Anyone who has ever played poker for any amount of time knows how fickle Lady Luck can be. You peek at your cards, try not to give any sign of the incredible joy you feel washing over you like wave after wave of the ocean. Straight faced, or with as much of one as you can manage, you set your trap. We all know how this story ends . . . with you staring in utter disbelief. How could everything go so horribly wrong? How could every trap be set, every card played? Enter every bad poker playing clich, every scene in any movie ever taking place in a bar after losing the big hand.
As an avid poker player (draw, stud, hi-low, Omaha, hold em, Caribbeanyou name it, I have played it) I have played tens of thousands of hands and have had my shares of the highs, and the lows. Since poker player is usually synonymous with glutton for punishment and repeatedly punched in the gut it should come as no surprise that the bad beats stay with us more than the highs. How many pocket aces hands do you clearly remember? Now, how many of those hands were when your pocket aces got beat on the river? Check, and check mate.
We carry our bad beat stories around, and I am no...