| BAD BEATS WE'VE ALL KNOWN AND LOVED
Dear Mark,
Get this for a bad beat in a Texas Hold’em tournament I recently played
in. With nine players remaining I’m dealt a pair of Kings in the hole.
The flop comes King, 3, 3. Naturally I go “all in.” Across from me a
player was holding 6, 5, suited, then matches one of the 3’s. Then he
catches on the turn a four of hearts, then the five of hearts on the
river to give him a straight flush. Out of the tournament, and out of
the money (only the top eight got paid). Now that’s a bad beat. Tom A.
By policy and design, Tom, I steer clear of “bad-beat” stories. I’m
sharing yours because it illustrates two points. What a bad beat is,
and of course, a bad beat story.
So what counts as a "bad beat"? First, the obvious: you have to lose
the hand. But secondly, you lost in a spectacularly unlikely way when
you were the odds-on favorite to win it. With your full house on the
flop, you couldn't possibly have been expected to do anything less than
go “all in,” putting all your chips into the pot. The bad beat was that
the other dude got amazingly lucky, and you lost in a way that seemed
inconceivable until you saw it happen. Getting KO’ed from the
tournament and being one slot short of prize money, well, I’d call that
a Class A bad beat.
Then there is the ever-popular "bad-beat story” contest. Most gamblers,
especially (but not exclusively) inexperienced players, love to compete
with stories about how rotten their luck was. I’ve listened to
countless gambling anecdotes over the years, and I’m confident I’ve
heard or seen them all, and, Tom, they are not exclusive to the game of
poker: The dealer who got a seven-card 21 at blackjack; red and white
7’s on the payline; the blue seven one line below on a progressive slot
machine; and the dreaded back door cover in sports, where a last-second
touchdown beats you on the spread. I’ve taken enough bad beats in
sports that it finally put me in therapy.
I do realize that some readers of this column do enjoy a good bad-beat
story. Heck, we’ve all, on occasion, lost so improbably that we feel
compelled to tell the story, but, some readers would just as soon watch
paint dry for four hours as to read another. I’ll keep listening
because it’s part of my job description, but readers, if I fail to
chronicle your bad-beat narrative, please don't take it personally.
Dear Mark,
Please describe the different types of straights in poker; for
instance, drawing to an inside versus an outside straight. Sandy R.
A lot of people don’t quite understand the difference between drawing
to an "inside straight" and to an "outside straight. And yet, Sandy,
it’s pretty straightforward (pun intended). An inside straight is one
in which an “inside” card is absent, such as the nine in this example
(7,8,10,J), whereas, an outside straight is one in which an outside
card is missing, such as the six or jack in this case (7,8,9,10). The
latter is open-ended because it consists of four consecutive cards
(none of them an ace) and can be completed at either end. Drawing to an
outside straight is a cut above drawing to an inside straight, because
there are eight ways to complete the outside straight and only four
ways to spiff up an inside one.
Gambling quote of the week: "Many new slot machines don't even have
handles, just buttons to push. Should we now call them
"one-button-bandits?" Jean Scott, The Frugal Gambler |
