Which of these would you consider the worst 'beat'?

[PokerWoody]

3 hands which you may or may not consider to be bad beats from the last 2 days. All hands are a little different, the amount I lose ranges from $200 to $560 in each hand and in only one of the hands am I even in front when the money goes in! I've given a very brief description of game conditions too before each hand.

I know what order i'd give them, but I'm curious as to what others might think.

So what order of bad beatage would you rate these from worse -> meh?

1)

I had been playing very tight on this table due to being very card dead. The BB is also a pretty tight player, about 18/15, but had been reasonable active on this table and is some what decent. I also think he CB's a little too much in RR pots.

Seat 1: BB (£200 in chips)
Seat 2: Woody (£278.65 in chips)
Seat 3: UTG (£274.85 in chips)
Seat 4: CO (£119.05 in chips)
Seat 5: BTN (£295.08 in chips)
Seat 6: SB (£303.30 in chips)
SB: posts small blind £1
BB: posts big blind £2
----- HOLE CARDS -----
dealt to Woody [A A]
Woody: raises to £8
UTG: folds
CO: folds
BTN: folds
SB: folds
BB: raises to £28
Woody: calls £20
----- FLOP ----- [5 5 J]
BB: bets £40
Woody: raises to £250.65 and is all-in
BB: is all-in £132
Returned uncalled bets £78.65 to Woody

Woody: shows [A A]
BB: shows [K K]

----- TURN ----- [5 5 J][K]
----- RIVER ----- [5 5 J K][8]
----- SHOW DOWN -----
Seat 1: BB (big blind) showed [Kh Ks] and won (£39 with A Full House, Kings full of Fives
Seat 2: Woody showed [Ad Ac] and lost with Two Pairs, Aces and Fives, King high

2)

This is from the same session as the previous hand but on a different table. The SB has been 3 betting my raises ALOT on this table and I have always had to fold but have also been looking to make a stand. The only time I was able to come back over the top of his 3 bet the CO in this hand cold 4bet all in and again I had to fold. The SB isn't very good post flop but plays an aggressive preflop game, deffo a bit of a TAGFish in my eyes.

Seat 1: CO ($190.50 in chips)
Seat 2: Woody ($191 in chips)
Seat 4: SB ($235.87 in chips)
Seat 5: BB ($182.85 in chips)
Seat 6: UTG ($232.78 in chips)
SB: posts small blind $1
BB: posts big blind $2
----- HOLE CARDS -----
dealt to Woody [A K]
UTG: folds
CO: raises to $6
Woody: raises to $24
SB: raises to $72
BB: folds
CO: folds
Woody: raises to $191 and is all-in
SB: calls $119

Woody: shows [A K]
SB: shows [A K]

----- FLOP ----- [9 Q T]
----- TURN ----- [4]
----- RIVER ----- [6]
----- SHOW DOWN -----
Seat 2: Woody (button) showed [Ah Kc] and lost with High Card Ace
Seat 4: SB (small blind) showed [Ac Ks] and won ($387) with A Flush, King high

3)

The CO is playing 70/30 and has been running hot for the last 40 or so hands. He has been bickering with the SB (another fish) about how bad each other are and since he's been running good he hasn't shutup much in chat. I've been pretty quiet just praying to get something to value town these clowns with before some of the other sharks on the table do.


Seat 1: UTG (£400.60 in chips)
Seat 2: HJ (£202 in chips)
Seat 3: CO (£620.33 in chips)
Seat 4: BTN (£26.07 in chips)
Seat 5: SB (£178.35 in chips)
Seat 6: Woody (£279.74 in chips)
SB: posts small blind £1
Woody: posts big blind £2
----- HOLE CARDS -----
dealt to Woody [8 8]
UTG: calls £2
HJ: folds
CO: raises to £8
BTN: folds
SB: calls £7
Woody: calls £6
UTG: calls £6
----- FLOP ----- [8 9 K]
SB: checks
Woody: bets £22
UTG: folds
UTG sits out
CO: calls £22
SB: folds
----- TURN ----- [8 9 K][2]
Woody: bets £66
CO: raises to £136
Woody: raises to £249.74 and is all-in
CO: calls £113.74

Woody: shows [8 8]
CO: shows [9 9]

----- RIVER ----- [8 9 K 2][7]
----- SHOW DOWN -----
Seat 3: CO showed [9h 9c] and won (£572.4 with Three of a kind, Nines, King high
Seat 6: Woody (big blind) showed [8h 8c] and lost with Three of a kind, Eights, King high

[tfeilding]

For me the worst beat has to be AK Vs AK. He had two live suits and you had one. The percentages must be something like 50.25/49.75 so one time in a few hundred he will win.

