Bad beat. It's probably up there as one of the most common phrases you'll hear out of a poker player's mouth. There's some debate it seems as to exactly what a "bad beat" really is. Some people (most likely those who have been chasing Party Poker's "Bad Beat Jackpot") seem to think that a "bad beat" is when you hold aces full of kings and get beat by a royal straigh flush. There's no doubt that that would indeed be a truly bad beat, but the hands need not be that ridiculously good to use the term.

Then there are the people who seem to throw the term around every time they lose a pot at showdown. I even heard someone (probably a result of watching WPT, where they always include a key set of about 50 buzzwords per episode) use the term "bad beat" when he had been bluffed out of a pot and his opponent showed the garbage he was bluffing with.

Brunson's definition is probably what most people mean when they say "bad beat":

When you get a big hand cracked (beaten) by someone who was a big dog against you and made his longshot draw... you're said to have had a bad beat.

Still, there remains some silly semantic argument as to what constitutes a "big hand" or someone being a "big dog" (as in underdog). Whatever.

I've taken a couple of what I consider to be bad beats recently in some SNGs, both involving me holding pocket kings. First, some guy went all in pre-flop on a medium-to-short stack... everyone folded to me, and with KK, I felt pretty obligated to call with my own medium-to-short stack which just happened to be a little smaller than his. He shows a pair of fours, and I'm thinking I'm about to double up. The flop comes... 3 hearts... then the turn is a heart... then the river is a heart: the board makes a heart flush. Neither of my kings are hearts. One of his fours is. There is a 2 of hearts on the board and he wins with his flush with 4 kicker. Bad. Beat. I'm out in 6th place.

Then there is this kind of thing that I seem to run into with more regularity than I would obviously prefer:

***** Hand History for Game 859255882 *****
300/600 TourneyTexasHTGameTable (NL) (Tournament 5327805) - Thu Aug 19 10:51:41 EDT 2004
Table Table 11044 (Real Money) -- Seat 5 is the button
Total number of players : 4
Seat 3: SloppyFloppr (2637)
Seat 4: Elkerud (3946)
Seat 5: BigZ6 (880)
Seat 8: ME (537)
ME posts small blind (150)
SloppyFloppr posts big blind (300)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to ME [ Kh, Ks ]
Elkerud folds.
BigZ6 folds.
ME raises (387) to 537
ME is all-In.
SloppyFloppr calls (237)
** Dealing Flop ** : [ Ah, 4d, 8s ]
** Dealing Turn ** : [ 2d ]
** Dealing River ** : [ 7h ]
Creating Main Pot with $1074 with ME
** Summary **
Main Pot: 1074 |
Board: [ Ah 4d 8s 2d 7h ]
SloppyFloppr balance 3174, bet 537, collected 1074, net +537 [ 8d 2s ] [ two pairs, eights and twos -- Ah,8d,8s,2s,2d ]
Elkerud balance 3946, didn't bet (folded)
BigZ6 balance 880, didn't bet (folded)
ME balance 0, lost 537 [ Kh Ks ] [ a pair of kings -- Ah,Kh,Ks,8s,7h ]

Most insulting of all is playing for an hour for fourth place. These things are going to happen.