Suckout vs. Bad Beat
by Staff
I'd like to introduce a new feature here at UfP, with the help of the extremely cool Poker Hand Analyzer at Twodimes.net. All poker sessions are a mixture of the lucky and unlucky, but which was more powerful? I'm going to compare my worst bad beat of a session with my biggest suckout and see which was the bigger miracle.
Well, the first matchup is probably no contest, as it was just about as bad a beat as one could have. Interestingly enough, though, both times I was holding the exact same hand!
Playing in a loose $4/$8 game at the Trop in AC when I call with 9d7d in late position. My weak play is temporarily rewarded when the flop comes 773 with no diamonds. There's an early bet, one call by a Asian women who's playing everything and calling to the river, I raise, and it's just me and her. The turn is a Queen: check, I bet, she calls. The river is...another Queen, and she bets out! I mean, did she...could she...yep. She turns over Queen Jack to take it down.
I don't know why I was annoyed, though. I mean, I was only a 99.39% favorite after the flop! Only running Queens or Jacks could kill me, and there they were.
My suckout was a healthy support of my rule about slowplaying: Don't Slowplay! Okay...I mean, you flop quads or another absolute monster you can string people along a bit, but otherwise, you give enough free cards and eventually somebody might find something.
Later that day, in a game at the Taj, I call with the same 9d7d one off the button (don't let it be said that I ever learn a lesson!) only to be raised by the button. The blinds actually fold, and four or five of us see a 348 rainbow (one diamond) flop. Checked to me, the raiser checks, and we see a free turn: a 6, putting two spades on the board. Well, I figure I'll try a bet with my open-ender and some scary low cards, only to get raised again by the button. Folded around to me, I call (probably yet another bad play this hand) to see the river: the 5 of spades, making my straight but putting a possible flush out there. Check, he bets, I call to see him turn over pocket 8's!
The button slowplayed his top set on what looked like a completely safe board (and I guess it was; I obviously fold to a bet on the flop), giving me a chance to find a little something. Things weren't completely dire, though: I did have a 7.37% chance to win the hand after the flop.
So after one week, the standings are Bad Beats 1, Suckouts 0.
I feel I have to question your methodology :)
Because..... wouldn't a "good" player have many more heinous bad beats than super suckouts? Your goal, as a good player, is to get in with the best of it. So to have a SUPER suckout, you would first of all have to be playing a questionable starting hand, and then make really bad bets on the turn and river, which, again as a good player you would typically not do. So I would think that NOT being a really bad player your bad beats will no doubt be more miraculous than your suckouts. Not that I'm not really intrigued by your premise and will read each and every post and no doubt vicariously share your joy and heartache.
I mean I'm not exactly Rain Man here in matters of statistics and stuff (just ask CJ about my mathematical prowess or more precisely lack thereof), but it still seems like it would be a little skewed to me. Just wondering if this is so or just one of those mathematical illusions.
