Sickening Bad Beat
Yes this is a bad beat post, but it has a twist! Last night I had my second "sickening" bad beat. I say that because due to the combination of cards and the tournament situation, I literally felt physically ill afterwards and had difficulty sleeping. I still get ticked/annoyed/upset with the "normal" bad beats and have minor physical responses, but last night (and one other time before that) were far more severe. The first time this happened was live, and last night was online, so I don't think that is part of the issue.
My question is whether others experience this and if it is normal? Considering it has only happened a few times before, I'm wondering if this is just me (and maybe I'm getting too caught up in the game) or if this is a rare but expected part of the game?
My question is whether others experience this and if it is normal? Considering it has only happened a few times before, I'm wondering if this is just me (and maybe I'm getting too caught up in the game) or if this is a rare but expected part of the game?
Comments
I played 3 $10 SNG's on Stars last night, sitting in 4th in two and 5th in one, short stacked in all three...in the span of about 15 seconds I was all-in in all three.....
first in the BB with A9o, the button goes all-in and has me covered by about $150, both being short stacked I figured he could be making a move on any two cards so I call, he turns A7o...flop comes down J high rainbow, turn a blank...I say just not a 7 (my 9 would play)..the usual Stars river delay and bam a 7..out.
next AKo on the button move all-in, SB and BB are both big stacks, SB folds, BB calls show 95d, flop 9xK sweet, I'm ahead and only one diamond on the board, turn is a blank, I say 'no 9 no 5'...the old delay and the rive card...bam a 5...out.
final, again on the button with KQs and seriously short stacked, go all-in (was about 4xBB), get called by SB with K8o...again rainbow flop, nothing on turn....and you guessed it bam an 8 on the river.
I went to bed with a very bad feeling in my stomach...sure they happen no matter where you play but that doesn't make them any easier to deal with.
I realize this is a long winded response lacking an answer and I apologize...I'm going to try heroin myself....people tell me the bad beats don't get you down as much when you're all hopped up!?
isn't this trade marked?
Seriously, though, bad beats happen. Ya, you feel bad. After a while, you start to get used to them. I used to think AA was unassailable but if you get all-in pre-flop, you'll still lose around 1 time out of 5.
Was there a lot on the line for this bad beat? It seems the sick feeling worsens depending on the amount of cash at stake.
I also think that it may be related to how positive you were that the hand was yours. The sick feeling may be caused from that. Let's say you had Quads on the flop and you get the other person all in. At this point you know you've won. But if the turn and river bring a straight flush you are stunned and in disbelief. A beat like this may cause the sick feeling due to the adrenaline rush coming to a compelte halt.
I'm not sure, Trevor, but maybe some tums will help!
Is there something beyond the routine bad beat?
But to clarify, I'm trying not to focus on that hand too much or whine too much about it - that's just poker. My main concern is my reaction, since I want to make sure I'm keeping things in perspective. Basically, I just want to make sure I'm reacting normally (or as normal as I was before
I took a bad beat at your place this weekend, and I think that it was the angriest I'd been in a LONG time. I've been thinking and here's the top three reasons why I was so angry
- Prize : There was a lot of $ at stake (for me)
- The other guy's play: I hate to see bad poker get rewarded
- My play
These are in ascending order of importance to my anger. There was a lot of money at stake, and I wanted it. The other guy had been playing REALLY bad poker, and I was sickened at how often he was getting rewarded (6-10 suited? well that's worth a 4k all-in call!), and thirdly, I was playing REALLY good poker (akin to your statement of "It's my right"), and hadn't made any mistakes, and fended off quite a few bluffs against me.. I was really on top of my game, and when my AK suited was beat by J-9... ugh.
I think that some beats are worse than others, this is the most angry I've been, so I think I've found my "triggers"... maybe if I played worse poker?
Mark
D- pfft
D- *(*(_
D- J C
D- oh for F sakes....
C- what the hell is going on over there....
D- nothing, just playing poker.
They say when you stop suffering bad beats, quit, as you are no longer getting your money in when you are ahead.
