I never remember bad beats. I hope that reveals a sanguine nature, but here's one I might never forget.
On Sunday, I was knocked out of the EPT in San Remo. Time to go home. But the sun shone, the sea twinkled and the schedule offered a soft €1,000 side event.
What the hell. At the last minute, I cancelled the airport taxi and bought into the event. I missed two hands and arrived just in time to find 88 on the button. A player raised to 150 and got three callers, including me. The flop came 6 7 8.
The raiser bet 300. Call, call, and I re-raised to 3,000 (from a 10K starting stack). The raiser and one of the callers folded. The third guy called. It takes a very strong hand to cold-call here: did he have a lower set, or had he flopped the straight? When the turn came a 9 and he checked, I checked behind. The river was a 10: lucky for me if he'd flopped the straight, unlucky if he had the lower set. As is standard on a board like this, he shoved all in and I called. And he showed … 10 J!
What murderous luck. He'd called only to hit the magical middle pin, which came. Then the river guaranteed I had to call. And I could so easily have been on the way home, or arrived one minute later to miss the hand! One minute earlier, I could still have caught the plane! That one minute cost me €1,000, plus a hotel room for the night.
But here's the lesson about all "bad beats" in tournaments. However unlucky, you must always take responsibility. I chose to play a game in which, the truth is, you're never guaranteed more than one hand.
