Worst Poker Hand Ever
In poker, players form sets of five playing cards, called hands, according to the rules of the game. Each hand has a rank, which is compared against the ranks of other hands participating in the showdown to decide who wins the pot. In high games, like Texas hold 'em and seven-card stud, the highest-ranking hands win. During my little tilty period yesterday, I did spend a few hands in the “passive tilt” phase, then had one hand where I probably demonstrated “FPS tilt,” then, in the Worst Hand Ever, it was pure “aggressive tilt.” The session had begun with two fairly rough beats that took most of my original $50 buy-in. Players often forget that luck exists in poker hence the bad beats. Bad beats happen because, of course, there is an element of luck in poker. A hand that is an overwhelming favorite to take down the pot before the flop, turn, or river is just that: a favorite. Probabilities and odds don’t guarantee results.
Had a weird little session of pot-limit Omaha yesterday toward the end of which I believe I might have played my Worst Hand of Poker Ever. We’re talking major league stinker. Just horrific.Oh, I won the hand. Of course I did. Why else would I bring it up?
I generally keep a level head at the tables. (Heck, just yesterday I was writing about I wasn’t prone to taking too much risk at the tables.) I’ll make mistakes, of course, but usually am able to avoid any real serious blunders. Looking back on yesterday’s session, I can see how a combination of factors led to my slipping into a wild little haze of irrational play right near the end of the session that led to the Worst Hand. Yes, I was most definitely on tilt.
In Your Worst Poker Enemy (2007), Al Schoonmaker includes a terrific chapter about “Preventing and Handling Tilt.” I’m rereading it again today, and am finding myself appreciating it even more after yesterday’s incident. He gives a list of tips for avoiding tilt, including keeping good records, identifying “your triggers and warning signals,” asking yourself questions about your motives as you “constantly scrutinize both your play and your emotional state,” avoiding the impulse to try to get even, and, of course, leaving the game at the first signs of tilt.
Running through the entire chapter is the general notion that the player who is on tilt frequently doesn’t realize it -- thus is it very difficult to leave the game at the first signs, since by definition tilt is a condition generally unrecognizable by the person suffering from it. Writes Schoonmaker, “Some people have even called a brief period of tilt ‘alien-hand syndrome.’ They feel that their brains have lost control over their hands. They watch, almost helplessly, while their hand does something stupid with their chips or cards.”
Man, that was me all right.
Have another book here on my shelf called The Poker Mindset by Ian Taylor and Matthew Hilger (also published in 2007) which features a chapter on tilt. The authors talk about how “tilt has many layers and nuances” and “can lead to the deterioration of a player’s game into a loose uncontrolled mess.” They also do a good job identifying different types of tilt, including loose tilt (playing too many hands), passive tilt (checking and calling, checking and calling), formulaic tilt (too much “by the book”), aggressive tilt (betting and raising, betting and raising), tight tilt (losing confidence), and FPS tilt (where becomes overly affected by Mike Caro’s “Fancy Play Syndrome”).
During my little tilty period yesterday, I did spend a few hands in the “passive tilt” phase, then had one hand where I probably demonstrated “FPS tilt,” then, in the Worst Hand Ever, it was pure “aggressive tilt.”
The session had begun with two fairly rough beats that took most of my original $50 buy-in. The first came on the very first hand. I’d been dealt A-A-x-x single-suited and raised preflop, getting a caller from a short stack who had about $15 to start. Flopped an ace and bet it, and my opponent called me with a gutshot to a wheel. He’d get there on the turn, at which time we got the rest of his chips in the middle. So a quick hit down to $35. About four hands later I lost most of that (about $30) after flopping a straight, then trapping a different opponent into putting his entire stack in on the turn with bottom set. He filled up on the river, and I was gonna be playing uphill for a while.
Managed to battle back (thanks largely to the very poor play of the short-stacker who’d won that first hand), and was close to even for a long stretch. Then I tumbled back down after losing three or four hands against a new, crafty player who’d come to the table. There was some misfortune involved in those hands, but really the guy just plain outplayed me (repeatedly), basically earning the maximum from me on his made hands.
So I was losing, but really was doing just fine mentally. Then came a weird succession of unlikely -- and costly -- bad beats. Not gonna recount them in detail, but there were no less than three hands, each against different players, in which my opponent rivered me with three, four, and eight outs respectively.
That’s what unhinged me. Might’ve been different if all of the beats had come from one player, but it seemed like the whole table was full of lucky SOBs who’d managed to pilfer my chips unfairly (so went my irrational train of thought). That’s when I passed through a short period of “passive tilt,” had a dumb blind-vs.-blind hand in which I’d flopped trips then mangled it (my “FPS tilt” hand), then cruised seemlessly into that scary “aggressive tilt” that led to the Worst Hand Ever.
Actually won and lost a couple of big pots first before getting to the hand, including receiving one absolute gift of a hand when my overpair of kings somehow was good against two other players who checked down a fairly big pot. Then came the hand. For those who are squeamish or easily upset, I ask you now to look away.
I had just about exactly $50 when the hand began (having rebought). I’d had a second table going for some of the session -- where things had been going better -- and so overall was only down about $25 at this point.
The hand started with me limping UTG with . (Already suspect, I know.) The fellow in the cutoff raised pot to $2.25, the button called, then a player in the small blind who only had $2.55 to start the hand reraised all in. It folded to me and as I knew the betting was no longer open to further reraises, I went ahead and made the call, as did the cutoff and button. So there are four players in the hand vying for the main pot of $10 or so, three of whom would be playing for a possible side pot.