All you can do is make good decisions, what happens afterwards is the luck part, sometimes you have it, sometimes you don't.
I'm sure we all feel sick at times, I know I do. I'm trying to only play on SNG at a time, as I'm finding if I take a Bad Beat on one, it immediately impacts on my other SNG. One at a time lets you breath in between. (that said, I still 4 table ring games).
I would prefer to get sucked out on a bad beat, than be outplayed. As I tell my wife every time she says " I thought you were good?" You can play perfectly & still lose.
 Try playing Omaha!  Seriously, it will either prepare you for bad -beats, or make you learn what is a TRUE bad beat.
(E.g. Â If you flop a straight, and someone flops a flush draw, and they hit it, is that REALLY a bad beat? Â No... 1/3 of the time they'll hit the 9 outer! Â Now, imagine you flop the nut flush, and someone hit a set... they have 6 outs, and then 9 outs on the turn to make a boat... Â by my quick math, which may be faulty, they're still just a bit under 1/3!)
Mark
I think this is the key statement. That's why it felt so bad. You were so sure and it meant a lot to you. It wasn't the money or the cards or the other guy. You wanted this final table so bad you could taste and felt it was going to happen and then it was gone. I could compare it to getting that feeling you get when you get when something really important gets cancelled or fall through. For example; you are expecting to go to the Vegas for free and the trip falls through. You feel sick about it because it was something you wanted badly but couldn't get due to no fault of your own.
Does that accurately describe it? If so, we can't do much about it, but deal with our losses. I won't tell you to never expect to make the final table or want it badly. That won't change. I felt the same way after busting out of the Bristol Tournament of Champs. I made a bad play, though. Same feeling.
Thanks for the responses guys. It sounds like I'm just not numb yet and just need to keep grinding
You just gotta laugh bad beats off. Take 10 seconds to vent and move on.
A bad beat isn't a leak, if it's truly a bad beat.
On the other hand, you should feel sick and have a hard time sleeping if you take
this game seriously and find yourself with leaks that may, at the time, look/feel like
bad beats that aren't.
Playing bad = feeling sick
feeling sick = a desire to improve
desire to improve = finding and plugging leaks
finding and plugging leaks = improvement
improvement = increased satisfaction with my play
increased satisfaction = shrugging off bad beats (and hopefully consistently ranking high in tourneys)
That sums up how I look at it.
This made me laugh out loud, one of those good'ole belly laughs...because this is pretty much how it goes at Wolff's and at my house on a nightly bases. Too funny!
Incidentally Trevor....you and I are probably a lot alike? Do you let go of emotions easily? I do not...whether it's poker, hockey, family, or life in general I hang on to things, that's just the way I am...so when I'm angry at someone, I'm angry for a while....when I think I made the right play and they suckout on me with a lot at stake, it hurts for a while....funny how the bad stuff lingers longer the the good? That said I usually shut it down until I am in the right frame of mind to play again, which I think is a good practice.
I think it's also worse to take when it ends your tourney because it's so final, that's it you're out...some bad beats along the way don't linger if you can recover but that final hand, if it's a bad beat, stays with you longer. I think for some this is completely normal behavior. I personally see nothing wrong with it. It's easy to say 'let it go, try to focus on how well you played and that you did not make a mistake, they did and got lucky' but it's very hard to do this for some people....you and I and a lot of others are those people.
bam! yes it is...but bam! it's fun to say!
Flopping 2 pair with a flush draw out, going all in because you know someone limped in with suited chaffe, they call, and hit the flush on the river, does not bug me.
What use to bug me was my KA losing out to K10 or something like that. But as most people have said here, after awhile, it doesn't even provoke a reaction out of me, I just keep trucking. You play enough poker you see "everything", so unless you have a bad memory, nothing will suprise you.
The one bad beat that stands out in my head, because it was 3/6$ NL and I waited a good two hours for a nice hand/flop. I had 6/6, BB raises, early position calls and I do.
