I’m getting better at poker. I’m starting to read hands better and I can put guys on a range of hands.

I don’t always get it right. But sometimes I do, and it helps my game tremendously.

However there are things called bad beats. A bad beat is when the odds are in your favor. Especially when your opponent has only a few “outs” that will turn it into a win for him. Then he hits the “runner” “runner” and he pulls the flush or 4 of a kind needed to beat your set of aces.

This is an example of a hand that I think I played pretty well. I felt I had my opponent beat. I felt he had a mid pair and I had the high pair. It turns out, when he called my all in, he had only an 11% chance to win the hand. I was 89% favored to win, and I lost, knocking me out of the tournament.

Background: This was played at Poker School Online. The game is no limit hold-em. We’re down to 33 players left out of 74. I have been the chip leader for the last hour. Within the last 3 hands another player (JJackle) at my table has taken over as the chip leader.

Seat 1 : ErikaBme starts with 8,200
Seat 2 : Fittsy starts with 37,000
Seat 4 : royaldudley starts with 13,200
Seat 5 : JJackel starts with 74,500
Seat 6 : udmbfeck starts with 23,600
Seat 8 : dealmein starts with 31,200
Seat 9 : oakz starts with 15,900
Seat 10 : meljr starts with 6,200
Seat 10 : meljr has the dealer button

Blinds are 400/800. I am in the big blind.

I’m dealt: K K

ErikaBme posts the small blind 400
Fittsy posts the big blind 800
royaldudley folds
JJackel calls 800
udmbfeck folds
dealmein folds
oakz folds
meljr folds
ErikaBme folds
Fittsy raises 3,000 to 3,800
JJackel calls 3,000

So at this point I just raised 3.5 times the bet. JJackel calls.

DEALING FLOP 7 9 5

Fittsy checks
JJackel bets 70,600 and is all-in
Fittsy calls 33,100 and is all-in
JJackel takes back 37,500

So I checked. He goes all in. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t have me beat. I think the cards are probably all rags and probably didn’t help either of us.

I don’t think he has aces because I would have expected a stronger play from him pre-flop. I figure he has middle pair.

We turn over our cards:

JJackel cards were K 7 Fittsy cards were K K

So I was right! He had middle pair and his King is dead because any King will make me a set of trips. At this point according the poker odds Calculator I was 89.8% favored to win the hand. He only had a 8.59% chance to win because we had a 1.62% chance that we’d hit runner, runner to make us tie with a straight.

This is how the bad beat ended:
DEALING TURN J DEALING RIVER 7

JJackel wins 75,000 with three of a kind, sevens
Fittsy has left the table
Fittsy finishes in 33rd place

So I made the right call to call his all in. Maybe I played it bad and should have made a bigger raise or even bet after the flop instead of checking… The point is… if he hadn’t drawn one of the two 7s left in the deck, I would have won the hand, doubled my stack, and gone back into the tournament lead.

Oh well. That’s poker! Someone has to get lucky, or unlucky, sometime!

- Fittsy

Posted by as admin at 6:21 PM UTC

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