Why there are more bad beats online, from Roy Rounder.

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4Aces

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I found this interesting.



There are two types of bad beats:

BAD BEAT #1...

When you catch a monster hand but lose to a BIGGER monster hand. For example, let's say you're holding pocket Aces and the flop hits A-6-6. That means you've got a full house. Your opponent goes ALL-IN... and you call. You think your Aces are the best hand but they're NOT, because your opponent has pocket sixes, which gives him the four-of-a-kind.

BAD BEAT #2...

When YOU have the best hand and your opponent has the WORST hand but your opponent GETS LUCKY and wins the pot. For example, let's say you have pocket Aces and go all-in. Your opponent calls with pocket three's. The flop hits 2-4-5 and the turn card is a 6, giving your opponent the STRAIGHT and causing you to lose the hand. Now that's a bad beat.

And let's face it, the SECOND type of bad beat-- the one where your opponent gets totally LUCKY and outdraws you-- is the kind of beat that just plain SUCKS. And pisses you off. In fact, the second type of bad beat is the kind you REMEMBER the most too. When someone says, "Hey man, how did your card game go?", the first thing that will come out of your mouth will be the story of that bad beat. Am I right? Now here's what's interesting...

MORE BAD BEATS HAPPEN IN ONLINE POKER THAN IN "REGULAR" LIVE POKER. Literally, you'll see more bad beats happen in an online poker game than you'll see at a local cash game or in a casino. If you play both online and offline poker, I'm sure you
agree with this statement. So what's going on here? Why would it be this way? There are two popular "theories"...

1. Online poker is rigged.

2. There are more hands per hour, therefore it's an ILLUSION that there are more bad beats.

My opinion is that BOTH of these theories are WRONG. Here's why:

First off, I genuinely believe online poker is NOT rigged. I mean, c'mon... Do you REALLY think these multi-billion dollar casinos would need to RIG hands? They make their money from tournament entry fees and rakes... and trust me, they're making plenty. OK, so what about the second theory? Well, I do agree that there are more hands per hour in online poker than offline poker. There's no disputing that. But I don't think that's a good enough reason... Because my belief is that there are MORE bad beats that happen per X number of hands ONLINE than for offline poker. For instance, let's say you played 100 hands. And let's say you caught two really bad beats for every 100 hands at a casino. That's 2%. In online poker, you're likely to catch FIVE or even TEN of those really bad beats per 100 hands. That's 5-10%. So the fact that you're seeing MORE hands doesn't explain the HIGHER PERCENTAGE of bad beats. Still with me? OK, so now let me give you MY "theory" about this. It's not really a theory. Just good old simple logic, actually. Here it goes:

The reason there are more bad beats in ONLINE poker is because the very NATURE of online poker leads people to PLAY DIFFERENTLY. The CARDS and ODDS are the same. It's the PLAYERS that aren't the same. What I mean is that for online poker, a LARGE portion of players adopt the style of LOOSE-AGGRESSIVE. Translation? Manic. They act irrationally... play hands they shouldn't play... and bet way too aggressively for most given situations. Why? Because online poker isn't as "real". The money isn't as real. I mean, heck... the casinos give you so much "free" money when you sign up, how COULD it feel real? The cards aren't real. The chips aren't real. The table isn't real. NONE OF THAT STUFF EVEN EXISTS. All you see when you play online poker are some silly little animations. And you hear some "clickity-click" sounds of fake chips. That's it. Nothing else. Period. And if you LOSE a game, all you have to do is make three or four mouse clicks and you're INSTANTLY playing another game. And hell, you can PLAY ten games at once if you want! You can literally play poker against 100 players AT THE SAME TIME! It's a different world, my friend. Now... let's get back to the bad beats.

The FACT that players are LOOSE-AGGRESSIVE is what leads to the SITUATIONS where bad beats happen. Here's why:

1. Players bet their draws more or call large bets with draws or OK hands (i.e. bottom pair).

2. More players are involved in every pot.

3. The pots are bigger, since players are more aggressive.

When these conditions COMBINE TOGETHER, it creates an environment where there are a lot of BIG POTS and bad beats. It's not that the cards are "rigged". It's that the betting patterns and playing styles are DIFFERENT than what you're used to. And when you combine that with the fact that you see more hands per hour, it inevitably leads to seeing a lot more "crazy" hands and bad beats than in regular poker. OK, so now the obvious question becomes...Is there any way to PREVENT bad beats? The answer is yes and no. Ultimately, bad beats will occur NO MATTER WHAT if you're playing good poker. Because to win at poker, you've got to be willing to take RISKS. And most risks have a minimum 20% chance or more of NOT working out in your favor. With that being said, there ARE ways to prevent a LARGE PORTION of the bad beats you'll see online.

