Bad Beats

What are they and can you stop them????

There are two types of bad beats:
#1...
When you catch a big hand but lose to a BIGGER hand.
eg. You are holding pocket Aces and the flop hits A-6-6. (You have a full house AAA66)
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 66, which gives him the four-of-a-kind.)

#2...
When YOU have the best hand and your opponent has the WORST hand but your opponent GETS LUCKY and wins the pot.
eg. You have pocket AA and go all-in. Your opponent calls with pocket 33.
The flop hits 2-4-5 and the turn card is a 6.
Your opponent has the STRAIGHT and causing you to lose the hand.

The 2nd type of bad beat-- the one where your opponent gets totally LUCKY is the kind of beat that just plain SUCKS.
In fact, the second type of bad beat is the kind you REMEMBER the most too. Am I right?

Now here's what's interesting...
MORE BAD BEATS HAPPEN IN ONLINE POKER THAN IN "REGULAR" OFFLINE 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.

In my opinion BOTH of these theories are WRONG.

Here's why:
Firstly, I genuinely believe online poker is NOT rigged.... Do you REALLY think these multi-billion dollar casinos would need to RIG hands?
They make their money from tournament entry fees and rakes...

Sowhat 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,
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.

Got it so far???

OK, so now he is another "theory" about this.

It's not really a theory just good old simple logic.

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? MANIAC.

They act irrationally... play hands they shouldn't play... and bet way too aggressively for most given situations.

And here is a Reason Why.

Because online poker isn't as "real".
The money isn't as real.
The cards aren't real.
The chips aren't real.
Thetable isn't real.
NONE OF THAT STUFF EVEN EXISTS.

That's it.
Nothing else.

And if you LOSE a game, all you have to do is make a couple of mouse clicks and you're INSTANTLY playing another game.

And you can PLAY ten games at once if you want!

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 a situation 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 thanin regular poker.

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.

Not only can you prevent Bad Beats, 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...

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 BIG hands!

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 go losing many hands or else you'll be out of the game in a hurry.

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 you get pocket AA.
Here's what three of your opponents are holding:
Player 1: K-K
Player 2: 10-9 suited
Player 3: Q-10 off suit

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 winningis just 58.5%!

That's just over 50/50 with the absolute BEST starting hand possible.

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.

If all you did was ever FOLD or go ALL-IN, why would anyone ever CALL your bets?

It's because online poker isn't the same as offline poker. The people on there are DISTRACTED and often STUPID and VERY LOOSE.

(This was abbreviated from an email sent out by pokerplayer.com)