Learn Texas Holdem

I haven't posted any of my own bad beats on this site yet. I've played so long now, I've literally seen everything. Not much surprises me.

It's still annoying and gut wrenching to lose pots, I'm just not surprised. I wanted to include one hand though, that still stands out in my mind. It wasn't necessarily a bad beat, more of just a sick unlucky hand. And unfortunately, this was a no limit holdem cash game. I had a large stack of chips, about 4x the buy-in. There was one other guy at the table who had a stack about the same size as mine.

It was six or seven handed. He raised from middle position and I called with 33. Before I continue, this isn't the tips section. Don't try to read into anything I do here because it may not be applicable to your game. So he raises and I cold call. The flop comes back beautifully: J - 7 - 3. Now, my hope here is that I will be up against QQ, KK or AA. I most likely won't get that much action if he only has a big Jack -- I'll get some, just not everything. He fires out and I raise.

The reason I raise here is because if I waited to the turn to raise, it would signal the strength of my hand. By raising on the flop, I feign weakness and will get more action from a big pair. He just calls, which still might mean he has a big pair. The turn is 7, making the board J - 7 - 7 - 3. That's a great card for me. He checks and I bet. Now he just calls. That was kind of a weird call. I was thinking maybe he got cold feet about raising because the 7 paired, or maybe he did actually have a hand like AJ.

The river sealed the deal, and my fate putting a 3, making the board J-7-7-3-3. At this point I'm thinking that he will definitely pay me off with any Jack or big pair. He checks and I bet. Now he raises me. I'm thinking now that maybe he did have a 7 all this time and waited to pull the trigger -- maybe a hand like 87. He could even have JJ, but who cares, right?

So I push all in and he immediately calls showing me quad 7s. Now, I've lost quads before in limit games, but to lose it in a big no limit cash game was a little painful to say the least. And like I mentioned elsewhere on the site, I go through phases of what games and structures I like to play. Well that got me playing limit for a bit.