Bad Beats all the time?

[youngunpoker]

Hello,
This is my first post on this forum and have been looking at some other posts and found that this forum is very helpful.

Now to the reason of this post:
I have been playing Online Poker for almost 2 years, I have never deposited money onto any site and i have had never more than $20. I try to cash in freerolls but I always seem to be beaten by the bad beat. How can it be avoided? I flop top two pair and get beat by a straight, should i not be pushing with top two? I have not been successful Online(or Live for that matter), but I love playing the Game. Any advice on how to avoid being busted by the bad beat?

Any help would be appreciated,
Thanks
younguns87

[Ragnar4]

Bad beats happen

The trick is to only commit a small portion of all the money you have at any given time, that way if you have the bad beat occur, you don't lose your entire roll

With 20 bucks online, you're BARELY rolled for .01/.02 nl. Buying in for 2 dollars. See also Bankroll management, welcome, and good luck.

[Otter_Brothface]

It sounds like you are not serious about poker. You have lot to learn about the game. You should first read the digest of FTR and then you will see a bit.

YOU CANT AVOID A BAD BEAT BUT YOU NEED TO WIN ENOUGH DOLLARS THROUGH GOOD PLAY SO THEN THEY WONT HURT YOUR BANKROLL.

there are a lot of good guys here that will help but first you need to not joke with freerolls and see what poker is actually meant.

[LawDude]

Hello,
This is my first post on this forum and have been looking at some other posts and found that this forum is very helpful.

Now to the reason of this post:
I have been playing Online Poker for almost 2 years, I have never deposited money onto any site and i have had never more than $20. I try to cash in freerolls but I always seem to be beaten by the bad beat. How can it be avoided? I flop top two pair and get beat by a straight, should i not be pushing with top two? I have not been successful Online(or Live for that matter), but I love playing the Game. Any advice on how to avoid being busted by the bad beat?

Any help would be appreciated,
Thanks
younguns87

You can't "avoid" bad beats. They are part of the game. All you can do is make positive expected value plays (i.e., bets that will likely pay off, over time, a greater amount of winnings than the cost of the losing bets).

Without getting into all sorts of specifics, it important, unless you have a good read on your opponents and can confidently put them on a hand that is not likely to improve to beat you, to bet to protect your made hands. If you have 2 pair and your reads tell you that you have the best hand, you need to size your bets to give any opponent bad odds on a bet to suck out. Then you win either way-- either your opponent calls and you have just been given a positive expected value proposition, or your opponent folds and you take down the pot.

While many "bad beats" arise from pure luck (e.g., when you get all your chips in with a straight and your opponent catches two running cards to complete a flush), many others occur because a player was playing his or her cards too slow and gave an opponent free or cheap cards to suck out on. This, in turn, arises from players' inability to use the information given to them by opponents to determine a meaningful range of hands that the opponent might be playing. Put simply, they don't realize that they are not as far ahead as they think, so they don't realize they need to act to protect their hand.

There's much deeper concepts involved than this. But this is the basic outline. You can't avoid "bad beats", but you can make them less likely, less costly, and outweighed by greater winnings when your hands hold up.

[LuckySlevin]

HI younggun =)

If the only thing you had to worry about was bad beats you really wouldn't be worried about them at all

Why are people sucking out against you often? You may find that your betting on earlier streets is part to blame, are you allowing them to see more of the board than they should be? Bad beats are a part of the game and they are actually what make it profitable (that worse players don't always lose the hand... they'd soon stop playing if they did and there'd be no 'easy' money ) There's reams been written on this over time on FTR - and a key is that we often remember the bad beats which makes them seem more frequent than they are.

Definately sound advice about reading some of the digests, and just keep posting hands that you lost or were not sure how to play. With forum input I'm sure you'll start seeing some big improvements in your game! Good luck!

[POKEMONS]

If you're getting your money in good often it becomes more likely that you will bust out via a bad beat

[Erpel]

There are a couple of things you need to do here.

First you need to reality check your observation. You need to analyze the all-in situation and determine if you were actually ahead when you thought you were. If you go all-in against someone with your two pair AFTER he's made his straight - it's not a bad beat - it's you putting in money when you are behind and losing.

Second, even if you are a favourite, you need to quantify how much of a favourite you are. When you go all-in are you a 70/30 favourite? an 80/20 favourite? Think about it. Think about it some more. What does this mean? If there is only one card in the deck that will save him and only one card to come, how often are you really winning? Maybe 98% of the time. How often are you losing? Maybe 2% of the time. You have be mentally and emotionally prepared to lose. Because it will happen. It may only happen 2% of the time but it WILL. If it never happened, then - and only then - would poker be rigged

Third, consider this: Now that you've looked at the situation, you've determined that you got your money in as an overwhelming favourite and you've lost - stop. Go back one step. You have managed to create a situation where you were a favourite to win lots of money. You don't just play one poker hand and then retire from poker. Your goal as a player is to consistently make good decisions and create situations where you are a favourite when the money goes in. You have done it in this case. This is good. You're allowed to feel good about it. Because, if you manage to do this consistently over hundreds and thousands of decisions that you do correct where you have secured yourself this edge you will win some, lose some and the amount of your wins will approximate the odds of winning in an individual case.

