I for one don’t like to hear people constantly whining about their bad beats on the Internet. Everybody has them and it’s not use complaining about and cussing out the person who delivered it. But I had one play the other night that made wonder whether I had truly received a [[Bad_beat|bad beat]] or just made a bad play.
I was playing a game of No Limit Texas Hold’em and the two hole cards that I was dealt were an A and a 10. That was good enough for me to call the big blind and everyone else limped in. The flop hit as A-Q-3 off suited and everybody except for me and one other person folded.
I now had top pair and didn’t really think this person stayed with Q-3 so I bet out a little. My bet was called and the turn came around as another Q. So I checked and the other player only placed a small bet which truly made me wonder what was going on. Did this person have a set of queens and was just slowplaying me or did they truly have nothing and were just representing a queen.
Well I thought my answer came on the river as another queen landed making the board A-Q-3-Q-Q and making me think that there was no way in this six-handed game that the other player happened to have a queen with three of them already on the board. I mean it’s definitely possible but the odds would really suggest otherwise.
So I put a big bet out there while the other play went all-in. My chip stack was larger so I called not thinking they were truly holding the queen. To my surprise though, they were holding a queen and they were also holding a four of a kind at that.
My initial thought was whether this could be declared a bad beat or just a bad play. Most of the time, the lone player left isn’t going to stay in past the flop with a bigger overpair represented. But this player had and they were rewarded for it. I, on the other hand, lost quite a bit of my stack and was wondering what others at the table were thinking of the decision to stay in the hand with top pair.
If the same situation arose again, I think that I’d probably still make the same play to tell the truth. We’ll see how it turns out when it comes up in the future.
Hard to call that a bad beat. So many variables though (what stakes, everyone limped, type of player you are against, etc). First you only bet a little on the flop, making it easy for donkeys to call if they hit any of that flop. Then you checked the turn and called their bet, if you truly believed they didn’t have the better hand, a raise is in order. I think a big bet on either the flop or turn will tell you where your hand stands. He probably folds to a big bet on the flop, but if he hangs around and calls the turn too, you should be on notice at this point. If he went all-in on the turn would you have called?
Not trying to be harsh, just my thoughts.
Jim