The title of this blog entry comes from a US Marine Corps motivational tactic which goes something like this; if you are not excited about getting up at 4am to run 5 miles in the rain, then perhaps you will become more motivated if we increase it to 10 miles. If 10 is still not enough, perhaps 15 will get you excited. It is a motivational strategy a poker player can learn from, or as some will tell you, a bad beat is an indication you are playing well. If this is true then I was playing extremely well last evening because I spent the entire night sulking at Bad Beat Central.
It started out innocently enough with me dishing out some of the sort of bad beatings I would later in the evening succumb to. One of the first hands I get involved in happens on a 10/25 cent no limit cash table (my stack is about $19) where I am in the small blind and it is checked to me so I raise the obligatory 5 times the big blind and instead of folding to my obviously superior hand both the big blind and the button decide to call. The flop comes Kd-7s-2d which compliments my 7d-4d fine since I have no problem betting into a big pair with middle pair and a flush draw so I do ($5 against a $4 pot) and the big blind drops out but the dealer decides he's had enough of my bluffing ways and he decides to go all in for like $11 at which point I call and we have a diamond flush draw with middle pair looking at Aces. Of course since only professionals play on the Poker Stars 10/25 cent no limit tables I endure a diatribe from my poor victim regarding the stupidity of such a call which I shrug off because (a) I don't consider myself or anyone playing a 10/25 cent no limit table as being an expert on No Limit Hold'Em and (b) if I am not mistaken the turn presented me with a coin flip decision made easier by the fact that the pot was already paying more than 2:1 which is about what a flush draw on the flop is worth. I river a flush and take down a pot big enough to force me to leave the table and return with my original $20 and about the same squirreled away from the table in my bankroll.
A couple of hands into my new table and I get 5s-9h in the big blind. Everybody checks around to me so 6 out of 6 players see a flop of 8c-Jc-3s. Again, everybody checks so I bet $1 figuring somebody's gotta steal it or at least show me the folks who think they're trapping, and I get 2 callers. I'm beginning to think my nine high is good enough when the turn produces a 4h, and again everybody just checks. I can't handle this sort of torture so I bet $2.50 and I get one caller. The river is a 5c and now I'm about as excited as one can get over the third high pair so I raise $3 and the calling station folds. I take down a ridiculously big pot for an incredibly poor hand. I've reached Nirvana and decide I'm never leaving this table. Never arrives about 45 minutes later after I've run my initial $25 up to $55 and I am as confident as a middle aged pot bellied vice laden smoker with a drinking problem can be. Its time to move up to the big boy tables.
I sign up for a 45 player (5 table) No Limit tournament with an $11.50 buy-in which pays around $150 for first place. I play conservatively and am basically in first place for the entire tournament. At the final table I start with around 14k but the blinds are 600/1200 and after a couple of rounds of no cards and after watching some Bozo to my left keep bluffin (finally he had to show down a hand or two; one hand was Q7 suited, another was Ace 4 off) until I am down to like 8k and he is up to 15k, I get Ac-2c on the button. Bozo raise $2400 and I decide I've had enough of his bluffin-ass so I go all in. When we turn over our hands it ends up Ac-2c vs Ah-9s. The flop produces 2d-7c-Kc so I pair my deuce and I'm feeling pretty good about taking down first place in this tournament (at this point we were the two largest stacks), however, because I'm about an 8:1 favorite at this point I start sensing disaster. It is just something that I have learned over the past several years. The turn yields an innocent enough 6s but of course he catches his nine on the river and so I'm back to square one in bankroll land after busting out 8th in a tournament that pays out to 7 places.
Two hours of grinding it out and I'm up $15 on the 10/25 cent cash tables I am sitting on a $35 stack at a table where the maximum buy-in is $25 and the next largest stack is $22. I'm moosing and muscling and all the other good things that go into making me forget about the bad beat suffered earlier. Eventually I'm dealt a decent hand; wired Kings, out of position so I raise to $1.25 (about 5 times the big blind) and I get called by one player so we see the flop together (I assume its some sort of bonding exercise). When 6c-4c-10c hits I say to myself, 'hmm clubs, they look familiar" and notice I am holding the Kh-Kc. Before I can estimate the odds of him holding an Ace of clubs he goes all in. Now I'm thinking if he does have an Ace his kicker can't be much (probably not a King, Queen or Jack) so at a 6 player table the odds of him having any Ace is around 50% but an Ace with a kicker he would be willing to sacrifice his stack for is a pretty low probability. He could have the pocket rockets in which case I'm screwed but I'm thinking the pocket Aces should be scared of the flop. I'm putting him on a flush or flush draw and the only issue is if he is holding the one card I'm worried about; the Ace of clubs. I call mainly because I only tend to fold Kings if I see an Ace on the board, and even then, in most cases I will pay to see an Ace. He turns over 10d-Qh and I still can't figure out what the hell he thought he had. I figure I'm about a 8:1 favorite again and then I get that feeling again. I convince myself I'm just being silly and remember laughing so loud I'm sure my neighbor was annoyed, but I remember laughing even louder when the Qd turned. It was almost as if he was being given the last futile dying hope just to prolong the torture. I remember watching as the Qs came on the river (of course it dropped in slow motion) and my stack went from a bunch to nothing on the turn of a card. I am now down to like $18.00 and my self confidence has been entirely drained. I am down $7 for the night after about 5 hours of effort.
Its usually not just the bad beat that kills you but rather the collateral damage it does to your psyche that ends up costing the most. I remember losing another big pot in an $11.50 buy-in tournament shortly thereafter when my A-h-Kh saw a flop of Ad-7h-4s and one person raised about $1,000 and I went all in for about $3,000 (yeah well I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer). We turn them over and he has pocket Aces. No luck involved in that one. My curtain call on a $1/$2 No Limit table was however, one for the ages. I had worked my stack back up to $35 when I get dealt the pocket eights. I'm allowed to limp in at which point I get the flop of my dreams; 8d-Kh-2c. My all-in is called by someone holding the Kd-5d. I can't blame him for drawing to the flush with the high pair, but at that point I think the odds are about 20:1 that I'm going home with $50 more than I started with. Alas the 2d turns and the Ad rivers and just like that I'm down to a $0 bankroll, whining about how this sort of crap never happens in real life. By now its about 2AM and I decide its time to turn off the 2008 WSOP final table which I have been watching in the background, and go to sleep. I see Peter Eastgate cringing as he realizes he has a one-out or he is basically gone and then I see him hit his 6d on the river (he ended up winning the 2008 WSOP) thereby confirming that one-outs do indeed happen in real life as well as on-line. I also realize mine cost me about $25 bucks while the the one I just watched cost Dennis Phillips like five million and I realize that sometimes it just takes a beating to someone else to improve your morale.
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