You can be playing the most optimal poker of your career, yet still be hurt or angry about losing a big pot to a bad beat. The combative sporting nature of any game is often founded on the assumption that if you are the top player, and if you play a impeccable match you are guaranteed a win. A lot of us think of ourselves as the optimal player at the table, and we surely feel superior to the sucker that called your all-in bet with one card to go and hit his 4 outer, but all of that is in reality based on a false premise.
Poker is not a competition in the conforming way and you are not always repaid for good strategy. In fact, you can have a streak of tournament or cash game sessions where you would be challenged to find a single fault on your part, and still be at a loss.
True, bad beats are part of the game and we mostly know this, but the trick with this, is to turn a bad beat experience around and make it economic for you long-term. In reality, most players take a long time to truly understand bad beats. Of course bad beats hurt everybody, even knowledgeable players, but if you look at bad beats from a mathematical view, you also must admit them as indifferent to your profitable strategy.
What this means is that good players, will literally laugh off a bad beat because they know they made a moneymaking play regardless, and the winner of the pot committed a negative EV play. They also figure that if opponents did not make negative EV plays, then this profitable game of poker would not survive. They realize that they want players at the table who make mistakes and suck out to win a pot.
Frequently, I am in poker tourneys and look at weak players who just raked in a huge pot and think to myself, “well I am glad that guy has a stack”. You too should want weak players to have money or stacks at the table.
Good players that really understand the bad beat dilemma have an inherent numbness towards the last result of a hand, and are more engaged in how their opponents actually played the hand, and what was the thinking behind their strategy – if they had one. Profitable players carefully observe events of the situation, and their opponents, and merely wait for an opportunity to win their money back and more.
A Real Bad Beat Story
Wanna hear a real bad beat story? It was 2025 at the World Series Of Poker $10,000 buy-in main event. The very first hand of the tournament, Oliver Hudson flopped a MONSTER hand and it probably took all the will power in the world not to grin like a Cheshire cat! The problem was, Sammy Farha flopped an even bigger monster, and beat him all-in! For a video of the hand, and a look at Hudsons face when the hole cards are flipped face up, click here: Real Bad Beat at the WSOP
So here’s the thing – Hudson just sat down at the table, with ten grand of his own money, and got knocked right out of the tournament within seconds even though he thought he had the best had by far… and he was still smiling – now that’s a great bad beat attitude!
