Does this class as a bad beat?

[Top Pair Ace Kicker]

Multi table live tournament. 8 players per table. About 23 players left from a start of 30. I have 2400 chips left from a starting stack of 4000. Blinds are 150/300 and rising steeply.

I got dealt A-7 hearts in mid position. UTG limps, 2 people fold, Person to my right limps, i do too, person to my left does. small blind does. Big blind, with about 8000 chips raises from 300 to 600. Everyone calls. Pot now 3600

Flop Q-7-4 one heart. Sb checks BB puts in 750 2 folds, so its now up to me. The thing with the tournament structure is that if you dont get big chips early you will be dead when it comes to chip up, which will occur after the end of the next level (200/400) so although i was debating even playing the hand in the first place, the combination of Ace with mid kicker and suited makes it more of a goer than a normal tournament where i would not risk such a high percentage of my chips with this hand.

Anyway. For some reason I dont get the feeling the BB has a Queen, or, more to the point definitely not Ace - Queen. No idea why, but I just dont see it. The two people to my left are not in my immediate thoughts, as even though I do not put the BB on Ace-Queen he may have a Queen with something else, or something completely different and I DO think I am still behind and would have to hit to win. I also know that it is highly unlikely that going all in will make the big blind fold.

However I figure that If I do hit, i would almost certainly have the best hand and would be in a nice position chips wise, so, after quite a long think, raise all in. The two players to my left now fold and the big blind, calls, and shows pocket Tens.

Evidently he didnt think I was on a queen either. So actually my first question is this. By pausing for so long did it give any clue as to what hand I had? does it make it more obvious that it is a tough call, and i dont have the queen?

The turn comes. BINGO. Another 7 giving me trips. However the river brings another Ten and its full house V Trips and goodnight from me.

So my second question is this. Does it count as a bad beat if i go into the showdown knowing i am behind, hitting one of my cards giving me a 95% chance of winning the hand, only for it to be cruelly taken away by the two outer on the river?

[FirePhil]

Firstly I'm never limping with 8 BB's left. With 2 limpers in front of you there's 1050 in the pot, nearly half your stack. This is push or fold time.

I think for it to be a bad beat you have to be ahead when the chips go in - a suckout/re-suckout doesn't count.

Also the long pause before you pushed looks like weakness to me. Given your stack size I think if you had a queen you would push almost instantly.

[PokerWoody]

First Question:
I think the time thing is really relative to how long you spend making decisions at other times. Generally I think it fair to say that if someone is spending a long time thinking they are either thinking about folding or are about to do something they are not totally comfortable with. This is of course entirely opponent dependant and I wouldn’t go about making calls based solely on this information.

As a side note, I think one of the leaks in my game is not taking long enough to make decisions. Maybe this is symptomatic of the internet generation as you have to train yourself to make quick decisions when playing online especially if you are playing multiple tables. Live is different though and I often think I don’t adjust enough. For example, keeping tabs on the stack sizes of players is a much more timely business than online but no less important – in fact as it can be so error prone it is perhaps even more important. I don’t’ want to slow my games down but I remember reading somewhere that someone had introduced a 10 second rule into their game and they found it was helping them make better decisions. That is, they never do anything without pausing and thinking for at least 10 seconds first…including folding rags. Not sure how effective it will be but I might give it a go at my next live game and let you know.

Second question:
In my view a bad beat is based on the chances of you winning the hand when the money goes in. In this case that was on the flop when you were behind with five outs to improve so no, I don’t think it is a bad beat. I also think that you should be at least 85-90% favourite for it to count as a bad beat, anything else simply happens to frequently.

[resigner]

The long pause should in theory signal weakness. But of course I will lfrequently, especially when trapping, do a long pause as though I am weak when not. Depends on if they keep pausing to bet. Basically, its risky to assume the're weak because of a pause. Its ina similar league to all in raise bluffs, sometimes I will all in raise when theres little in if Im strong to make it look like a bluff...........

Only way you can counter this is keeping player notes.......

Wouldn't say its a bad beat btw.

[trustme]

In an online tournament last night, blinds are 300/600, im on the big blind, got just over 3000 chips after putting the blinds in. A guy in middle position puts in a massive raise of 4200. It folds around to me, I have 55, its a bad hand but i couldnt help but think i was ahead because of the size of the raise, it made me think that the last thing this guy wanted was a caller. Timers running down and I decide to call. I do not recommend to anyway playing a low pocket pair this way btw. I would normally limp in hoping to hit trips on the flop, if i dont i would fold.

