The Bad Beat Blues

Well on my 2nd night, the $300 challenge almost came to a screeching halt.

I started on the $6.50 single table Sit-N-Go’s, as planned,   and after a few hours was only able to get a few 3rd places and I think one 2nd.   I took a break, and then played some more,  and then… it happened.

The Meltdown.

This has been happening a lot to me,  and it’s always caused by a stream of bad beats.

Not one bad beat, not two,  not even three,  but four…five…six in a row.   By the sixth or seventh suckout I’m steaming, on mega tilt,  and am playing in larger stakes games chasing my losses, which is stupid, and totally against my plan.

I don’t know if I’m the unluckiest person in 2008, or if Pokerstars is rigged, or what the hell, but I swear to god I get way…waaaay…waaay more than my fair share of bad beats.   Sure, I expect to be sucked out on once in awhile,  and sure,  I even benefit from the bad beat sometimes as well.   But in the past 3-4 months, I’ve had over a dozen sessions where the bad beats come in an endless stream, hour after hour, and this is what happened last night. 

Here was a classic Hand,  this illustrates what I had to deal with, and keep in mind this hand, was after a half dozen or so other bad beats very similar to it.

I’m in a NL Texas head-head tournament,  I win round one.   and this is DESPITE surviving a few bad beats by the other guy in the first round.

So here I am,  final round of the head-head.  Winner takes All.

I get KJ off suit,  I limp in.  

The Flop…King-7-2  Rainbow.

I bet large,  other guy calls.

The Turn….Jack.

I now have 2 pair,  KK and JJ.    I bet large…  the other guy?  GOES ALL IN.

I think about it, and call.

What does the Genius have?  can you guess?   I’ll tell you.   He had Queen - 7 offsuit!

That’s right, this idiot goes ALL IN with a pair of sevens, even though there is a King and a Jack on the board.

Now the best part… can you guess the river?      yes… another Seven,  giving the genius 7-7-7 and the tournament and the cash.

When this sort of thing happens to me, it just drives me insane.  Again, I understand that bad beats are part of the game,  in fact, we WANT people to call with garbage, and part of the price of doing business is to lose some to some of those crappy crappy hands.   But 6…7…8 times in a row?     That’s enough to put Ghandi on tilt.

Anyways,  I got stupid last night, chased my losses,  jumped up to higher priced tournaments and lost pretty large (-$170.55).   Leaving me with just $155.71.    This means that I’ll have to drop down to even smaller Sit-N-Gos to stay below the 5% of bankroll for any buy in rule.   Sigh, it’s going to be a long hard climb to the top.

I’m going to take a week or so off from the Challenge, and just write about some cool Poker books and web sites I’ve found.   Once the steam has worn off,  I’ll jump back on and try to get back on track.