As for AA Vs KK - you are 'only' something like 90% favourite when the hands are shown. He has two outs twice, so about one time in 12 he will win.

The 88 vs 99 is just an unfortunate scenario for you. He had you from start to finish.

So that's my order.

[Dice Man]

There is no beat badder than this beat.

YouTube - Bad Beat

Sorry didn't read your post.

[DonkBox]

worst ----> meh
3.......2.........1

[RevStu]

The first one is the only one that's anything like a bad beat at all, since you're behind from start to finish in the other two...

(Unless you count the fractional moment 1/3 of the way through the flop in the last one.)

[PokerWoody]

haha, you see this is fairly interesting, so far we have:

worst -> meh

2-1-3 - Tom
3-2-1 - DonkBox
3-1-2 - Woody

So we all nearly have totally different views and both DonkBox and I agree that the hand in which I was never in front is in fact the biggest bad beat!

Anyone else have any thoughts?

[Rich Ghost]

All normal.

213 for me though.

[TankmanDan]

So what are we taking as the definition of a bad beat? To me it is when someone gets improbably lucky to outdraw you, when you start with the best hand and their odds to hit are ridiculously low.......and then they do it.
I've never seen a bad beat as being "bad timing" or "just bad luck" or any situation that I have played myself into that I should have avoided, not that Woody has here, just that simple bad luck can't constitute a bad beat can it? Otherwise none of us would play the game again....

So for that reason:

1) Worst - he hit a 2 outer for fucks sake! Nothing else would have won it for him!
2) Rassum frassum rassum - U expect a split pot, he IS marginally ahead on the flop, he hits runner runner. I think only the mouse is going thru the window, not the whole monitor.
3) Meh - Set over set? Happens all the time. I had house over house t'other day at Gala, okay so I had the bigger house, but it was pocket 5's over pocket 2's and we both flopped the set then turned the boat. Oooohhh terribly unlucky sir, well played, gg. Not a bad beat IMO though.

But of course it all depends on what you perceive as a "bad beat".

[Rich Ghost]

Good point about 1 worse than 2.

Yes he hit a two outer, very sick, but I just cannot stand getting runnered. It is just so worse to need to hit turn AND river than 2 chances to hit 2 cards. I know maybe not percentage wise, but just the sheer ****ness of it!

I totally agree with 3 though. Unlucky? yes, normal? totally, but not a bad beat.

[PokerWoody]

I totally agree with 3 though. Unlucky? yes, normal? totally, but not a bad beat.

Well yeah, it does come down to how you define a bad beat, which is why I posted it. It just occurred to me that what I think of as being a bad beat is likely different to what others do. I don't think my definition is any less valid, in fact I think it makes much more sense than what is traditionally thought of as a 'bad beat'.

I'm defining a bad beat as being "losing when you are a considerable favorite to win the hand when the money goes in". I think to qualify a bad beat it's probably fair to define 'considerable favorite' as being at least 85% to win the hand. (I also think bad beat is a bit more than just equity, pot size can add to the bad beat factor to for example.)

So we determine if we are a favorite to win the hand by assigning our opponent a range of cards and determining our equity against that range. If, like in hand 3, our opponent happens to have one of the very few hands which are ahead of our hand (most of his range is drawing dead against us on the turn) then I think this is equally as rough as someone making a one or two outer on you. They are effectively hitting some long odds by having that part of their range, they are hitting a kind of slim 'range out'.

Using my definition of a bad beat, actually only hands 1 and 3 qualify. Hand 2 is a little unlucky, but as I don't consider it a bad beat at all, it has the least effect on me during a session (where the other two might produce some level of tilt).

In hand 3 I reckon i'm as much as a 83% favorite to win the hand on the flop and 89% when the money goes in on the turn. I lose a ton of Sklansky bucks but I am rolling in GBucks and i think in terms of GBucks when I play poker, so it makes more sense to clarify bad beats in this sense too. For those who don't know what GBucks are, check out this excellent article -> GBucks.

In hand 1 i'm also about a 89% favorite when the money goes in, however the pot is about a 3rd of the size as it is in hand 3, which is why I make this the second in bad beatage order.

Hand 2 is a marginal, but I think +ev, shove. However i've only got about 45% equity, so it doesn't really come close to the 85% bad beat benchmark that I set earlier.

I don't know if others think like this, or even if it makes sense, which is why I thought it would be quite interesting to hear what others thought about these hands.