Why Bad Beats Are Popular

I don't know who invented the concept of bad beats for poker. But whoever he was, he deserves four gold stars for adding excitement to the game.

When I first started playing poker in the early 1970s, there were few bad bats in the California card rooms and Southwestern casinos where I gave my action.

The games were different, too. The most popular poker games were five card lo-ball with a joker, five card draw jacks or better, or seven card stud. Some card rooms also offered high-low split games where a player needed an eight-low in order to qualify.

Then Texas Hold'em came along and everything changed. Players adapted to Hold'em because the game seems incredibly simple to play. It is anything but simple as I have been trying to explain to members on this website.

Nobody enjoys losing a poker hand. I don't care what Nick the Greek or Dr. Freud or anybody else says, it is painful losing at poker and nobody likes pain.

The progression of poker's best hands starts with a royal flush. Those beautiful connecting cards of hearts, diamonds, clubs and spades, running from ace to10. I have experienced less than half a dozen royal flushes in my lifetime of playing poker. Every time it happens, it's comparable to a golfer scoring a hole in one or a love-starved sailor seeing a mermaid.

While I protect my hands and try to play the best cards, I have lost some big pots to better hands. And to be truthful, I have won nearly as much money from bad beats than I have won in tournaments.

The first bad beat jackpot where I had a significant share happened at The Orleans Resort in Las Vegas. I was playing $4-8 Omaha High-Low. The bad beat jackpot sat at $49,000 and required quad jacks to be beaten by a higher hand.

I bought into the game and played for a couple of hours. Near midnight, I asked the dealer to wash the deck, which he did. Leon Wheeler, one of the fastest dealers in Las Vegas, shotgunned the cards around the table. My hand consisted of an ace, deuce and a pair of queens. I called the bet and the dealer flopped queen, queen, jack.

Someone came out betting. I just called, wanting to keep as may persons in the pot as possible. On fourth street, the dealer turned a jack. The fifth street card was an ace.

My winning hand won me $11,000 and the losing player with four jacks won $22,000.

On three other occasions at casinos in Las Vegas, Quapaw, OK. and Scottsdale, AZ., I have won $6,700, $6,000 and $19,400 respectively in bad beat jackpots.

We players pay for the jackpots. The dealer cuts a dollar from every pot toward the bad beat. We deserve the pleasure and excitement of winning a bad beat. Let the games begin.

Author: Geno Lawrenzi Jr.

(Geno Lawrenzi Jr. is an international journalist, magazine author and ghostwriter and poker player who lives in Phoenx, AZ. He has published 2,000 articles in 50 magazines and 125 newspapers. If you want to share a gambling story or book idea with him, send an email to glawrenzi@gmail.com ).