Not only can you prevent them, but you can literally turn it around and make it YOUR ULTIMATE ADVANTAGE. The key is to "tilt the tables" in your favor and USE the fact that players are so loose and aggressive to HELP YOU win more pots. The way you achieve this is by adopting a SPECIAL playing style designed SPECIFICALLY for online poker...My name for this "secret sauce" is this:

TIGHT-AGGRESSIVE SQUARED.

The concept of "tight-aggressive squared" is quite simple...It starts with the logic that tight-aggressive is the most effective playing style to use in poker. Tight-aggressive means TIGHT with hand selection, AGGRESSIVE with betting. With online poker, there are more players in every hand. That means you must play EVEN TIGHTER with your hand selection. You should ONLY play monster hands! Period!

There's absolutely no reason to get involved with "decent" hands because the odds are against you. You're bound to run into players who are CHASING or who just caught an extremely lucky flop. When you DO get involved with a hand, you must be OVERLY aggressive. The pot size will be bigger, so you can't lose many hands or else you'll be out of the game in a hurry. You must STRIKE... and you must STRIKE HARD. You must risk ALL OF YOUR CHIPS-- frequently-- in order to win. Of course, it's much easier to risk all of your chips when you have a GREAT HAND than it is otherwise. You see, the goal is to do two things:

1. Force out all but one, maybe two players for any pot you get involved with.

2. Have the odds so unbelievably stacked in your favor that you win far more HUGE pots than you lose. And when you win lots of big pots, you become chip leader VERY QUICKLY. And that's how you take control over a poker table. The reason you want to force people OUT of the hand is simple mathematics. Let's say for instance you get pocket ACES. Here's what three of your opponents are holding:

Player 1: K-K Player 2: 10-9 suited Player 3: Q-10 offsuit

Now, if you went heads-up against any of these hands ONE-ON-ONE, your odds of winning would be about 80%. They'd be 85% against Player 3. BUT...If you went up against ALL THREE of these opponents in one single hand, your odds of winning is just 58.5%! That's just over 50/50 with the absolute BEST starting hand possible. Get my point? So when you GET pocket Aces, you need to FORCE OUT all but one caller. You've got to be VERY AGGRESSIVE. In low stakes Sit and Go's and ring games online, that quite often means going all-in. Like I said, you've got to risk ALL your chips. Now if you go all-in and one of those players makes a CALL, you'll win four out of five times.

So if you get five big hands a game, you only lose ONCE. Of course, that one you lose USUALLY won't wipe you out, because you'll have more chips from the OTHER big hands...Get my drift? Literally, if I play low-stakes online Sit and Go's, here is what my betting pattern looks like: Fold Fold Fold Fold Fold Fold Limp-in Fold Limp-in Fold Fold Fold All-in Fold Fold Fold Fold Fold Fold All-In Fold And so on...I'm serious! THIS IS HOW YOU WIN. It seems kind of "strange" to think about, but this is it!

Now... when you get down to just a few players in a game, it's time to bust out the strategies, bluffs, trick plays, and so on. BUT WHAT GETS YOU THERE is this TIGHT-AGGRESSIVE SQUARED style of play. OK, so now the question becomes... If all you did was ever FOLD or go ALL-IN, why would anyone ever CALL your bets? What a great question. And we've already gone over the answer...It's because online poker isn't the same as offline poker. The people on there are DISTRACTED and often STUPID and VERY LOOSE. That's all there is to it.

AND THAT IS PRECISELY WHY ONLINE POKER IS SO MUCH EASIER TO MAKE MONEY AT... ONCE YOU LEARN THESE SECRETS. Once you "crack the code", it's amazing how SIMPLE it is to win at online poker.

