complain the most about bad beats are TAG players, who are getting their money in a large percentage of the time with the best hand and as big favorite and can't figure out why they are not getting ahead in the game. Their problem is not what they are doing wrong it's what they are not doing right.
You obviously wanna be the favorite when the chips go in but waiting for these opportunities to arise isn't going to make you a consistent winner.
What keeps them from getting ahead are things they are not doing correctly to increase their stacks so they can survive the bad beats when they inevitably come. This usually stems from a lack of table awareness and aversion to risk; missing opportunities to steal or re steal with a marginal hand against a player who is somewhat passive, for example or not calling with a hand that may be second best but they still are getting the correct price to call, or when they have top set and there is a flush draw on board instead of playing for his stack,out of fear of a bad beat.
The average TAG player isn't going to go beyond the break even point until they learn to open up their games at times, develop the skill to read their opponents and stop relying on their cards to win the game for them.

Ah I see normality at 1/2 has swiftly returned...

Party Poker $1.00/$2.00 Limit Hold'em - 6 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

Pre Flop: (1.5 SB) Hero is MP with 5 5
UTG calls, Hero raises, 1 fold, BTN calls, 1 fold, BB 3-bets, UTG calls, Hero calls, BTN calls

Flop: (12.5 SB) K T 5 (4 players)
BB bets, UTG calls, Hero raises, BTN calls, BB 3-bets, UTG calls, Hero caps!, BTN calls, BB calls, UTG calls

Turn: (14.25 BB) J (4 players)
BB bets, UTG calls, Hero raises, BTN calls, BB 3-bets, UTG calls, Hero calls, BTN calls

River: (26.25 BB) 3 (4 players)
BB bets, UTG calls, Hero calls, BTN folds

Final Pot: 29.25 BB
BB shows K K
BB wins 28.75 BB
(Rake: $1.00)

Think my turn raise may be a little optimistic but jeez so many padding the pot and he's got to have a worse hand sometimes right? Once he 3-bets I'm just crying.

And while I'm at it...ha ha yes very funny...

Party Poker $1.00/$2.00 Limit Hold'em - 5 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

Pre Flop: (1.5 SB) Hero is BB with K 7
1 fold, CO raises, 2 folds, Hero calls

Flop: (4.5 SB) 8 K 7 (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets, Hero raises, CO calls

Turn: (4.25 BB) T (2 players)
Hero bets, CO calls

River: (6.25 BB) Q (2 players)
Hero bets, CO raises, Hero calls

Final Pot: 10.25 BB
CO shows T T
CO wins 9.75 BB
(Rake: $1.00)

May have gotten some action if he didn't feel the need to Epic Slowplay but that seems to be standard nowadays

hand 1, oh well. i would raise the turn 100% plus whatever they would let me.

hand 2, he's an idiot. enough said.

Reading an interesting thread on another site concerning how to handle bad beats. Here are some wisdom nuggets I thought we all could appreciate:

Good post lots of very helpful things in there. I hope i can add something of worth to this.

I used to be pretty good at tilting frequently now i seldom tilt and I put a lot of it down to following the advice from Tommy A's book. Tilt blocker/hem stat blocking works really well but it's not just stack size that goes to mess with your head however.

The frequency of loosing is also a big factor imo and there's not much that can be done about that other than self control. When you loose quite a view hands in a row no trickery is going to help you, your brain is way to smart/dumb to fall for that! It's a tough problem to get a handle on at least for me anyway.

I think there are a couple you can do, quit or get better at loosing via exposure. I'm not going to decry the first at all sometimes it can be the very best option you have but that opens up a whole other list (why are you quiting and is it good or bad quitting). The second is more painful but in the long term probably a better decision. Exposing yourself to it and getting better at loosing via reconditioning is going to be a more painful route but worth it imo.

I'm still incredibly good at tilting, now it's just a rare occurrence. I found this out last week by dropping -100 dollars at 1/2 at the speed of light. Now i'm working on lopping off my Z-1000 game via quitting hehe.

I'm still incredibly good at tilting, now it's just a rare occurrence. I found this out last week by dropping -100 dollars at 1/2 at the speed of light. Now i'm working on lopping off my Z-1000 game via quitting hehe.

YAY at 1/2 train going on....plus 1/2 causing tilt

Re: bad Beats thing i think poker players, at least the skilled ones, are more suseptable to it becasue we know the odds of just about everything happening in a poker game within a certain degree and thus we know when fate has shivved us in the bollocks.

