Bad Beat Stories and Dumb Decisions

You're all lucky to follow me on my young yet burgeoning poker career. This page is just a few of my long list of bad beats. Everyone's got them, but hey...I'm on the freakin' internet.

The best way to handle bad beats is to get them behind you and learn. For example, if you're playing limit hold em and you don't have the nuts, then don't raise, re-raise and then cap it. Just make one raise or reraise.

Here's just a few bad beat stories:

April 17, 2005 - NCT Poker Tournament

My theatre group, National Comedy Theatre San Diego, has an occasional poker tournament. Long story short, out of 30 people, there was 10 people left. I was short stacked. I needed to make a stand and soon. I found myself with 9-9. I went all in. Everyone at the table folded except Jillian, our calling station. She's calls and shows 9-6 off suit. Great, I have a dominating hand. For those of you familiar with poker, 9-6 is not a hand you want to have a showdown with. It's known as Big Lick. It almost never pays off...almost.

When the flop comes off, I'm sitting there counting my chips as I doubled up. The flop comes, J-4-2. Yes, I can feel myself back in the game. The turn is a 3. Finally the calling station is unlucky. The river comes up a 5. I yell in victory until I realize that I just got beat by a straight. I celebrate my tenth place seat and lose on the bubble to just missed the final table.

Some would say that no professional would ever play that hand and risk doubling up an opponent. 9-6 is a pretty attractive hand. Some would say the 6-9 is even more attractive.