It's actually SO SIMPLE and SO IRRATIONAL that I'm not sure it will always be this way. It seems that all those fish out there have GOT to go broke sooner or later. But until that day comes, I'll be making hay while the sun is shining...And I recommend you do the same. So, you've learned the basic style of play for online poker, which is "tight-aggressive squared". Use it, go win some pots, and let me know what you think. If you find that it makes you some moola (which I know that it will), then I invite you to download my software program SIT AND GO SHARK(TM).
 
NoWuckingFurries

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Interesting post

I've no idea who Roy Rounder is, but at least it's given me some insight into why a poker radio station would call itself Rounders Radio ;)
 
Paranormal

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umm what?


everyone knows online is rigged..

duh
 
Q

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This sounds like old news to me, and it's still not as easy as this sounds. I think online has gotten much worst in the past year, and the time it takes to overcome negative variance is getting ridiculous.
 
zachvac

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Player 1: K-K Player 2: 10-9 suited Player 3: Q-10 offsuit

Now, if you went heads-up against any of these hands ONE-ON-ONE, your odds of winning would be about 80%. They'd be 85% against Player 3. BUT...If you went up against ALL THREE of these opponents in one single hand, your odds of winning is just 58.5%! That's just over 50/50 with the absolute BEST starting hand possible. Get my point? So when you GET pocket Aces, you need to FORCE OUT all but one caller. You've got to be VERY AGGRESSIVE. In low stakes Sit and Go's and ring games online, that quite often means going all-in. Like I said, you've got to risk ALL your chips. Now if you go all-in and one of those players makes a CALL, you'll win four out of five times.


This is flawed logic. It ignores the equity concept and the fact that if you play enough sngs or cash games, you'd rather be all-in 4-way with AA than just HU with AA. Let's say you each have 100 chips.

HU: 200 chip pot, equity = around 80%. You win around 160 chips, total net: 60 chips per hand

4-way: 400 chip pot, equity = 58.5%. You win 234 chips, total net: 134 chips per hand

Now sure the second one you lose more, and if you're playing in a tournament near or in the lower rungs of the money, it's one of the last things you want to do (well the last thing would be in the Q-T's situation), but especially in a cash game, if you can get all-in preflop with AA against all 8 opponents, most people should want to do it every time.

Now the difference is when you don't go all-in. Flop comes Q-T-3 rainbow. You're giving up implied odds to Q-T because you're not laying this hand down without committing some more chips. The implied odds can kill you in multiway pots with monsters. But if you go all-in or pot commit yourself preflop, you actually want as many callers as possible, of course this is only if you like money ;).
 
stepneg

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What if your playing on PKR, everyone knows pocket bullets get raped on there :icon_joke
 
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Seems logical enough. On tight tables, there isn't that high a % of bad beats, it is the tables where you have ppl who will call even tho they don't have pot odds in the hope of hitting some hand. If you have several ppl doing this then your AKs etc really doesn't become that good a hand in many cases.

And @ 2 above:

Sure you get better bang for your buck if you are in an 8 way all in pot with AA. And tho you are the most likely INDIVIDUAL to win the pot, it is much more likely that one of the others will end up winning the pot by lucking out and getting a flush/straight/set etc. But regardless if you get better return, you are still going to experience WAY more bat beats if you are all in in a multiway pot with AA than if you are heads up.
 
smd173

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Is it me or did Roy not specifically state was tight-aggressive squared actually is? He started to and then moved away from it.
 
K_Kahne_Fan

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Is it me or did Roy not specifically state was tight-aggressive squared actually is? He started to and then moved away from it.

I think it's just being EXTRA tight and EXTRA aggressive. TAGx2
 
sms3484

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But squared doesn't mean to multiply by two, it means to multiply by itself (TAG). So it's TT + TA +TG etc... But wait I'm confused...TAGx2 ... ack maths.
 
GunslingerZ

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...the very NATURE of online poker leads people to PLAY DIFFERENTLY... What I mean is that for online poker, a LARGE portion of players adopt the style of LOOSE-AGGRESSIVE
Is he calling tourists at B&M casinos tight???

...online poker isn't the same as offline poker. The people on there are DISTRACTED and often STUPID and VERY LOOSE. That's all there is to it.
I've played every casino in Los Angeles. I don't know about distracted, but I've NEVER sat at a $1/$2 live NL game where at least half the table WASN'T completely stupid and very loose.