He shows A10d, flop comes 3 diamonds, turn pairs the board and I hit a 5 on the river to give me a full house.

The thing about this hand is that i would have folded if he had raised half of what he did. His giant raise is what had me thinking that my really bad pair had a chance.

He doubled me up and I went on to finish high in the tournament, he went out a few hands later....i think that counts as a bad beat!

[The Philosopher]

Said this before but I really do not get this idea of bad beats and suck outs. Players are talking as if the cards had a will and some good or evil intent and that is like people in the dark ages thinking the stars were God's peepholes to keep an eye on us or volcanoes errupting as a sign of Gods anger. Folks - cards are wee bits of paper (plastic if you have Kems) with no feeling at all and no will either. Once the shuffling is over and the hole cards dealt the remaining sequence is already decided.

If in a particular situation you say you are a 4-1 dog and you get your card on the river then there are a couple of things to note. a) if you had been 400 to one you would still have got that card and if you were 4-1 fav the same is true. Nothing was "sucked" it was always going to happen.

Also for odds like 4-1 dog to work the 1 has to happen every now and again - why get upset about it. Also the odds of 4-1 do not move because you have seen the 1 happening in a couple of recent hands. It doesn't make it any more likely that the odd become better that the 4 side of the 4-1 will happen next time.

The phrase people use to explain odds is something like "Over time, with same circumstances pertaining, X will happen 1 time in 4.". This doesn't say over what time SO if X actually happened 3 times in 4 tries it may be part of a sequence where X happens 8 time out of 9 but in infinite time it will even out to 1 time in 4. Try tossing heads and tails and see how often it actually landas H,T,H,T,H,T. It is as likely to be HHHtHHTTTThTTTHH. Once you understand accept this you can stop tilting and steaming at "bad-beats" and celebrating "sucked cards". I think this is why Phil Helmuth is such a tosser.

[John Holmes' Stunt C**K]

You sound a very boring man Philosopher. It is true, like you said, that a 400-1 shot will come in occasionally, but i think its fair to say that you're on the wrong end of a very bad beat if it happens against you.

Its true that the next card is pre-determined, but it is random, and not known, so therefore it is down to luck. If there is one card in the pack that could beat you on the river, you deserve to feel hard done by

[John Holmes' Stunt C**K]

You sound a very boring man Philosopher. It is true, like you said, that a 400-1 shot will come in occasionally, but i think its fair to say that you're on the wrong end of a very bad beat if it happens against you.

Its true that the next card is pre-determined, but it is random, and not known, so therefore it is down to luck. If there is one card in the pack that could beat you on the river, you deserve to feel hard done by.

Does this mean Philosopher, that when your top hand gets beaten by a trash hand, you sit there thinking to yourself "well there was a 0.3% chance of getting beaten there, so i don't mind"

[Top Pair Ace Kicker]

Thanks for the replies. I would just like to say that I personally dont consider it a bad beat. As has been said, I was behind when the bet was made, and behind once the deal was over. The fact that I was ahead along the way is immaterial.

I will admit to being a little shocked at seeing one of the two possible tens come out, but I couldn't complain at the overall outcome.

[Top Pair Ace Kicker]

First Question:
I think the time thing is really relative to how long you spend making decisions at other times. Generally I think it fair to say that if someone is spending a long time thinking they are either thinking about folding or are about to do something they are not totally comfortable with. This is of course entirely opponent dependant and I wouldn’t go about making calls based solely on this information.

As a side note, I think one of the leaks in my game is not taking long enough to make decisions. Maybe this is symptomatic of the internet generation as you have to train yourself to make quick decisions when playing online especially if you are playing multiple tables. Live is different though and I often think I don’t adjust enough. For example, keeping tabs on the stack sizes of players is a much more timely business than online but no less important – in fact as it can be so error prone it is perhaps even more important. I don’t’ want to slow my games down but I remember reading somewhere that someone had introduced a 10 second rule into their game and they found it was helping them make better decisions. That is, they never do anything without pausing and thinking for at least 10 seconds first…including folding rags. Not sure how effective it will be but I might give it a go at my next live game and let you know.

The time issue is something I really find interesting, and something I will try to have a go at when I next play.

Taking Ten seconds at least every time it gets to you seems, and probably is, a long time when it is a simple fold, but I can see how if you get into a rhythm of doing it every hand, then it can only help.

The taking note of chip stacks is another important thing that is often overlooked. I saw someone last night make a horrible attempt to steal a pot after the river against a short stack who promptly went all in over the top. The bettor then made a mumbled "Well i better call for value now" (?) and had to show just what rubbish he had. Talk about playing others back into the game!