When Bad Cards Happen to Good Players

We all have run badly from time to time. We all have had days and nights that can only be described as torture. We all have lost a seemingly endless stream of hands that we "weren't supposed to lose," and so on. Allow me to impart to you some anecdotal evidence of just how bad it can get. This is not some whining diatribe designed to elicit sympathy. Hopefully, this is to convey to you just how bad it can get and to either make you feel better about your own misfortune by getting you to say to yourself, "At least that hasn't happened to me," or perhaps just let you know that you are not alone in your misery.

Aces up: About three years ago, I was playing $40-$80 stud at the Mirage on a Sunday afternoon. One of my best friends was in town from California, and we thought we would spend a nice day playing cards. This was not to be a nice day. A few hours into the game, I am stuck a little bit, but feeling great about the game I am in. That euphoria was to be short-lived. I make aces up on fourth or fifth street, and have two callers. One appears to be on a draw. The other is making me think he is on a small pair. I happen to be right in both cases, but often in poker, being right is worthless. Sure enough, the drawing hand misses, and I get shown baby trips that were clearly made on the river. Not five minutes go by and I have aces up again. I lose that one, too. Did I lose to a straight or a flush? Of course not. Small trips made on the river was the recidivist. Before the dealer can get up, I find myself with aces up again. I say to myself, "Surely I can't lose three of these hands." The only sure thing in poker is that there are no sure things. I get shown trips, again. Well, losing with aces up three times in one dealer's down is one thing, but losing them all to trips as opposed to completed hands is another. These first three in quick succession got me counting them. I lost with aces up again an hour or two later - and then another time, and another time, and another time still.

The icing on the foul-tasting cake was to be the hand that sent me home. There was five-way action to the river. The betting was capped on third and fourth streets. Somewhere along the line there was a big-bet raise or two. This could have been the pot to get me on the better side of halfway even. Can you guess what won the hand? Aces up! Of course, my aces up was not the winner. That's right, after losing an unthinkable number of pots with aces up, I lose the pot of the night - perhaps the pot of the week - to another aces up. When the smoke cleared some 18 hours later, I had lost 14 out of 14 pots with aces up in one session. At least 10 of them were not lost to straights or flushes, but to small trips - or worse, another aces up.

Trips: Trips are intrinsically deceptive hands. They're so hard to come by (unless you're my opponent when I'm holding aces up, of course!), and yet they do not hold up as often as we think they should. Unfilled trips have been my nemesis for some time now. I always seem to get them in key pots (those with 20 big bets or more in them), and when I need to fill, I draw blank after blank most of the time. Conversely, when I do not need to fill up, the quads fall out of the sky. Go figure. Like the aces-up anecdote, one dealer got me counting again because he pitched me three or four sets in a half-hour and they all lost. Eleven sets of trips were to come my way that day. They were to be fairly evenly distributed between my two sessions in $40-$80 and $75-$150. How many of the 11 sets do you think I lost with? That's right, 11. I cannot begin to calculate the odds of getting 11 sets in one day, nevermind losing all of them. That must be a truly astronomical number, but it happened.

The toughest unfilled trips I ever had was in the biggest pot I ever lost. Technically, it is not a bad-beat story, because I was never in the lead, but let me share the pain, nevertheless. It was Super Bowl weekend, 2000. I was coming off an emotionally horrendous November and December of 1999 that had nothing to do with poker, but with personal events. In fact, I was not unhappy at all with regard to poker in 1999. The games are always fantastic on Super Bowl weekend. For some reason, I got it into my head that playing in a huge game and making a big score would offset my emotional state. I see a $400-$800 stud game at Bellagio, and I know only two of the faces to be great players. If I could beat this very beatable lineup, that would be the panacea for all of my inner turmoil, right? Wrong. Emotions should never be attempted to be "cured" with a poker session - and I should know better. At any rate, I get into the game and am the low card with a 7. There's a call, call, and another player showing a 7 makes a call. Nobody raised. On fourth street, I am looking at a player showing two hearts, one with two apparent rags, the other 7 catches an 8, and I make open sevens. I look down to see the case 7. Nobody can put me on trips with that other 7 out, so I check. The two hearts bets $800, the two apparent rags makes it $1,600, and the 7-8 offsuit makes it $2,400. I momentarily and incorrectly put him on a premium pair in the hole that was slow-played on third street. I make it $3,200. The two hearts thinks and thinks, and finally calls. The unknown hand lays it down right there. When the 7-8 offsuit caps it at $4,000, I know the worst has happened. My trip sevens are going against not only a flush draw, but trip eights. For some reason, I just had to test the waters on fifth street, so I bet out again. The flush draw calls and I get raised again. OK, that settles it. I'm in big trouble in this hand. The only potential saving grace is that his having my 7 will make it profoundly more difficult for him to fill up. The operative word there is "potential." Nobody improved. The flush blanked out and the three eights won a pot of more than $23,000. Again, this was not an according-to-Hoyle classic bad beat, per se. It was just another example of the pain that unfilled trips can cause.

