Bad beats vs Bad Play - knowing the difference.

I have vented a couple of times about my frustration at seemingly bad beats.

I received some great advice, and have taken it on board. One member suggested picking up Nathan Williams (Blackrain79) book on Crushing the Micros. And never was $20 better spent.

By studying Nathans methods, I realised I was making a lot of moves out of position, and the book contains a lot of info on how to think more intelligently about position.

If like me, you were getting mentally beat by horrible cooler hands, I would suggest a majority of those hands were due to;

1) Poor positional play.
2) Incorrect bet sizing.
3) Taking on the wrong opponent


There's way more, but you really should invest in the book if you want to get to the bottom of it.

Now, by looking at these, I am now doing much better. I still get coolered, but if I play in position and lose to a bad river card, I just put it down to variance.

But, here is the thing, by playing better in position, I am able to win bigger posts by playing into players who almost invite me to play a hand, and often my hand improves to the point where I am almost sure to win - I bet the victim would say that I got the magic river cards, where they really lay themselves open to it. Now I review my losing hands and I see just how easy I made it to lose. (Of course, there are still some stinkers, but you have to learn to live with them).

So, the point I am trying to make is that some real constructive advice came about and I am much improved. I am almost embarrassed at my venting, though I would like to say thanks to all for the positive feedback as opposed to flaming me.

Conclusion - most bad beats are down to your own bad play.

Great stuff, onwards and upwards.

enesem said:

Conclusion - most bad beats are down to your own bad play.

Click to expand...

Actually, bad beats should tend to occur when you play well. The more often you have opponents in situations where they have to suck out, the better you're probably playing. But more chances to suck out means more times it will actually happen.

Agree, although enesem probably means that bad sizing can give draws great price to draw and hit their rivers - it is not exactly a bad beat if you were begging for it.

Yeah, as you get better.

What I'm saying is that at this level, and probably in my case, some things I put down to bad beats were bad play. It seems to be a thing people post about, so I thought my feedback maybe useful to those seeing the same thing. I am still getting suckered, but now much more able to see it in the bigger picture.

Sure, when you get better you will still get coolers, however the mental understanding will be different. IMHO.

Plus, I wanted to say thanks for the feedback and recommend the book :>)

At our local casino, we have a bad beat payout which can grow. So if you happen to receive a bad beat of AA-AK (AK full or higher to qualify both) so you would get 40% for being on the receiving end, 20% goes to the winner AND the remainer is divivded up amongst the remaining players at the table.
So a bad beat was defined for me as something like that. Small bad beats were smaller, Idk the percentage paid out but a smaller portion of the Bad Beat pot.
This would be a beneficial loss.
It seems contradicting altogether, like saying a 'good loss' as to justify the loss.
My two cent chips

Good thread enesem if I may suggest check out Jared Tendlers blog on PS .He is very knowledgeable about things like tilt and the mental side of the game.Although it seems like you have a good grasp on that aspect already any info is good info IMO.......scorp

If you have your money in as a big favorite and lose, it's a bad beat.
Hey, you might not be playing optimally, but when you lose to runner runner or are a big favorite only to lose on the river, it is still a bad beat plain and simple...:icon_blac

when im in bad beat im not angry of that because i know i played my hand well and i did not make mistake.
But bad played is another story of how u call with junk hands