Posted by Dr Fro 4:52 PM
There are two types of "bad beats" in my opinion. I don't mean that there are only two buckets into which bad beats may be grouped. I mean that I can tell you right now two groups that make for a meaningful blog, and those two groups are mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive. Kinda like "There are two groups of people in this world: boys and girls." Or, ""There are two groups of people in this world: those in the eastern hemisphere and those in the western."

Where was I?

Ah yes - bad beats. I define a bad beat as when a hand loses due to the fact that another player made an incorrect move. I use "incorrect move" here to a move that, if repeated often enough, would consistently yeild a negative expected return.

The two groups I would like to discuss are: A) When the winner calls two cards pre-flop that do not warrant a call and B) when a person calls a bet post-flop where he is getting incorrect pot odds.

As a quick aside, you will notice that my universe of bad beats only includes hands that called. No raises/bets can be called a bad beat in my opinion. I don't care if a guy bets his 59o all-in to your KK, you call, and you lose. This is not a bad beat. You were unlucky, but not the victim of a bad beat. At the time he made that bet, he clearly assessed a reasonable probability that you may fold. You don't know how high of a probability he assessed, so you can't call it a bad beat. If he assessed the probability of you folding was high enough, his bet may be justified.

A call on the other hand is based primarily on pot odds. Implied odds are considered too, but lets place them aside to simplify the discussion. Yes, there is also a consideration of the probability that the bettor is bluffing, but lets temporarily put that aside too.

Why do I put bad beats into these two categories? Because I believe that players are correct to draw certain assumptions after a Type B bad beat that they should not draw after a Type A bad beat.

Type B bad beats indicate a few things. For starters, you now know that you are playing against an inferior player. You know that you are up against a player prone to make stupid calls. Yes, you just lost $100 and that sucks, but the glass is half-full. Now, next time you are out of position with a great hand, you know you can make a big bet and Goofy will probably call you. You know that you don't need to switch tables, because payday is sitting right across from you. Stick around, play for a while. The long run will be good to you.

And if the called because they thought you were on a bluff, you now know they are prone to be the bluff police. Again, bet good hands into them and they will pay you off.

It is a bad beat. Consider him an idiot if you choose. He is an idiot.

Now Type A bad beats are different. For starters, people tend to forget what tanspired pre-flop. I have had people ask me "how can you play those hands?" when I was in the big blind. Seriously. Even more astute players will ask "how could you play that hand when it was raised, twice?" forgetting that each call happened separately; thus, while I would not have played KQ for 3 bets had I known it would cost 3 bets, each stand-alone decision of calling 1 more bet was completely justified.

However, even if you have perfect memory of what happened pre-flop, you still don't know what was going on in the players mind. There are lots of reasons to lower starting hand requirements, including:

1 No players have been raising pre-flop all night. There are some hands (like baby suited connectors) that should be folded when you fear a raise. Take away the fear and they are worth playing

2 Loose calls post flop all night. This raises the value of all hands. The ordinary downside to some hands like A7 is that if you hit top pair, top kicker (say 7-5-2) there are very few hands that will call you. If you know you will get called when you connect, you lower your starting hand requirements to take advantage.

3 Unsophisticated post-flop play in NL and PL. I don't mind giving away a BB every hand if it gives me the opportunity to outplay some fool on the river that doesn't know the nuts from his nuts

4 The number of players in the pot - For instance, in a family pot, I will play almost anything from the SB.

The list goes on. The combined effect of more than one of these characteristics of the game being present can justify playing some pretty crappy hands. The fact is that no player can really know how another player is perceiving the above items. I really think it is a waste of time and energy to get bent out of shape when you lose to a person with low starting hand requirements (Type A). I don't care if you are Johnny Chan, you will never have the insight into exactly how a person is processing these factors. So if you lose to 76o when they flopped the straight, the question you should not ask is "Why did you play 76o?" The question is "How did you outplay me on the last 3 streets?"

So, consider people foolish after Type B bad beats. Question your own post-flop play when you take Type A bad beats.

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