Bad Beats

Anyone that plays Texas Holdem for a significant amount of time is likely to experience giving bad beats or recieving one from another player, they are an unwanted but necessary part of the game which are notorious for putting those who recieved the bad beat on tilt; loose players are likely to dish out more bad beats than tight ones because the types of hands they play have to win from behind a greater pecentage of the time than a tight players range of playable cards, subsequently a tight player is likely to recieve more bad beats than they give to others, aswell as taking more bad beats than an average player, mostly because the tight player will be infront more often than a looser player.

Online cardrooms are commonly blamed by players for intentionally generating bad beats, either due to a biased random number generator or to give the weaker players a chance to win some money and thereby stay at the site for longer, these are both common misconceptions which are unfounded and untrue. Bad beats happen both online and offline, they occur at a faster rate online because the hands are being dealt and played a lot quicker than in an offline scenario, plus it's possible to play numerous tables simultaneously online, the more cards you see the more bad beats you will experience.

There are various factors other than the showdown win percentages which determine just how bad a beat is, they are in no particular order, the amount of money involved, the quality of hand being cracked aswell as the quality of the hand doing the cracking, the calling of pre flop and flop raises with very poor pot odds with a substandard hand which is unlikely to improve.

There are no rules which detail what actually makes a bad beat, other than the person who recieved the bad beat got their money in when they were a significant favourite to win, but an unlikely card or cards fell on the flop, turn or river to give your opponent the best hand by the river. Typically, the average online player considers too many hands to be a bad beat when compared to the hands which professional players accept as a truly bad beat, for example the online player may consider getting outdrawn by a flush as a bad beat whereas pro poker players understand they will lose to that flush draw 35% of the time. An example of a bad beat is where there are only one or two cards left in the deck to help your opponent and they catch one as a huge underdog to win the hand; an example of a truly bad beat is where your opponent needs to catch two cards in a row to win the hand and catches them both, going from being a tiny underdog of less than 1% to being 100% to win on the river.