07-28-05, LearnTexasHoldem:

Getting Bad Beats In Tournaments

Question:I have a question that I'm not sure has a definitive answer but I'll shoot anyway. Let me start by explaining my situation. I feel like lately I have been playing some of my best poker (thanks to some help from this site). I am my own biggest critic and know there is always room to improve my game. I have been making it down to the final few players in some small local tournaments but can't seem to win one because I always wind up getting nailed by some maniac.

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Just last night for instance we were down to the final three. I was the short stack but not by alot. I had managed to skillfully manuever my way through a few crazy's already and had beat a few of them at their own game to knock them out.

In what turned out to be my final hand I looked down to see As Kd. I threw in a medium sized raise from the big blind. One guy folded and the dealer called. The flop came 10c Ah Kh. I was sure my bulging eyes were going to give me away! I checked it to him and he proceeded to put me all in. Perfect! I called and he showed me his Jh, 10s. I'm thinking to myself that this guy is a complete lunatic with two overcards on the board. Well I'm sure you can see where this is heading. Yup, the final two cards were 5h 8h.

Now I know I shouldn't feel too bad about this because it's just plain a bad beat but it seems to be happening to me alot lately even though I feel like I'm playing well. It seems like the growing popularity of Holdem is making it more and more difficult to survive a tournament without eventually running into one of these maniacs and getting bad beat. I am far from a proffessional player but I try to play loose yet smart. I have tried mixing up my play but it still seems like I run right smack into one at the wrong time every time I play.

It is starting to effect the way I play hands because I am so afraid to slow play and milk a pot for fear of being nailed by a low percentage hand on the river. I'm also afaid to call all ins with great preflop cards for the above mentioned reasons. I definitely don't want to play tight and skittish but it seems like even when I'm playing pretty well (or maybe I just think I am) and getting good cards, I still get blindsided.

Anyway sorry for the long explanation but my question is simply...

A- Is there any good way to minimize the maniac effect? Would I be better off to try a little higher stakes tables or will I run into just as many there?

B- Should I just consider this a stretch of bad luck and continue to improve my play and continue to play the odds?

Thanks alot,

Mark

Answer: What you need is perspective. Tournament players see very few hands compared to cash players. Everyday I play I lose AK a number of times. That's par for the course. It is discouraging when someone plays badly and beats you, but this is necessary. If the bad players never got lucky, there would be no more games left and poker would be no more. Don't look at someone who is a maniac and consider them your nemisis, they are your friend and your prey. You want people putting in their money in really longshots. This is how you make your money.

Let's say you are at the final table of the WSOP, would you prefer a maniac against you for the title, raising every hand with any two cards, or someone who is going to play well against you? Another way to look at this, and your hand is to take the blame away from the bad player. Don't blame him because he did his part. You had your AK, you raised and got called preflop -- perfect so far, he did his part. Then on the flop when you had top two he fell into your trap and put all his money in with a horrible hand relative to yours -- again doing his part. It was just lady luck that kicked you in the teeth.

The vast majority of the time, you would have nailed him in that hand. And just because a few guys have gotten lucky now and then doesn't mean that you should stop playing like you are. They actually will gain if you start not betting your hands correctly.

Now for your other questions:

A.) The idea that no bad beats happen at upper limits is bs. Trust me, plenty, and I mean plenty, of bad beats happen at upper limits. Even though there are generally better players the higher up you play, bad beats are inevitable. Look at this example: You have AK and your opponent has AA. You both are playing "perfect" poker. You both go all-in, or raise, whatever the game is. You flop K - 4 - 4. Back and forth you raise again, and the river is a King. Even though you were both playing optimally, bad beats are still there. And this is an extreme example, there all the typical bad beats at upper limits too of people catching wacky two pairs, gutshots, backdoor flushes, etc.

B.) Yes. Keep playing enough of the above hands and you'll come out way on top. The key point is to play enough of them so the actual numbers can decently represent the underlying odds. In short, what I mean by that is if you have a 3/5 chance of winning, it will take a number of tries before you see the numbers are actually 3/5. If you did 10 tries even, my guess is it wouldn't be representative yet.

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