1. Bad Beat Beer
2. Really Bad Beat Up Boy
3. Really Bad Beat

Ben Simmons' Last-Second Pull Up Three Pointer Was a Very Bad Beat For the Sixers. The story makes reference to 'the hero' and uses colorful language that is appropriate for, say, telling a bad beat story to your friends, but not for a formal publication like an encyclopedia. It's also arguably WP:OR and, perhaps most importantly, it's not really necessary to explain what a bad beat is. Croctotheface 21:44, 5 December 2006 (UTC). A very rare, but not-unheard of bad beat is a combination cooler/runner-runner hand in which a player flops 4 of a kind, only to see his opponent catch runner-runner cards to achieve a larger 4 of a kind. While this is a bad beat, the sting will be ignored as the loser would win a big chunk of cash as part of the bad beat.

Opening comment[edit]

lol... Bad beats are becoming more and more common these days. I believe that this is due to the influx of inexperienced players that watch the pros on TV and decide to start playin never paying any mind to what hands the pros actually play. I have been playin for some time now and I am constantly amazed how much people play 'rags' (crappy cards) and then claim credit to their miraculous suckouts. I also think that alot of these online poker sites have built in donk-empathy and consistantly allow these people to win. I draw this from the multiple times I have had excellent hands and my opponents having less than a percent chance of winning and doing so. I have seen some very amazing things while playin online like the only 3 cards left in the deck hitting the board one after the other, now I am no 'odds man' persay but I know that it is beyond rare for this occurance to happen, and I have seen it happen like 12 times in one day which begs the question 'random?'. Well I wish all those that play poker and especially those that play online good 'luck' cause I am begining to believe thats all it takes.

BT_Savage

OK genius, why don't you play like a donkey then? As donkeys ALWAYS win!

By the way, certain 'pros' call 'bad beat's simply variance. Because you're bound to get them every so often.

Encyclopedic content[edit]

This article has potential to be gossipy fluff, but in any case it should not have a POV, or worse, invent a POV as original research. The article currently states: 'There is no concensus among poker players as to what percentage constitutes a bad beat, and often players will disagree about whether a particular hand was a bad beat.' That is where it should end. Examples suggesting losing a 3:1 advantage is a bad beat is absurd. Bad beats are aces full beaten by quads or better. Minimally the hitting of a two ~outer is a reasonable standard, but that is neither here no there. Saying a 990-1 loss is a bad beat is certainly reasonable, but putting mundane stuff like AK losing to AQ is certainly not accepted as 'bad beat'. No POV please. Just say what it is, and let people define the threshold itself. 2005 22:05, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Of course 'Bad beats are aces full beaten by quads or better' is as much POV as anything else. Otto4711 22:08, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Exactly, that is why examples can't be mentioned. However, the aces full example is a real world one that is citeable.. like what is the Commerce casino's definition of a bad beat for their jackpot. We don't need to and should not specify something that is subjective. 2005 22:10, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Originally, the article made reference to bad beats usually occurring after the player who goes on to win the hand called a bet that he mathematically should not have. I think that this should be in the article. As it is, I think that the article doesn't accurately define what a bad beat is. Obviously, hands that are ahead end up losing as more cards come. Each time this happens is not a bad beat. Based on the definition in the article now, AA losing to anything is a bad beat. We need to rework the article. Croctotheface 22:21, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

The specific that could suggest the AA thing isn't there anymore. The reader can define 'bad' now. 2005 22:33, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure you're getting my point. Based on the definition in the article (inferior hand goes on to beat superior hand), the AA example WOULD qualify as a bad beat. We need to either change the definition or do a better job explaining it. I'm working on that now. Croctotheface 22:40, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

The definition in the article wasn't 'inferior hand goes on to beat superior hand.' The definition was a hand that was a significant mathematical favorite loses to a hand that's mathematically significantly inferior. No one would suggest that, say, QQ losing to AK (AK being about 54% to win) is a bad beat. Many poker players, though, would agree that AA losing to an underpair (80%) is a bad beat. That said, I'm hardly married to having concrete examples in the article (although I'm not as adamantly opposed as some seem to be). The article was pretty much crap when I found it, with an example featuring pocket Aces raising 15xBB preflop as if that were a correct play. I think I improved it and if my working on it leads others to improve it too, well isn't that just the Wikipedia spirit right there. Otto4711 03:44, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I mean, I wrote the initial definition, or at least reworked it. I still don't think it's perfect. I will say that I disagree with some of User:2005's edits, particularly as far as reverting good faith contributions. For the record, I think that there is nothing harmed by having a concrete example, or even a generalized example. I see no reason the article suffers from having one in there. Croctotheface 03:52, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

