What is truly a "bad beat" in poker?

[R.Holynskyi]

For me, these are all those times when I lose with a strong hand, to an opponent whose hand was weaker than mine preflop. I've been playing poker not so long ago, maybe I'm not very good at terms, but for me bad beats are exactly the cases I described.

 

[Ogma]

Bad beat?

Hand #1066098656 - Replay Poker

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[infonazar]

It's simple, bad beat I call situations when I'm stupidly unlucky

 

[Poker Orifice]

Here's a bad beat.... (the chips went in on the flop) Oh no it's not!! Campbell manages to river the 1-outter

 

[Ogma]

Pocket kings against rag ace particularly galling. They think they've got their hand sewn up when they pair their rag. See the pocket kings and they're in trouble then they river the ace. Galling.

Hand #1066185433 - Replay Poker

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[km1n]

a bad beat is when ur absolutly dominating the hand and the oponnent calls u or goes all in with a one outer or a gutshot or something similar an hits it.

 

[Paya_31]

Hello, for me a bad beat has to do with the probabilities that both or several players have in a hand, in which one has the minimum probability of winning and manages to improve their hand on the river, for example it happened to me that I had a set of 88 and the opponent AA on the turn we go all in and the A falls on the river giving him the best set, it is a clear example of a bad beat.

 

[nelomec]

We've all been there at the poker table. You hit your straight on the flop, and then the turn and the river cards give your opponent the winning hand. But is that truly a bad beat?

Is set over set a bad beat? When your Aces get cracked by 2 pair, is that a bad beat? When you make a huge bet (5x) from early position, and the big blind calls you with 35o, and then hits the nuts on the flop, is that a bad beat?

How do you define a true bad beat in poker?

I think a bad beat is when you have a 98% chance of winning a hand even on the turn and the river changes everything, making your opponent win

 

[kringoo]

These days in a tournament I had an AQ in my hand in the big blinds, with hearts everyone folded until reaching the cut-off which led to an all-in, it was the middle of a tournament and I had twice the blinds of the player who went all-in
I thought, evaluated it and paid for it, he had a handheld TT
I hit my Q on the flop but the river hit the T. I lost almost half of my pot
Then about 2 or 3 hands later the situation reversed
I didn't receive a JJ now, just over half of the tournament, almost reaching the bubble and I needed to double down to at least reach ITM.
There was an initial position raise and I raised 5x half of my pot and the big blinds. went all in
the starting hand folded
I paid all in
the big blinds showed AQ off
nothing on the flop
nothing on the turn (until then I was winning the hand, I just didn't hit either A or Q)
But the river hit Q and I fell out of the tournament in two hands

 

[Newzooozooo]

A bad beat is a situation in which my chances of winning were greater than my opponent's, but the opponent still won, luck was on his side.

 

[sabir]

Today I played an insane hand. I had something like 9Jo and called the BB to see the flop. Then something like 399 came on the flop. I made a hand of 999. Then the villain who played before me went all-in and I thought: ''I killed one more''. I paid. Villain had something like T7s that didn't connect the suit on the flop. I died laughing when I saw his hand. Then the turn brought 'T' and the river brought another 'T'. Until now I don't believe it and I wonder if it's true that rooms rob us. How the guy goes allin with nothing in his hand and hits a fullhouse like that. He with TTT99 and me with TT999. That to me is badbeat!
But I can't rule out the possibility that it was stolen...
It's one thing for a guy to have a promising hand and hit the turn or river. Another thing is that he has nothing and still goes all in and crushes you...

I noticed that this happens a lot when you play against a big stack

seems the poker room wants to quickly get rid of players and end the tournament ASAP

 

[iwont20]

I pretty recently busted a tournament in a hand you described: I had a straight on the flop, my oponent had a top pair, we went all-in and he won with a runner-runner flush ☹️

I consider a bad beat to happen when a hand, which had 70+% of equity, loses. Losing with 95% is just atrocious lol Set over set situations are coolers, sometimes this just inevitably happens, no one can escape this. Cooler is when both opponents played good, they just both had strong, but different hands, and someone just must lose. The same goes for coinflips. Bad beat is when someone made a mistake, overvalued there chances, misread the hand and situation, gambled, went on a tilt or in a revenge mode, or their opponent made them make a huge mistake, so they got baited and invested all/good chunk of their stack with significantly worse hand and... still won.

 

[userX]

In my opinion, a bad beat is a situation in which the player with a weaker hand than yours wins.

 

[PRRP2010]

The worst bead beat is when you've already nailed the game and the villain depends on a single card available in the deck, and that single card comes on the river. For example, if you already have a full house and the villain has a set smaller than yours and the river comes the only card there is for him to make the four.

