Bad beat story
It’s certainly not uncommon for players to bemoan their fate when the fall of the cards goes against them, turning what looked like winning hands into waste matter. I’d be dishonest if I said I never complain about bad beats, but I don’t do so very often. Part of the reason is that I remember some significant ones that worked out in my favor.
One of the biggest happened on Titan Poker, so that’s the one I’ll talk about.
In the middle stages of a tournament, I’d been verging on a short stack for a while, with a bit more than 10 big blinds. I’d been stealing enough blinds to maintain my stack, usually by shoving. On the hand in question, it was folded to me in late position, and I pushed in with J 8 suited, admittedly a holding I could have folded, but that would have meant no story.
I got one caller, who had overcards, so I was about a 3:2 underdog – not so bad. I paired on the flop, but he double-paired, which changed my odds to around 9:1. Ugh. The turn was a blank, but the river gave me trips, at which point someone else said he had folded a J, which meant I had hit a one-outer. Of course, that has happened many other times over the years, but what made this instance very memorable is that I went on to win the tournament for one of my two or three largest cashes ever.
Any readers have a positive bad beat story you’d like to share?
Switching topics, I’ve been watching the WSOP main event TV broadcasts leading up to the final table. After Phil Ivey’s run in 2009, it’s notable that another highly accomplished pro made it this year. Considering how long it has been since a big name won, I’m certainly interested to see if Michael Mizrachi will be able to take it down. In any case, I hope we’ll see whoever plays the best poker prevail.