Having said that I've found a combination of 3-tabling and VPP/hand based goals rather than bankroll based goals mean I'm a lot less open to tilting. Instead of a beat being a dent in my target it's now just a small bump on a long road.

I found this out last week by dropping -100 dollars at 1/2 at the speed of light.

Sorry, you didn't say $100, you said 50 BB's am I right?

Bad Beats theme - good post by you guys/gal so far, though I think the person who wrote Adri's quote should have taken a better example than a 85-15, you know, that's almost a FD on the turn, do we say that loosing to a flush draw is supposed to be a bad beat? Anyway the point he/she made about it being NORMAL is very good, and something not all thinks about. Anyone who loose with AA to TT calls it a bad beat, but if you get dealt AA 5 times in a MTT and gets all-in HU - you are supposed to loose one of them.

Also people always forget about how often they give someone else a bad beat, doesn't it happen just as frequently?

IMO a true bad beat is when we flop the über nuts and only win the flop-pot-size, though the pot-size is still higher than our EV for any given hand.

[quote]Sorry, you didn't say $100, you said 50 BB's am I right?

$100 dollars sounds much worse than 50BB a little bit more of an incentive not to be such a silly bugger!

Sorry, you didn't say $100, you said 50 BB's am I right?

$100 dollars sounds much worse than 50BB a little bit more of an incentive not to be such a silly bugger!

Sure, well maybe sure, well not sure.

I mean, what is the tilty term, $$$ or BB's ?

I just found my donk

I just found my donk

I just found the makers website

http://www.naodesign.net/donk.htm

"providing plenty of protection against paintballs, pneumatic cannons, and flamethrowers."

Jesus, that's one dangerous paintball game imo! It's even got a flamethrower on it!

Hey Lubbers,

Just wanted to notice you off a little short (13 min) HU LHE SnG video that I just posted.

Hope you'll leave some comments.

"providing plenty of protection against paintballs, pneumatic cannons, and flamethrowers."

Jesus, that's one dangerous paintball game imo! It's even got a flamethrower on it!

I gues I haven't played "real" paintball

Hello! I felt left out, so I'm starting a blog. Thanks for well-wishes! I have a lot of forum reading/poker playing to catch up on, imo.

Full Tilt Poker $0.50/$1 Limit Hold'em - 5 players - View hand 127589
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

Pre Flop: (1.5 SB) Hero is CO with 5 5
UTG calls, Hero raises, BTN 3-bets, 1 fold, BB calls, UTG calls, Hero calls

Flop: (12.5 SB) 3 2 4 (4 players)
BB checks, UTG bets, Hero raises, BTN 3-bets, BB calls, UTG calls, Hero caps!, BTN calls, BB calls, UTG calls

Turn: (14.25 BB) Q (4 players)
BB checks, UTG bets, Hero calls, BTN raises, BB folds, UTG 3-bets, Hero folds, BTN caps!, UTG calls all in

River: (22.75 BB) 2 (2 players - 1 is all in)

Final Pot: 22.75 BB
UTG shows 4 A (a flush, Ace high)
BTN shows K K (a flush, King high)
UTG wins 22.25 BB
(Rake: $0.50)

KTo in late position/blinds with 2 or more limps 6max. Limp or raise, iyo?

Limp along unless blinds are likely to raise imo ^.^

KTo in late position/blinds with 2 or more limps 6max. Limp or raise, iyo?

vs 2 limps I raise in pretty much any position since we are most likely an equity favourite or at least have our fair share against 2 what could be bad players (only situation one of them may be ok is if he completed the SB and even then it's kinda tricky). This is doubly true if you're on the button.

vs 3 or more limps I probably don't raise OOP. On the button it probably depends on my mood but I think I'd usually just overlimp it. Flopping a T is going to put you in an iffy spot where you could be dominated or could be up against 20+ combined outs, and you don't want to build a big pot preflop multiway with a non-multiway non-power hand.

FWIW with 3 limps I'd raise 98s and T9s on the button just to give something to think about.

FWIW with 3 limps I'd raise 98s and T9s on the button just to give something to think about.

We do this because we have a good multiway hand making it correct to peel the flop and possibly the turn for FD and straight outs?

We don't do this c KTo because it sucks multiway and we're just hoping the king pops off?