The reason to not have specifics is obvious in that the two of you are on polar sides of the thing... one has a 1% example, the other has a 3:1 example. There is no 'right' answer as the article says. There is no consensus so of course we should not pretend there is one. Right now the article says '...significant mathematical favorite to win loses...'. Perfect. The reader can define for themself what 'significant' is. We don't need to, and should not. 2005 04:52, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

My example was not intended to suggest that 99 to 1 should be the standard we use. It was to illustrate what 'mathematically unsound play' means. Calling a bet when your odds of winning are 100 to 1 and you're getting even pot odds, then winning, would certainly qualify as a bad beat. Right now, 'mathematically unsound' is not even defined. Are you suggesting that we invite the readers to define that term for themselves? How about just saying 'bad beat' is a poker term and inviting the readers to reach their own conclusions for that as well? Would that make for an informative article? Personally, I question how useful somebody who is unfamiliar with the concept of bad beats would find this article. I also take issue with the notion that we can provide an 'cinematic' example of one type of bad beat, which you happened to provide, and fail to reach a consensus on what type of hand would constitute the other kind of bad beat. I used an example with 99 to 1 because I figured that it would uncontrovercially illustrate mathematically unsound play. I'd be open to a wide range of other examples, including an example involving calling when youre getting less than 3:1 pot odds when you're odds of winning are 3:1 against. The bottom line is that no single editor has a monopoly on wisdom for this topic. Croctotheface 10:55, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

'Are you suggesting that we invite the readers to define that term for themselves?' Well obviously since everybody does anyway. Calling when you are a 2-1 dog getting 3-2 on your money is mathematically unsound, but most people would not consider it a bad beat, although some would. 'bottom line is that no single editor has a monopoly on wisdom for this topic.' Exactly. No single editor can insert their POV on what a bad beat is. That is foolish since we all have different thresholds, and every poker player does to. This is an encyclopedia, not a place to insert your opinion. The entire concept of a bad beat is subjective, which is the point of having an encyclopedia article. Put another way, many top poker players insist there is no such thing as a bad beat. 2005 20:44, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I've restored the 990 to 1 example as this is as bad as the odds can ever be in Holdem. There's no doubt that it constitutes a bad beat, and I think it's nice to give an example of a bad beat story... Evercat 14:43, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

The story is POV, and it's not necessary to explain the concept. I didn't remove it, but I agree with those who did. When it was removed, there was a strong consensus, so I'm going to remove it again. Croctotheface 16:53, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

What POV? Evercat 21:41, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

The story makes reference to 'the hero' and uses colorful language that is appropriate for, say, telling a bad beat story to your friends, but not for a formal publication like an encyclopedia. It's also arguably WP:OR and, perhaps most importantly, it's not really necessary to explain what a bad beat is. Croctotheface 21:44, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Well I deliberately wrote it in a fairly light-hearted style; I don't think everything has to be dull to be informative. But very well. Evercat 22:18, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Ostrich pipe[edit]

Re: A newly used term colloquial to Ireland is know as 'getting it up the ostrich pipe' - there are no mentions of this term on Google at all aside from references to this article. Sounds pretty dubious to me. Ben Finn (talk) 11:05, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. I could have sworn I'd removed this before. JaeDyWolf ~ Baka-San (talk) 16:35, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Racing at Laurel Park. Photo by The Racing Biz.

by Frank Vespe

Every horseplayer has his (or her) bad beat tales of woe: the pinhead jockey who zigged when he should have zagged, the freakish performance from the horse that couldn’t win, the favorite you hated who beat you all the same.

Heck, there’s even the “I didn’t see the horse’s PPs on the last page” genre of bad beats.

Be that as it may, one thing I know for sure is this: if I ever construct my own Bad Beat Hall of Fame, I’ve got one surefire, first-ballot, unanimous choice Hall of Famer all lined up.

That would be Friday’s late Pick 5 at Laurel Park.

I don’t usually play the Pick 5, because although it has, as the Maryland Jockey Club likes to remind us, “an industry-low 12 percent takeout,” I’m cheap and putting together five races worth of winners generally deposits me in “too expensive to play” territory.

But entering Friday’s action, the late Pick 5 had a $15,180 carryover, which seemed enticing enough to give the card a gander. Soon enough, gandering complete, I had compiled a draft ticket that went 3 x 3 x 3 x 3 x 2 for a total of $81 on a 50-cent base wager.

Hmm, I thought. Eighty-one bucks is more than I usually spend. I should trim this down a little bit. So I removed just one horse, turning a race where I had three runners into one where I had two and reducing the overall cost to $54.

Bad Beat Beer

Smart, huh? Take out just one of the 14 horses I was originally using and reduce the cost of the wager by one-third.