 

[gustavofuentes2]

We've all been there at the poker table. You hit your straight on the flop, and then the turn and the river cards give your opponent the winning hand. But is that truly a bad beat?

Is set over set a bad beat? When your Aces get cracked by 2 pair, is that a bad beat? When you make a huge bet (5x) from early position, and the big blind calls you with 35o, and then hits the nuts on the flop, is that a bad beat?

How do you define a true bad beat in poker?

I define a bad beat whenever you have the winning hand at the flop' you go all in and your opponent does the same with nothing in hand and then gets a runner runner to beat you silly. That is what I call a bad bet. What do you think?

 

[Rost]

A bad beat is when I have strong, good cards, but my opponent won due to luck.

 

[black and]

A bad beat is when your opponent got lucky and you had a stronger hand than his.

 

[BillyR23]

Another really interesting topic

IMO a bad beat is a hand where you had at least 80% equity at the moment of the last betting round- when players showed their holdings... still, there are bad hands you'll forget easier- like for example a cooler hand AA < KK All in preflop but a 'K' comes on the board* as the player with KK has only ~18% equity but there's not a bad play involved just a tough hand overall; on the other hand if you had AKs on a AQ22 rainbow board and you shove for value only for your opponent to call you with a gutshot - KTo but still hits a 'J' on the river(4 outs ~9% equity)- this will be a hand tough to forget as it was not only a tough loss but also your opponent made a bad play* or maybe several bad plays as you might have bet big preflop and on the flop with a premium hand like AKs too... And, of course there will be the 'real' bad beats where you get it in on the turn, your opponent is down to 1 out(~2% chance to win), but still somehow finds the way to win the hand- this will be the hands you'll probably never forget and will make a 'good story' to tell your friends over and over again(a friend was recently involved in a cash game hand: he had 77 and the flop came 77Q, turn was 'safe' 2 and it was here were the players went all in and it was like 400BBs pot- the opponent had QQ and the river was the last Q... and now we'll listen about this hand for the rest of our lives lol).

At the end of the day, if you'll play a lot of hands(especially online where people can play even a 'crazy' 20+ tables at the same time), you'll definitely be involved in similar hands and just remember that on the long run- good poker players don't really need the 'luck' factor and they just need to put enough volume...

 

[Saul2025]

Bad beat comments I see when opponent was calling all streets including shove on the river with 4th pair with lowest kicker

 

[Colbefc]

The worst possible bad beat has got to be quads over quads, can't think of a worse one.

 

[MF.Brn]

In my opinion Bad Beat is when you have a high chance of winning the pre-flop and the flop, when you have a pair in your hand and your crack appears on the flop, and you think I won, but then the turn comes and the river and your opponent wins with a streak or a flush and you spend time thinking: "what happened here? I had already won, it's not possible!”

 

[Luvart]

Bad beat for me is when you have a hand that dominates opponent's hand massively, but somehow during one of the three postflop streets you manage....to lose.

For example:

-I have AA and opponent has, lets say, pocket 55 and he hits a 5 postflop and wins the pot.
-I have pocket 66 and opponent has pocket 22, he hits a deuce postflop and takes the money.
-I have AK and opponent has AJ, he hits a J postflop and busts me.
-I have KQo and opponent has 87s, I flop the straight, but opponent his runner runner flush.....

Bad beat is different from a cooler because I'm the guy that has the dominating hand.

 

[MishkaZL]

In my understanding, a bad beat is a situation where I was simply unlucky. I mean this is a situation where I had a better hand than my opponent, but the opponent won due to luck.

 

[Goldenbeardy]

I experienced a real bad beat last weekend on Pokerstars.

This guy had around 70% VPIP and was constantly raising and 3-betting. Nobody was able to take him down. The few times people called him all the way to showdown, he had decent hands. He was up around 400bbs in a max 100 buy in.

I perked up as I saw the AKs on my screen. I'm on the button. Villain raises, I make a 3-bet he 4-bets, I call.

The flop is A, 6, 9 rainbow.

Villain raises. I reraise. Villain goes all in. I call. Our effective stack is 250bb.

Villain shows his cards, I don't believe it. He has nothing, as I suspected.

J3o. I'm getting excited for my 500bb.

The turn comes and it's a 3.

No biggy, literally can only best me if he gets another 3.

River comes and you've guessed it. Of course it was another 3.

I burst out laughing. It's not a lot of money, but I just thought it seemed ridiculous.

That's my bad beat, I decided I'd had enough of poker that day.

 

[Igor G]

A bad beat is the victory of an opponent whose chances were less than mine, in a word, it was unlucky