Did you ever take a bad beat? Has anyone ever sucked out on you before? If you’ve played any poker at all, unfortunately the answer to both of those questions is yes. It stinks when it happens to you. It always ruins your mood, it often times can be enough to put even the top players on tilt.

But when you do it to someone else? Well, that’s a different story then…Putting a bad beat on someone will generally men lots of money in your pocket because these pots generally grow into big ones. Today, I’m going to tell you about a bad beat I put on one of my opponents.

I was playing at my local $1-$3 no limit game in a full 10-handed table. I was having a particularly rough session and knew I would have to leave soon. In the big blind, I was dealt 3d-4d, very small suited connectors. I was prepared to fold to a raise given the mediocrity of the hand and my terrible position. It was a loose game and 7 players saw the flop with no raising. I was more than happy to take a cheap flop.

The flop was 2d-6s-8d giving me a flush draw and backdoor straight draw. The small blind checked and I checked behind him. The under the gun player bet $10 and was called by 4 players before it came to me. With the outs I had I decided I liked my pot odds and called as well.

Before the turn card, I checked in the dark and it was the Ah. The under the gun player bet $25 and this time got two callers. I thought about this for a minute and decided to make the call. The Ace gave me 4 additional outs to draw to a wheel straight. At this point, with so many callers, I was quietly hoping for a non diamond five so I wouldn’t have to make a tough decision with my low flush.

The river card brought the 5s. Absolute perfect card for me and with 2 players to act, I quickly checked to hopefully give a show of weakness to confuse my opponents. The under the gun player again bet $25 and the late position players raised to $50. I pondered for a few seconds and raise it to $150. With one call, there would be at least $400 in the pot. The under the gun player mucked his cards, he appears to have missed his flush draw but the late position players agonized for a full two minutes before reluctantly called. He showed two pair aces up making my straight a nice suck out winner.

I’m sure he was still angry about this but in my opinion he got what he deserved. At any point throughout the hand, I would have folded to a bigger bet with teeth but no one pushed me out of the pot making it correct for me to call every time. So now, next time I suffer a bad beat, I have this one to fall back on to help calm my nerves.

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