If you suffer a bad beat, stop. Think. You got your money in ahead. This was a good decision - given many more of those you win lots of money and the fact that you lost this one must not affect how you think or play. You must continue to get your money in well and you will profit.

If you give a bad beat, stop. Think. You got your money in behind. This was a bad decision - given many more of those you lose lots of money and the fact that you won this one must not affect how you think or play. You must stop getting your money in bad and you will profit.

You must judge the quality of your decisions without considering the outcome - because 2% chances do happen, and they happen often. And they are memorable. And at the same time - they are completely and utterly irrelevant.

[bigslikk]

Without getting into all sorts of specifics, it important... to bet to protect your made hands.

Your post was absolutely spot on, but I'd just like to mention I hate describing betting with a made hand as "protecting" it. As if you WANT them to fold.

I've seen a lot of guys at live games overbet a drawy flop with a made hand and then breathe a sigh of relief when their opponent folds. It's not a good mindset. You WANT them to call a bet that lays bad odds. It offers them a move that is negative Expected Value (Folding = 0). You should be begging them to call a large bet with a draw.

You're not "protecting" a hand, hoping against hope that they fold and spare you a scary turn card. You're laying a bear trap and hoping the idiot takes a step in.

[HeAVyB101]

Just remember good players deal with the most bad beats. Why you ask? Because good players get their money in ahead, and therefore get sucked out on more compared to a bad player who rarely sees a bad beat because they are always behind in the hand.

Bad beats happen, it's part of the game. Just keep getting your money in good and the profits will come. Look at getting a lot of bad beats as a compliment.

[TAGurit]

bad beats happen. get over it. make good decisions and let the rest go.

[LawDude]

Without getting into all sorts of specifics, it important... to bet to protect your made hands.

Your post was absolutely spot on, but I'd just like to mention I hate describing betting with a made hand as "protecting" it. As if you WANT them to fold.

I've seen a lot of guys at live games overbet a drawy flop with a made hand and then breathe a sigh of relief when their opponent folds. It's not a good mindset. You WANT them to call a bet that lays bad odds. It offers them a move that is negative Expected Value (Folding = 0). You should be begging them to call a large bet with a draw.

You're not "protecting" a hand, hoping against hope that they fold and spare you a scary turn card. You're laying a bear trap and hoping the idiot takes a step in.

I do know what your saying, but it's probably a semantic issue more than substance. The bet "protects" your hand because it forces opponents to take bad odds if they want to try and draw out on it. Some of those opponents will call anyway (and you are right-- that's what we want them to do). Some will fold (and while that's not as good a result as calling, it's not a terrible result either-- we still collect the pot!). What we are "protecting" against is a Villain obtaining a free or cheap card to draw out on us. We make the Villain pay dearly for that card-- so that we collect, on average, most of those payments because of the odds against the Villain sucking out, as well as collecting all of the additional pots where the Villain decides the price is too high and correctly folds his hand.

[loonychune]

Hello! You can learn so much and improve your game a lot here.

I flop top two pair and get beat by a straight, should i not be pushing with top two?

Since you give no specifics, no one can really answer this question. If you are pretty sure it was a bad beat, then it was a bad beat and you just need to reassure yourself and move on. But here's an example of a situation I might have deemed a bad beat a coupla months ago that really isn't:

You: 8 9
Opponent: J T

Flop: 8 9 2

In this hand, your top two pair are actually behind. If, on the other hand, your opponent holds JT, you're about 2:1 ahead and losing in this spot is unfortunate. But you will lose in this spot 1 in 3 times.

My point?

I used to play multi table tournaments and sit n gos before I decided to give the game some time and emigrated to full ring cash games (with the cushion of a 100% sign-up bonus). Just an idea, but why don't you deposit $50 and play at $0.01/$0.02? It's just so much easier to cope with losing a big pot when you're ahead in the hand!

Make a positive expectation play. Lose. Re-buy. (Maybe hit a wall or something first, but then back to poker).

It's not really ever about the short-term. Playing in freerolls when they arise is gonna wind you up so much except when you run good. I hated the game when I was scrapping through to a final table only to see my JJ get busted by A4 or something and then leave the tourny with like $4 (after plodding along for like 3 and half hours).

EDIT: if you like tournaments, there's a tonne of players here who'd be able to discuss things like starting bankroll and game stakes (and strategy!).

[youngunpoker]

Thank you all for posting your comments! Next time i will try to post some of the actually hands to get more indepth feedback.
Thanks again,
youngun87

[Keith]

Where are you from Youngun ?. If you are non american there's several poker rooms that will give you some free stake money when you register with them. VCpoker for instance. Its not a fortune but it will get you started on the 0.01/0.02 tables so that you can gain some experience playing ring games.
It will be a half way house between a freeroll and depositing in that its cost you nothing to enter , but you will be playing for real money.

[youngunpoker]

I live in Texas so i don't think I can register to VC.