Flop is 3 6 8 no flush draw. BB bets 20$, early calls (thinking hes slow playing overpair) and I raise to 40$. BB goes all in for about 250$ US. To my astonishment, early calls right away. So while I know I might be dead to a set of 8's, you can't fold here. I call and there is about 875$ in the pot. Never did get to see what Early had, but BB had 6/8 (remember kids he raised pre flop with this crap).
Turn is a blank and ofcourse, river is the only 8 left in the deck to outdraw me. Some other guy mentioned he had tossed A-8, which would have made things interesting if he was a bad player, since he might go all nuts over top pair/top kicker on board.
That really got me on tilt. I left the table and had a crappy sleep I think. You really need to have thick skin and some gonads to play anything over 1/2 properly. Because you are going to lose 100$'s of dollars to bad beats or fishes or fool's, and you just have to get back on the horse.
Now, I really only get annoyed/bummed if I made a stupid play, or if I sucked out someone. When it happens to you, it sucks, when you do it to someone, you usually feel bad, but Poker is gambling so...
Edit: Almost forgot, a certain slothy someone may have rivered a straight flush to take down my boat for a few hundred dollars : )
Jay
Trevor, your not cursed. I am.
It seems like every time I bust out online, it's a bad beat. ie...flush vs two pair, they river a full house, or my set river by a gunshot draw, etc.
My question is why we're you All-in with the chip leader? (of your table?) Crush the little guys, and pick away at the big stack!!
JohnnieH
Your post also reminds me of an $11 rebuy tournament many moons ago. I'm in 2'nd chip lead in the late middle stages (about 200 left). The chip leader on my right is on the button and makes a decent size raise. I'm in the SB with aces and I'm trying to think of a raise that will antagonize him and get him to push his chips in. I make that raise, and he does what I hoped and pushes in. Now, I'm thinking how great a move this was when I see him flip over his ducks . When he flops the set, I'm in a similar state as you. I go to the fridge, drink a beer and then head to bed.
Next morning, I'm still steamed and telling my wife. I explain the situation and how much I could have won if I made the top 3. I explain what happened and the odds of it happening. She smiles and says "well honey, that's why they call it gambling". Ouch. After I got her up from the floor -- no, no -- After she said that I just had to laugh and say "yup, next hand".
The key as gamblers is to use your emotions to drive you -- not to guide you. Helmuth does the latter. But the best players, will do the former. So, getting cheesed at a table does nothing more than paint a big red circle on your forehead, and you'll make more mistakes. Stay cool. Use those emotions to drive you to become better. What could you have done better in the other stages of the tournament? How could you improve -- that's the key.
Cheers
Magi
Huh? You feel BAD sucking out on someone? I might only if I was playing a live game and knew the guy (especially if I'd played the hand pretty brutally).
Online? Not usually. If it's a ring game I usually laugh about it and move on, if it's a tourney I usually end up thinking "It's about @#$ing time I win a pot I wasn't entitled to!"
I have to admit my anger at bad beats generally is worse in tourneys, probably for 2 reasons:
1) The finality of it if it's the hand that busts you out.
2) The amount of time invested (if it's a MTT) where you play your best poker and STILL are at the mercy of variance.
Probably why I tend to stick moreso to ring games and SNGs, just cause in general I don't have the extended time to invest in the multies...
Is your week up now moose? If not and she catches you on line use your post and get outta the dog house LOL
Interesting. So true. Really gets the brain churning on that.
A very sweet way of looking at things. Pessisism at its finest, but sweet none the less.
Welcome back Moose
I actually look at what they have to hit on an all in to get sucked out and then expect it to show. And again I am surprised when it doesn't hit. Nothing is worse than watching some dude hit his 1 or 2 outter to river you. Now if he's got the flush draw and a 9 outter I"m not surprised but it seems they hit it far more than I do. But what the hell I'm still winning money playing this stupid game.
PS as an aside, my KK held up twice at Rama, however Aimee's AA, KK and QQ all with in about 6 hands all got busted out.
