Really Bad Beats

by Bodog Poker | Jan 9 2009

Whether you’re an experienced player, or you just started playing poker, bad beats are something that we all experience. These hands seem to defy all possibilities, and they seem to happen to us more than math would dictate that they should. The fact is that as long as an opponent has one out left in the deck to beat you, they will hit that out 2% of the time. So no matter how much of a lead you have in a hand, as long as your opponent isn’t drawing dead you’re always vulnerable to a bad beat. Here’s a look at a bad beat that will leave you shaking your head, and maybe it’ll make you feel a little better about the ones you have to endure when you sit down to play.

In a recent hand online Mike Matusow suffered one of the worst beats I’ve ever seen. He was seated at a table with Erick Lindgren and four other online professionals. “PimpOwnage” was in the small blind and posted $200. Lindgren was in the big blind and posted his $400, and sitting under the gun was “Erik1223”, who made it $1400 to go. Next was Mastusow who called the $1400, and the two remaining players, “TexasLimitKing” and “dazzy” folded out of the hand. “PimpOwnage” and Erick Lindgren also felt it was too rich for their blood, and they mucked out of the hand as well.

The hand was heads-up between Matusow and “Erik1223”, and the two saw a flop of 9c-6c-9s. “Erik1223” bet out $2400 which Matusow called. Then the turn card was the 9h, and once again “Erik1223” fired at the pot with $4800. Once again Matusow just called the bet, brining the pot to $17,800. The river card was the 8c, and for a third time “Erik1223” bet out at the pot. This time he bet the size of the pot, $17,800, but Matusow wasn’t going to call this time. He raised the bet to $27,288, which was the rest of his stack. “Erik1223” couldn’t call the bet fast enough, which brought the pot to $72,373.

Matusow must have been sure that he had the winning hand because he turned over A-9 of diamonds for quad nines. He was slow playing the hand from the flop when he hit trip nines, and again on the turn when he hit the quads. But “Erik1223” had a surprise for Mike Matusow, because he turned over 7-5 of clubs, giving him a straight flush and the $72,373 pot. “Erik1223” had only one out that could have saved him from losing the hand, and miraculously that card hit the river. This must have been one of the hands that caused Matusow to throw his laptop into his pool, as he was rumoured to have done last year.

What many players don’t realize is that these beats will always happen for as long as you play the game. The secret that the top professionals know is that it’s not about avoiding the bad beats, it’s about learning how to deal with them after they occur.

So you see…bad beats happen to the best of us. It’s always a good idea to keep an eye on the player that gets slapped with a bad beat because chances are they’re likely to make other bad calls in an attempt to catch up. And that is an opportunity for you to win big.

Think you can avoid a bad beat? Get in on a game of online poker in the Bodog Poker Room.