More info on poker I – bad beats
There are many terms in poker that have originated from playing conditions. One such term associated with poker game is bad beat. It has no specific definition but is used to mean that a player who had a hand of strong cards eventually ended up losing the hand. This situation comes into play when a player has evidently a strong hand and he understandably bets strong but his opponent, although makes a poor call, ultimately wins. There is no agreed way of telling what makes a dead beat and often players who have lost in spite of a strong hand refuses to accept that their hand was a case of bad beat.
There can be two situations that yield a bad beat even as it is logical to assume that although a player may initially hold a strong hand, other players can better it by improving their hands as more cards are dealt. One is a mathematical fallacy where the player had won because his opponent had a bad beat and should have actually lost the hand after calling a bet with not a decent hand and having pot odds against him. Again, when an originally weak hand receives ideal cards while drawing and wins the pot despite being the underdog, it is a case of bad beat for the player with originally strong hand. An example may be when in a game of Texas hold ‘em, a player is dealt extraordinarily good cards in the turn and river rounds that enables him to make a winning hand and topple the favorite. Another case of bad beat is when a player holds a very strong hand and yet fail to emerge as the winner because his opponent had an even superior hand. This kind of bad beat was portrayed in the James Bond movie Casino Royale, where the protagonist wins the game with a straight flush which overturned the opponent’s strong full house hand.