Regardless I was extremely disappointed, I know ones goal should be to win the tourney and ultimately of course I wished that but I think my goal was to just play well and see how deep I can get but sitting 10/27 at the break I smelled at least some cash:
Hand 1:
I wanted Taxi's chips, I knew he'd make a move with any two decent cards, with JJ I wanted to take him on heads up and take him out, the poker gods had a different plan for me.
Game #1233098685 - Tournament TeamCanuck - 400/800 No Limit Texas
Hold'em - 2006/01/22-00:21:25.9 (CST)
Table "TeamCanuck 7" (MTT) -- Seat 10 is the button
Seat 1: Pilon100 (13,465 in chips)
Seat 2: freddie65 (7,985 in chips)
Seat 3: irrub (21,255 in chips)
Seat 4: redstarfan (18,470 in chips)
Seat 6: Big_E_67 (13,712 in chips)
Seat 7: taxi81 (3,656 in chips)
Seat 8: L-Trainn (21,710 in chips)
Seat 9: LexLuthor7985 (11,971 in chips)
Seat 10: mr droog (7,442 in chips)
freddie65: Ante (50)
irrub  : Ante (50)
redstarfan: Ante (50)
Big_E_67: Ante (50)
taxi81Â : Ante (50)
L-Trainn: Ante (50)
LexLuthor7985: Ante (50)
mr droog: Ante (50)
Pilon100: Ante (50)
Pilon100: Post Small Blind (400)
freddie65: Post Big Blind (800)
Dealing...
Dealt to Big_E_67 [ Jc ]
Dealt to Big_E_67 [ Jh ]
irrub  : Fold
redstarfan: Fold
Big_E_67: Raise (2,600)
taxi81Â : Raise All-in (3,606)
L-Trainn: Fold
LexLuthor7985: Fold
mr droog: Fold
Pilon100: Fold
freddie65: Fold
Big_E_67: Call (1,006)
*** FLOP *** : [ 9h 7h 8d ]
*** TURN *** : [ 9h 7h 8d ] [ Ad ]
*** RIVER *** : [ 9h 7h 8d Ad ] [ Kd ]
*** SUMMARY ***
Pot: 8,862 | Board: [ 9h 7h 8d Ad Kd ]
Pilon100 lost 450 (folded)
freddie65 lost 850 (folded)
irrub lost 50 (folded)
redstarfan lost 50 (folded)
Big_E_67 lost 3,656 (showed hand) [ Jc Jh ] (a pair of jacks)
taxi81 bet 3,656, collected 8,862, net +5,206 (showed hand) [ Ac 9c ]Â
(two pair, aces and nines)
L-Trainn lost 50 (folded)
LexLuthor7985 lost 50 (folded)
mr droog lost 50 (folded)
okay, I got what I wanted but the result sucked...still ok tho, lots of play left, still above the average stack.
Hand 2: Very next hand, perhaps an indication of tilting, or some sort of response to losing hand 1, I think I should have dumped AT pre-flop and most definitely I should have dumped to the first raise...but that said after I folded I wondered if I should not have come over the top, I thought Lex was a bit of a loose player and seemed to be stealing pots? I didn't think he held a K but I certainly did not want to risk all my chips to find out my kicker was no good. I think this was played very poorly and very weak.
Game #1233100340 - Tournament TeamCanuck - 400/800 No Limit Texas
Hold'em - 2006/01/22-00:22:22.8 (CST)
Table "TeamCanuck 7" (MTT) -- Seat 1 is the button
Seat 1: Pilon100 (13,015 in chips)
Seat 2: freddie65 (7,135 in chips)
Seat 3: irrub (21,205 in chips)
Seat 4: redstarfan (18,420 in chips)
Seat 6: Big_E_67 (10,056 in chips)
Seat 7: taxi81 (8,862 in chips)
Seat 8: L-Trainn (21,660 in chips)
Seat 9: LexLuthor7985 (11,921 in chips)
Seat 10: mr droog (7,392 in chips)
freddie65: Ante (50)
irrub  : Ante (50)
redstarfan: Ante (50)
Big_E_67: Ante (50)
taxi81Â : Ante (50)
L-Trainn: Ante (50)
LexLuthor7985: Ante (50)
mr droog: Ante (50)
Pilon100: Ante (50)
freddie65: Post Small Blind (400)
irrub  : Post Big Blind (800)
Dealing...
