A “bad beat,” almost by definition, is “bad luck.” It’s the result of playing a hand using the correct percentages and in the correct way, but still coming up with a bad result. That dork on the other side of the table came in with 7-2 unsuited to your A-K and the flop came up 7-7-2. That’s not skill, that’s dumb luck.
I think that’s what glee was trying to say. As you note, Hold 'Em is notorious for bad-luck hands. But it’s what all the kids want to play these days.
I had not even read the actual hand above; I was responding to the bad beat. VarlosZ’s analysis made me go back and look at it.
A preflop raise to protect a hand like AJo is dangerous in a loose game, and the first rounds of a sit and go are always pretty loose. You’re not going to push out very many decent hands, and you’re building a big pot so that if those marginal hands that called you are on the draw, they’ll be getting decent pot odds to draw to them. In the later rounds of a tournament (after it tightens up), or in a typical ring game, it’s not a bad move from late position.
Consider what happened in your hand: somebody with a big club has about a 40% chance of completing his flush on the turn or the river, so betting $500 to win at least $800 is not a bad bet from that perspective alone. (It’s more complicated than that, but at worst it wasn’t too bad.) The odds of someone among three callers having a big club are pretty damn good. If a club hits on the turn, you’re pretty much dead, and if it doesn’t, you’re committed to another sizable chunk of your stack if you still want to make him overpay for his draw.
Of course, none of that is what happened–the call against you was a very bad call, he hit a lucky draw, and you cursed your fate on the SDMB. But, in general, TPTK + monochrome flop + a relatively coordinated board for straights (which JT7 is) + three other preflop callers = bad news. Save it for another hand.
All that said, I’m down about $150 in the last two days, so maybe one shouldn’t listen to me right now. 
You and me both. I had another hellish .50-$1 session over lunch. Won exactly one pot on my first $50 buy-in at the rings, with AKs, which I raised preflop and got no callers. Picked up hands about three more times out of about 50 played. Pocket 99 ran up against a higher pocket pair. Pocket 77 (red) meet an all-club, three overcard flop. Can’t defend them. The one that really hurt was the pocket QQ. JTx flop. I bet, one raiser, I put him on AJ and re-raise. He goes all in which is only another few dollars for me so I call all in. He has JTos. Called 6xBB pre-flop raise with JTos and flops two pair.
Reload and mush around within a few dollars. Finally got pocket QQ again in the BB. One caller, one raise to 6xBB. I re-raised to $10.50 and bought the pot. Damn if I was gonna get outdrawn on QQ twice in one session.
Last hand of the session I get pocket 55. Someone walks up to me just as it’s my turn to act and distracts me and I fold. Flop makes the raiser two pair but I would’ve hit my set and taken at least $40 if the person would’ve walked up to me thirty seconds later to ask me the same goddamn question that she asked me three times already and can’t remember the answer to. Personally I think she should have to pay me what I would’ve won had she, I don’t know, taken a note.
You, Sir, are a gentleman!
Err… 
I have played poker for a few years, but only with friends in a well-organised home game. It doesn’t feel as bad risking losing money to friends (well to me it doesn’t).
But it was hard to find anyone who admitted to losing over a session. Which was strange, because one of the players was very experienced at poker and usually won. (He was also the host and provided the food / drink free, so we didn’t mind!)
I think this shows that poker is mainly skill and that gamblers generally don’t keep an accurate track of their losses.
Thank you. Female, but I’ll take the compliment in the spirit in which it was intended.
Yup, ego. I was reading…um…Roy, somebody, (God, I’m pathetic; what a memory) in CardPlayer Mag talking about keeping an accurate poker journal, and that most players don’t even though they should. And I believe hajaro told me to do the same thing some time ago. I have been, and it’s helped. I’ve made a few adjustments to my game and stepped down to a lower limit (6-12) and am actually winning a lot more than I was.
I’ll make this quick, at lunch today we were playing poker, me head-to-head with this dude. We were about even in chips and at first I’m nickle & dimeing him. Once he got down to about 50 bucks or so I put him all in. Flip over the cards, I have pocket Q’s, he has 7-8 suited. Flop comes 9c 10c Q, turn Jd, river another freakin club. I figured “Well, he just got lucky happens to everyone.” Keep playing. Over the next hour I either win out right, or bluff him off every (well not all of them but alot of them) pot until he gets low enough in chips that I can put him all in again. All FIVE times I put him all in, I had a better starting hand save the last time, and EVERY SINGLE TIME he either hit a straight, flush, or full house to win the pot. The last time he beat me with 8-3 offsuit and I was holding K-K. 5 times in one freaking hour. I’m now expecting a dump truck to arrive and deliver my much overdue Good KarmaTM.
I played a single table tournament last night, and it got down to heads up play.
