Neither opponent played their hand wrong we just got coolered with the second best hand.

We call this type of situation a “cooler,” which essentially means that-*again*-we did everything correctly in the hand, but just ended up on the losing side of two powerful hands. Worse, we don’t get lucky by spiking a third King. This time, however, the opponent turns over Aces. We re-raise again, they shove, and once again we call, getting all our money into the middle. Imagine that on the very next hand after the bad beat, that same opponent open-raises and we look back down at Kings again.

Like bad beats, bad cards are just another normal part of the game. The second way we can lose is because of bad cards. We recognize we did everything right in the hand, but got unlucky. We got our money in preflop with a dominating hand. Congratulations! We’re playing good poker, which is all about decisions, not results. We’re even more surprised when the flop comes out 5-4-4 and our Kings go down in flames. We’re surprised when they turn over 5c-4c. A loose player open-raises in mid-position and the action folds to us.

For example, imagine we’re dealt Kings in late position. Poker is a game of statistics and probabilities. The definition of a bad beat loss is one in which we were a clear, dominating favorite to win when the money went into the pot-but our opponent got lucky, sucked out, and took down the pot. To understand this, we need to first recognize that there are only three ways we can lose a poker hand:īad Beat. No one likes to lose at poker, but with the right mental approach, losing a poker hand can be refashioned into a good thing.

Lucky bad player example in poker