Dealt to Big_E_67 [ Ts ]
Dealt to Big_E_67 [ As ]
redstarfan: Fold
Big_E_67: Call (800)
taxi81Â : Fold
L-Trainn: Fold
LexLuthor7985: Raise (2,200)
mr droog: Fold
Pilon100: Fold
freddie65: Fold
irrub  : Fold
Big_E_67: Call (1,400)
*** FLOP *** : [ Kd 7d Ks ]
Big_E_67: Check
LexLuthor7985: Bet (2,000)
Big_E_67: Fold
LexLuthor7985: Winner -- doesn't show cards
Hand 3: The killer, after I went through the blinds I felt I was in a situation where I had to make a move with something and I get AQo...on the flop I was very happy, TPTK thinking I'm going to double up and be back in the race....again the poker gods had something to say......I know poker is a long journey not a sprint and I do not have a lot of tourney experience and overall I should be happy with my result it's a very tough field 27th is not bad...and all-in in hand 1 pre-flop I was ahead, can't complain....on the flop in hand 3 again I was ahead, can't complain...but it just seems that every time I am this close to the money I get my chips in feeling good with the decision but losing the race..it left me feeling sick........
But the silver lining I guess is that over the weekend I was up $360 whoring black jack!!!Â
Game #1233112175 - Tournament TeamCanuck - 400/800 No Limit Texas
Hold'em - 2006/01/22-00:29:07.8 (CST)
Table "TeamCanuck 7" (MTT) -- Seat 9 is the button
Seat 1: Pilon100 (12,665 in chips)
Seat 2: freddie65 (10,435 in chips)
Seat 3: irrub (21,305 in chips)
Seat 4: redstarfan (18,520 in chips)
Seat 6: Big_E_67 (6,306 in chips)
Seat 7: taxi81 (8,962 in chips)
Seat 8: L-Trainn (20,960 in chips)
Seat 9: LexLuthor7985 (14,271 in chips)
Seat 10: mr droog (6,242 in chips)
freddie65: Ante (50)
irrub  : Ante (50)
redstarfan: Ante (50)
Big_E_67: Ante (50)
taxi81Â : Ante (50)
L-Trainn: Ante (50)
LexLuthor7985: Ante (50)
mr droog: Ante (50)
Pilon100: Ante (50)
mr droog: Post Small Blind (400)
Pilon100: Post Big Blind (800)
Dealing...
Dealt to Big_E_67 [ Qs ]
Dealt to Big_E_67 [ Ac ]
freddie65: Fold
irrub  : Raise (1,600)
redstarfan: Fold
Big_E_67: Raise (6,256)
taxi81Â : Fold
L-Trainn: Fold
LexLuthor7985: Fold
mr droog: Fold
Pilon100: Fold
irrub  : Call (4,656)
*** FLOP *** : [ Jh Qh 9s ]
*** TURN *** : [ Jh Qh 9s ] [ 5c ]
*** RIVER *** : [ Jh Qh 9s 5c ] [ 8c ]
*** SUMMARY ***
Pot: 14,162 | Board: [ Jh Qh 9s 5c 8c ]
Pilon100 lost 850 (folded)
freddie65 lost 50 (folded)
irrub bet 6,306, collected 14,162, net +7,856 (showed hand) [ 5s 5h ]Â
(three of a kind, fives)
redstarfan lost 50 (folded)
Big_E_67 lost 6,306 (showed hand) [ Qs Ac ] (a pair of queens)
taxi81 lost 50 (folded)
L-Trainn lost 50 (folded)
LexLuthor7985 lost 50 (folded)
mr droog lost 450 (folded)