Seriously, the overall opinion has been that the your average live $1/$2 table is no more difficult than your average online $.10/$.25 table. He is basing his entire theory on the statement that online players, as opposed to B&M players, are more stupid and loose, and more bad beats happen online due to this difference in play. I couldn't disagree with this more. If you used his TAG SQUARED (whatever that means) method at a live game, would you make money over time? Most likely. Would you make more money online, where you could multi-table and see more hands per hour? Definitely.

But your bad beats would happen, in the long run, at the exact same frequency.
 
Gobbs

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This is flawed logic. It ignores the equity concept and the fact that if you play enough sngs or cash games, you'd rather be all-in 4-way with AA than just HU with AA. Let's say you each have 100 chips.

HU: 200 chip pot, equity = around 80%. You win around 160 chips, total net: 60 chips per hand

4-way: 400 chip pot, equity = 58.5%. You win 234 chips, total net: 134 chips per hand

Now sure the second one you lose more, and if you're playing in a tournament near or in the lower rungs of the money, it's one of the last things you want to do (well the last thing would be in the Q-T's situation), but especially in a cash game, if you can get all-in preflop with AA against all 8 opponents, most people should want to do it every time.

Now the difference is when you don't go all-in. Flop comes Q-T-3 rainbow. You're giving up implied odds to Q-T because you're not laying this hand down without committing some more chips. The implied odds can kill you in multiway pots with monsters. But if you go all-in or pot commit yourself preflop, you actually want as many callers as possible, of course this is only if you like money ;).

Actually, this is flawed logic. Your looking at the same bet getting different numbers of callers. Let's look at this more realistically and logically.

Let's say the blind are 25/50 and you get AA.

If you bet 100 chips, you will get 4 callers and your equity at 58.5% will net you the 134 chips per hand.

However, let's say you bet 300 chips. That is what is going to get you only one caller. Now, with 80% equity, you win 480 chips for a net of 180 chips per hand.

Now, of course, this is oversimplified and doesn't even account for everybody folding or variable call rates, but hopefully I painted a more clear picture.

So, the bottom line is, you don't want the most callers, you want to get heads-up. Of course, that is only if you like money. ;)
 
BallsASteel

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I'm sure that, in my experience, there are as many bad beats in our local card room as there are online. I can certainly understand his point, but I personally think to win consistently at any table that a periodic change up in style has to be made so that you can't be read too well or put on a hand too easily. Just my 2 cents.
 
K_Kahne_Fan

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But squared doesn't mean to multiply by two, it means to multiply by itself (TAG). So it's TT + TA +TG etc... But wait I'm confused...TAGx2 ... ack maths.

I understand that and you understand that, but I'm thinking the original logic may have been incorrect and when he meant to say "double-up" your TAG style, he phrased it as "squared".
 
nevadanick

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I'm sure that, in my experience, there are as many bad beats in our local card room as there are online. I can certainly understand his point, but I personally think to win consistently at any table that a periodic change up in style has to be made so that you can't be read too well or put on a hand too easily. Just my 2 cents.

Hand for hand, table for table, time span for time span - I agree totally. The rest of the math here just makes my head hurt - lol.

If there are any more bad beats, percentage wise, online - it is only because more hands go to showdown online than they ever do at live tables. The more times you see the full board, the more times there are chances for sukouts and bad beats.
 
K_Kahne_Fan

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Hand for hand, table for table, time span for time span - I agree totally. The rest of the math here just makes my head hurt - lol.

If there are any more bad beats, percentage wise, online - it is only because more hands go to showdown online than they ever do at live tables. The more times you see the full board, the more times there are chances for sukouts and bad beats.

Agreed. When you have an all-in of $2.50 (or even $25) online it's much easier to call and "take a chance" than an all-in of $250 (or even $2500) live.
 
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But if you go all-in or pot commit yourself preflop, you actually want as many callers as possible, of course this is only if you like money ;).

????? Since when and why would you want to increase your chances of losing the hand?
 
4Aces

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????? Since when and why would you want to increase your chances of losing the hand?

Did you read all of zachvac's post? It explains it all there.
 