Time would tell how smart I was. And time can be a real son of a gun.

My emotions during the sequence:

• Race 5: Wow, great! A longshot to start the Pick 5!
• Race 6: Good break there, as the longer priced of my contenders wins. Two down, three to go!
• Race 7: Damn! Turing Machine, the one and only horse I threw out from my draft ticket, wins. Son of a… On the other hand, I’m sure I’ll miss the fourth or fifth, so really, it’s no big deal.
• Race 8: Well, look at that: the longshot I really liked in here wins and pays $25.80! At least I collected a couple of bets on him, so that gets me out of the hole!
• 10 minutes to race 9: Wait a minute: you’re telling me the will-pays are… Oh, no.
• 5 minutes to race 9: Maybe the 14-horse will win. If he does, the pool will carry over and I’ll cash a couple of consolation tickets. That would be the best outcome. Or maybe virtually any other horse will win, and there will be a carryover. That’d be OK, too. The worst outcome? That would be seeing the one-horse win, since that would pay out the pool – but not to me, because, even though I have her… well, I’m cheap. And a dummy (see race 7).
• Race 9: Oh. No. No. No.

Inevitably, the one-horse, Fashion Faux Pas, cruised home a nearly-six-length winner. The 50-cent Pick 5 returned, to one fortunate fellow, $59,757.35. That was the entire pool.

Had I left Turing Machine on my ticket, I’d have had half of that: $29,878.

For those of you keeping score at home, that’s $27 saved in wager cost – and $29,878 in winnings lost.

And that is what you might call a very bad decision. And a very, very bad beat.

But then again, I’m sure you have your own tale of woe. Don’t you?

THE RACES

If you’re the sort of person who likes to wallow in others’ misery – and honestly, who among us is not that type of person? – here’s the sequence of races and my thoughts on them as I constructed the ticket.

The fifth race – the first of the sequence — was a $25,000 maiden claimer for two-year-olds, and it was, honestly, a pretty motley crew that faced the starter. I had three in this one, which came down to a frantic stretch run in which the top four all were within a length of each other.

At the last moment, the Ferris Allen trainee Shaka Style, dropping out of maiden special weight company, spurted through a narrow opening between horses to win by a neck – and how about that? I didn’t have the runner-up, so I was an eyelash from being out in the first leg, but I did have Shaka Style among the three I used and thus a $48 winner to start the sequence.

In race six, a $5,000 claimer for horses that had never won two, I also went with three. In the end, the race came down to the Mary Eppler trainee Publishanditerate trying to fend off Wayne Potts’s Runabout. Both were on my ticket, and they were nine lengths clear of the rest, so no drama in this one. But Publishanditerate’s win was a bonus, as he was 7-2, while Runabout was 9-5.

So, two legs down, both at decent prices.

Race seven was a maiden special weight test, but, while these races often come up pretty tough at Laurel, this one was a fairly mild crew. I had started with three in here, including a pair of runners making their second career starts after credible debuts (#1 War of the States and #5 Taking Aim). I also had the three-horse, Turing Machine, a 12-start maiden switching into the Claudio Gonzalez barn after repeated failures against $30,000-$50,000 maiden claimers in Southern California.

But in maiden races I usually prefer lightly raced horses to those that have lost repeatedly, and so in the interests of economy, I dropped Turing Machine. And, hey – that saved me $27!

Turing Machine, who went off the 2-1 favorite, won easily, with my other two choices finishing second and third.

The eighth, a starter allowance, looked to me like a race where a bunch of early speed types would knock each other out, setting it up for a closer. The only confirmed closer in the race, Papacho, looked a cut below the top runners here and was 20-1 on the morning line, but I decided he had to be on the ticket because of how the race would be run.

Really Bad Beat Up Boy

And sure enough, a wicked early pace – 21 3/5 seconds for the opening quarter of the 5 ½ furlong sprint – did the heavy lifting, and Papacho came rolling late to win easily by a couple of lengths. He paid $25.80 to win. For good measure, another of my trio, Saratoga Wildcat, was along late for second.

Really Bad Beat

The finale, a maiden special weight for two-year-old fillies, brought together mostly either horses who had run without making much impact or first-time starters who had too many question marks to use. I settled on two, both of which had run before: the one-horse, Fashion Faux Pas, making her second start for trainer Arnaud Delacour and getting Lasix for the first time; and the 14-horse, Miss Philly Dilly, who had been in the money in all three of her prior starts while coming up against some tough customers. Fashion Faux Pas won easily, with Miss Philly Dilly finishing third, a length behind the runner-up, the first-time starter End Result for trainer Ham Smith.