Rolled up: Granted, these are also trips, but I think rolled-up trips deserve their very own category, because we cannot help but get this false sense of hope and certainty when we look down and see that both of our holecards match our doorcard. The most rolled-up hands I have ever had in one session is four. The first time that occurred was in Atlantic City, and two of them were back-to-back hands. I managed to win all four of those. The second time I got four in a day, I also had two back-to-back. I lost all four of those. The first one was queens. I am up against two aces and K-10-4 offsuit. By sixth street, I am in third place, as the ridiculous hand has now made fours full of kings, and the two aces has made trips. The two open fours bets the river, and when my opponent calls, I know I am dead last, so I have the presence of mind to fold. He turned over quads and two kings, after starting with K-10-4.

Later that day, I am rolled up with queens again, and a guy makes a flush. Several hours go by, and I am stuck a ton. I get rolled-up jacks and that whole false sense of hope thing takes over. I lose to the same opponent who held that lovely K-10-4 hand. He manages to make an ace-high heart flush on me. The very next hand, I am rolled up with eights. I raise on third street, contrary to conventional play, and announce to the table, "I must be rolled up again, huh." They chuckle in that "Yeah, right" sort of way. Fifth street is the most sickening part of this hand. I bet out $80, one opponent raises it to $160, and the guy who took K-10-4 against me and had just beat my roll-up jacks with a heart flush calls the two bets cold. You know what he had? Not four, but only three hearts were in his hand, and no pair! I make it $240 and get the two calls. Do not worry, for our hero is safe. He catches runner-runner in hearts, and do you think I can fill up? Of course not. That sent me to the buffet muttering to myself. Think about the odds of losing back-to-back rolled-up hands to the same opponent who makes an ace-high flush in the same suit both times!

The worst beat I ever took: I am playing a man who must have had 20 or more beers through the course of the day. It is about 3 a.m. at Bellagio and he and I are playing heads-up $80-$160 stud. I told him I would not quit him as long as he wanted to play. He liked the sound of that. I have split eights with an ace. He has split sixes. I raise, and he calls. I catch an ace on fourth street. I check, he bets, and I just call. I catch another ace on fifth street. I am sure that if I bet here, I will lose him, so I check. He also checks, as he has only two sixes. Voilà! On sixth street, he makes two open sixes. I check-raise, he makes it $480, and I, of course, make it $640. He just calls, knowing that his hand is in serious trouble. On the river, I lead out and he raises. I figure, "Great … he filled up … I will make extra money." I make it $480 and he makes it $640. With almost anyone else, I would just call in this spot under the strong assumption that I was beaten, but this man had been overplaying and overraising his hands all day long, so I put $800 into the pot. When he made it $960, I wanted to throw up. Yes, you guessed it. He took a lowly pair of sixes against aces full and caught perfect-perfect to beat me. I felt like $3,500 or so had just been yanked out of my pocket. Not only is he an 860-to-1 underdog on fifth street to catch 6-6, I must also miss my ace draw twice. I am a 20-to-1 shot to make quads. So, factor that in, and he becomes a 901-to-1 underdog. Nice, eh?

I could go on, but I think you get the picture. So, the next time you think you are running poorly, ask yourself if you have lost 14 consecutive aces-up hands, 11 sets of trips, and four rolled-up hands, including two back-to-back incidents. Have you ever had aces full on fifth street cracked by a pair? You can probably take solace in the fact that it has not happened to you - but it can.