SubT33

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The reason there are more bad beats in ONLINE poker is because the very NATURE of online poker leads people to PLAY DIFFERENTLY. The CARDS and ODDS are the same. It's the PLAYERS that aren't the same. What I mean is that for online poker, a LARGE portion of players adopt the style of LOOSE-AGGRESSIVE. Translation? Manic. They act irrationally... play hands they shouldn't play... and bet way too aggressively for most given situations. Why? Because online poker isn't as "real". The money isn't as real. I mean, heck... the casinos give you so much "free" money when you sign up, how COULD it feel real? The cards aren't real. The chips aren't real. The table isn't real. NONE OF THAT STUFF EVEN EXISTS. All you see when you play online poker are some silly little animations. And you hear some "clickity-click" sounds of fake chips. That's it. Nothing else. Period. And if you LOSE a game, all you have to do is make three or four mouse clicks and you're INSTANTLY playing another game. And hell, you can PLAY ten games at once if you want! You can literally play poker against 100 players AT THE SAME TIME! It's a different world, my friend. Now... let's get back to the bad beats.

Although I'm not sure how accurate this is when compared to B+M poker, as I don't have much experience with B+M, I find the logic of this paragraph very lucid. This has human and social psychology written all over it. I find the virtual world is much less visceral. It's really more to do with the mind most of the time. In the real world, so much of our experience is emotional. We are constantly feeling our bodies acting and reacting. Having to confront people, having to look them in the eye, having to respond to social subtleties. Although, we still feel our bodies when acting in cyber-space, there is far less accountability. I think a good example is cell-phone texting (for those slightly older, whom haven't embraced texting yet, what are you waiting for?, it's like a faster, more efficient form of e-mail). I find that I am much more likely to text people than call them. Of course I have the hand-full of people who I speak to daily, but those friends I hardly ever speak to, I might text them here and there. Why? Because it's much more passive, I don't have to make small talk, I don't have to catch up. So I think this is a perfect example where cyber-space, because of it's greater social and emotional simplicity, yields greater activity, in this example texting. So I can see where playing poker on the net would yield greater activity in the form of calling/betting/raising.
 
Katie Kards

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Seems like a pretty viable theory to me.
 
zachvac

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Actually, this is flawed logic. Your looking at the same bet getting different numbers of callers. Let's look at this more realistically and logically.

Let's say the blind are 25/50 and you get AA.

If you bet 100 chips, you will get 4 callers and your equity at 58.5% will net you the 134 chips per hand.

However, let's say you bet 300 chips. That is what is going to get you only one caller. Now, with 80% equity, you win 480 chips for a net of 180 chips per hand.

Now, of course, this is oversimplified and doesn't even account for everybody folding or variable call rates, but hopefully I painted a more clear picture.

So, the bottom line is, you don't want the most callers, you want to get heads-up. Of course, that is only if you like money. ;)

Well you want to bet enough to be heads up, ESPECIALLY if there is play after the flop. You give away huge implied odds when there are several opponents seeing the flop vs. your AA. He just mentioned all-in and said the goal was to get heads-up. Don't know about you, but I'd rather be all-in in a 9-way pot with AA than all-in HU with AA. Maybe I just like money too much and don't despise bad beats more than making money.
 
S93

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Im pretty sure the reason for so many bad beats online is not rigging but the fact that online there are a lot of newbies/donks that just no any beter then playing bad hands and if u allways play your bad hands they are going to get lucky and bust a monster.
 
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i cant see how ur style of play would work in a big tourny with a few 1000 in it, if you fold fold then all in, with the amount of people in the tourny your nearly always goin 2 get called and the fact that so many, double/triple up early on means your not going 2 be chip leader at an early stage. the added fact, that at any stage of the game the computer will hand out up 2 4 buried pairs at the table, is almost like a set up.. eg. player1 88, player2 99 ,player3(you) kk, player4 aa... flop comes 2,7,4 rainbow, player1 goes all in...everyone calls... nine on the river....computer out on2 the street :)
 
riffpoker

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old AA adage..........When you lose with AA you lose alot. But when you win you win a little.

You want to be heads up with AA in tourny's because the math dictates with every other caller your hand win % shrinks and amount of cards can bust you grows.

I tend to want HU in no limit ring games as well while holding AA.

Maybe in a fixed limit ring I'd consider coaxing as many bets possible but not as a rule of thumb.
 
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