First hand: I put him all-in with pocket Queens. He has pocket 6s, and hits a set.
A few hands later: He’s all in again, this time with pocket 7s. And I have Aces! Guess who pulls four cards to a fucking straight! After that my stack was so crippled I lost a few hands later. If I’d won either of those hands I’d have won the tournament.
:mad:
Wow. I actually helped someone. Cool.
I was up in the Bay Area last week and drove right by the Bay 101. I didn’t have time to play but it made me think about your location field.
Haj
Drop me an email next time you’re on the way through, we’ll go play for a few hours.
Since I’ve bitched a couple tiimes in this thread I thought it only fair to share some better news. I actually had a winning session at lunch today. Notable hands included ATos and flopping two pair and getting someone to bet into me, K4os in an unraised BB with a 4 on the flop and a K on the turn, again getting someone to bet into me, pocket KK (but unfortunately no one called my 4xBB pre-flop raise) and another ATos that rivered a wheel. Picked up $25 in about 30 minutes, which I’m sure is chicken feed to some of you whales but is a more-than-acceptable result for me.
Damn having to go back to work after! Don’t these people understand how a full time job cuts into my poker time?
Although at least in those instances you can’t really blame your opponent, and if he HADN’T won them, he’d be off somewhere else whining about how every time he had a pocket pair, his opponent had a higher pocket pair, and what are the odds?
Not that I don’t feel your pain.
And my last two poker playing sessions (one at a card room and one at my weekly low stakes game) I’ve come out positive, and even administered some vaguely bad beats:
In our low stakes game, we were playing a $5 tournament. One hand, I had AK, I raise to 3X big blind, get one caller. Flop comes down rag rag rag, I (fairly small stack) go all in, get called by something like T8 offsuit who had called my raise and then flopped top pair. But I turned a K and won that pot.
Later on, we’re 4-handed, I’m big stack, raise with A9, short stack goes all in, I call him because of the pot odds, he has QQ, and the board ends up a straight, so we split. And still later on he (still short stack) goes all in with A4, I call him with KT and outdraw him.
None of those are outrageous beats, of course, but it did feel nice to be the one hitting my cards.
(Of course, later on we were playing 7-card-stud, and my first 4 cards were 3456 of diamonds, and then it went nowhere. And later on, in 7-stud, I had a set of 3’s, and the other guy had two pair, and his final down card gave him a boat.)
If the Left Coast DopeFest gives Reno the nod, then I’ll look forward to playing some poker too, although I’m more than content at 2/4…$800 won last time at Mandalay Bay. I’ve also been reading this [book](http://www.twoplustwo.com/books.html#Small Stakes Hold’em) so I can smack down the noobs a little harder.
How long were both of you on the table? How much did you raise after the flop? Based on this alone, it looks like you are a maniac bettor. It’s the true professionals who can go out and push out another bet. 6xBB on a .5-$1 table doesn’t scare anyone, no offense (well, at least not the people I play with). Maybe part of your problem is that you’re not playing at a high enough dollar amount. When I’m at the boats, I find too many loose players at $5-10. I play at least $20-40 (too many rich manics, for my taste at $10-20) even. Then again, I arguably should bring in more than $400 to the table.
I was there less than an hour. I can’t remember if he was there when I sat down or not (this is online). I don’t remember exactly what I bet on the flop but characteristically I bet the pot. IIRC he min-raised and I reraised $20 more.
I don’t think so. I’ve tended to bet stronger lately just because I felt that up until a couple months ago I was betting too weakly and letting draws in too cheaply. I felt like I was letting people roll over me too often with hands that probably weren’t as strong as mine and giving people credit for having more than they did.
quote=mazinger_z]6xBB on a .5-$1 table doesn’t scare anyone, no offense (well, at least not the people I play with).
[/quote]
Well, all but one of the table folded, whether it was because they were scared I can’t say. On the site I play, $2-$3 is a pretty standard raise at this level. Generally it seems to be respected.
JTos is the sort of hand I like to see a flop with but not one I want to commit a lot of money to before the flop. I wouldn’t have called the preflop raise with JTos unless I had a strong read on the raiser that he was trying to buy the blinds. The raise was coming from early position with nothing in the pot but 75 cents; I find it hard to believe anyone would think I was trying to win 75 cents by betting $3.
Can’t afford to player higher than I am now. When I build up my bankroll a bit I’ll consider moving up but for now I’m playing the highest I can afford. I’m comfortable at this level and generally end up on the winning side of things. This has just been a bad couple of days. I made some bad decisions and a couple of wrong reads is all.
I’ve always equated bad beat stories with fishermen and “You should have seen the one that got away!”
Oh, and those confused with jargon, etc, may also like to try www.pokertips.org . Terms, strategy, and some reviews of online rooms.