I know bad beat stories are really, really annoying, but I can't pass this one up.

Here's the setup. 333 person tournament with 13 players left. I get in first position and raise to 12,000 - blinds at 2,000 - 4,000. I have about 46,000 in chips.

Short stack to my right calls allin. Player to his right (has me covered with 58,000) moves allin. I call.

Flop:

Turn:

River:

Short stack has

Big stack has

If i had won this hand I would have had about 110,000 in chips. 70,000 more than any other player.

But instead I get sucked out by a 1 outer on the river and I'm out in 12th place.

I don't think I'll ever top this one.

Should we assume that 12th place didn't pay...? Or at least pay very much...?

16

love the case queen....ugh.

No offense but it's hardly a bad beat. When the money went in you were a slight dog to QQ.

I figured someone would point that out. Obviously its not a bad beat before the flop. But knowing you've got your opponent drawing to a one outer to take a massive chip lead with only 11 people left, and losing, is a bad beat in my book.

So if you call an all-in with 22 against AA preflop, flop comes xx2 and river is an A, you have suffered a bad beat? That way you create the possibility of two bad beats, because if that A doesn't show up the river the guy with AA will definetely have suffered one. In my book a hand with two players can not create two bad beats.

Here's a hand I played in a MTT recently.

I have in LP and raise up to 3xBB, BB calls.

Flop comes:


BB pushes all-in, I of course call. He has .

Turn:


River:



Now he's way ahead of me preflop, and I'm super-far ahead of him on the flop, he wins on the river. I of course think this is a bad beat, but what if the river card was blank, would it have been a bad beat for him?

The way I look at it is that if your hand wins a very large percentage of the time and ends up losing, it might just qualify as a bad beat. Since percentages change throughout a hand, I think the makings of a bad beat may appear after the money gets in.

Thus, I would consider your flush and my K a bad beat.

In my example, he only had me by 6% before the flop. Thus, my outdrawing him would hardly be considered a bad beat. But when I hit my king and he's only got one out, I consider that a bad beat.

In your example, you obviously were far behind (about 70%-30%). But when you hit your flush you were a 98% favorite. He had to get extremely lucky to beat you. SInce he did, thats a bad beat. Especially since he put his money in as a big dog.

If we looked at it exclusively the way you propose, bad beats in general could only be judged by what players hold before the flop. Further, only hands that were ahead before the flop could qualify for a bad beat. That seems silly to me, and would make bad beat stories very boring. How about this example; Player A has pocket aces and Player B has pocket aces. Both go allin before the flop. Player A hits a four flush and takes it down. Is that not a bad beat for Player B just because they were even before the flop? I would consider it one.

It seems better to classify bad beats as situations were your opponent must get extremely lucky to win, and does. To me it doesn't matter as much when the money goes in, or what the percentages were before the hand started.

"In my book a hand with two players can not create two bad beats."

I agree with you that out of two hands there can only be one bad beat. That bad beat is determined at the end of the hand. If the 22 hits a set and it holds up, then AA suffered a bad beat. If 22 hits a set and the A hits on the river, then the 22 suffered a bad beat. One beat, depending on what happens. However, any given hand has the potential to dish out multiple bad beats, as your example illustrates.

That's just my opinion, you can classify them however you choose. Its possible that my book has a few pages missing....or stuck together.

The worst (odds wise) bad beat I've ever taken technically *wasn't* a bad beat either... it just defied the odds, which is just as painfull.

hand:
I have 7xBB left in a MTT and LP has been stealing a lot. I've been waiting to get a hand that I can push in with. I'm in the BB (so only 6xBB behind) and the loose raiser bets 3xBB. I push with ATs and he calls with QQ - yea thats right, it try to look him up and he has a hand... sigh!

Flop comes AAT and I almost jump out of my chair...

...you know the rest. I think he had a 1% or 2% chance to beat me on the flop.

the thing that made this such a horrible beat wasn't the fact he hit one out on the river. It was the fact he hit one out on the river to take the tournament win away. If Wolvish (my brother) had won this hand, he was all but guarennteed 1st or 2nd place with the stack sizes remaining.

Well, bad beat or not. Whatever. We're just arguing semantics here.

But the fact is, it's not the best play ever calling two all-ins -- including a tall stack -- with AK. At that point, you're no better than a coinflip to win. At this point in the tourney, I want more than that before calling.