Chapter IX: Bad Beats

Esoteric--poker.

The situation: There are six players, arranged thusly:

button, small blind, big blind, player A, Me, player B.

I am dealt Q Q. Player A raises one chip, to 5. I reraise 4 more, to a total of 9. Player B folds, the button calls. The blinds fold. Player A calls.

Three players to the flop, which is J22. Player A bets 10. Putting him on the J, I raise to 40. I have 9 chips left. To my horror, both the button and player A call. I am screwed. One of them must have the 2 (and called the preflop raise for kicks), or a higher pocket pair. The turn is an 8. Player A checks to me, and I resignedly bet my remaining 9 chips. Surprisingly, the button folds, but Player A calls.

Player A did not, in fact, have the 2 or a higher pocket pair. He turns over 8 8, which means I winning when he called my preflop raise (81.5% favorite), I was winning when he called my massive bet on the flop (91.6% favorite), but caught the 8 on the turn for a full house and a 95.6% advantage. This is very very disappointing.

I have a 4.4% chance of hitting a queen on the river. But then, just like in Maverick, it happens. The queen lands, and I have queens full of twos, beating eights full of twos.

And I do believe that is the first time I've been all-in and won when drawing to two outs on the river. To put it another way, this is the worst beat I've ever given someone.

The worst beat I ever got, of course, was when I flopped a straight and moved all-in. The caller then magically converted middle pair on the flop into three of a kind on the turn, and full house on the river.

In other news, I've found that The Washington Post has become slightly more interesting reading over the past week than The New York Times.

11/02/2005 UPDATE: New bad beat: I have 3h 4h, the flop is 5h 6h 7h...straight flush. Various things happen, all-in by the river, which is 8h. Other guy has 9h. Ow.