The flop came . No flush draws. Not much in the way of straight draws, although someone could have a Broadway wrap. I have top and bottom pair. I checked, and the cutoff -- the original raiser -- checked as well. Then the button bet $6 into the dry side pot.
I’d seen the button make a couple of stabs at orphaned pots before, as well as some other cheeky plays, and so in my unreasoning state decided this must also be a similarly insincere bet. So what did I do? Reraise pot! (Channelling Jamie Pickering, there.) I pumped it to $28.20, it folded back to the button, and without hesitation he reraised me pot right back.
Oof. I have just $18 left, the pot has swelled to $80, and I know, know, know I am beat (by a set of jacks, probably). Well, I say that now. At the time I had no idea what was happening. My brain had lost control of my hands. So I called.
What did my opponent have? A set of aces, actually. He’d just called the preflop raise rather than reveal his hand with a reraise, and had trapped me fairly soundly. He held to my . So with an flop, what are my chances?
Exactly 7%.
Well, you know already how the story ends. The came on the turn, improving me to a whopping 10%. And the came on the river, giving me the straight and the entire three-digit pot.
Suddenly up for the session, I left immediately, almost frightened by my actions and the redonkulous good fortune of that undeserved runner-runner miracle.
Worst Poker Hand Ever Recorded
As I said at the start, the Worst Hand Ever. Which I’m sure I wouldn’t be writing about today had it turned out the way it was supposed to.
But I did win, and so am therefore able to share it with all of you as an object lesson. Watch for the signs of tilt! Don’t put yourself in these spots. Just because someone else hits that three-outer on you, don’t make that an excuse to go for your own three-outers!
I feel like some sort of penance is definitely in order here. Think I might just have to take a day or two off from playing altogether after that applesauce. Maybe longer. Give me a chance to reread these chapters. Anyhow, I hope sharing my embarrassing play helps someone out there.
Now that I think about it, though, the fact that I won the hand doesn’t really help that much in the lesson-learnin’ department, does it? Ignore that last part of the story, everyone! Wipe it from yr minds, if you know what’s good for you!
(I am a crazy person.)
Labels: *on the street, Al Schoonmaker, Ian Taylor, Matthew Hilger, pot-limit Omaha, tilt
There are 169 different starting hands you can be dealt in Texas Hold’em. Pocket Aces are clearly the best, but what are the worst possible hands in poker? Let’s take a look.
Worst Texas Hold’Em Hole Cards Explained
How do you work out the worst possible starting hand in poker?
Of course, some hands are harder than others to play preflop. Then, some people just hate certain hands because of bad beats they’ve experienced. But how can you decide which poker hands are objectively the worst?
Poker equity is defined as the percentage of the time your hand will win the pot at showdown after all the community cards are dealt.
The most common way to rank starting hands is to use a poker equity calculator such as PokerCruncher or Flopzilla. This the basis for most hand ranking lists, including the one below.
Equity calculators run millions of simulations to work out how many times a certain hand beats another hand. For example, if you input AA v KK, the calculator would deal all five community cards millions of times and count how many times each starting hand wins. In this example AA wins about 82% of the time, so you can say AA’s preflop equity against KK is 82%. At least, when they are heads-up against each other.
You can also run the simulations against random cards. That way, you can see how that particular starting hand fares against all the other possible starting hands.
A hand like pocket aces (e.g., A♣A♥, A♠A♦) obviously has very good equity against every other hand. It is the best hole hand in poker, after all. It will win around 85% of the time versus one random starting hand.
However, usually, when people are ranking starting hands they don’t do it heads-up. They do it for a full ring of players, usually with 9 or 10 players. Doing this for AA we can see that it wins against 8 random hands 35% of the time. That’s pretty good considering an equal share would be 11%.
To make a list of worst poker starting hands, you do the same thing – but with trash hands.
There are a few problems with this method… It’s not very realistic, after all. When was the last time you got it all-in against 8 players, let alone without them caring about what cards they have? Only a complete maniac would push 7♥2♣ all-in!
But it’s still a good starting point. Let’s take a look at what comes out as the worst Texas Hold’em hands.
List of the Worst Poker Hole Hands
Here is our list of the worst hole cards in Texas Hold’em, ranked on their equity against random cards, full-ring and heads-up.
7-2 Offsuit
Hmmm, 7 2 offsuit – the W.H.I.P (worst hand in poker). A hand that is so bad that it inspired the 2-7 poker variant, where players have a side-bet on whether they can win a pot with it.
Against 8 opponents holding random cards, 72o will win about 5.4% of the time. Remember that 11.1% is the equal share and AA’s equity is 35%!
Heads-up against any two cards (ATC), it wins around 34.6% of the time, which is actually better than a hand like 32o fares. But still pretty bad, considering 50% is the equal share and AA comes out at 85%.
Why is 72o so bad? You can’t make a flush, you can’t make a straight and if you do make a pair of twos or sevens the chance of an overcard on the board is pretty much 100%!
The best things about 72o are that it’s easy to fold – and nobody will ever suspect you’re crazy enough to play it.
8-2 Offsuit
With 8 and 2 offsuit, you have all the problems of 72o, but with 8 high instead of 7 high.
This translates to a 5.6% winning percentage against 8 random hands. Heads-up is a similar story: a pitiful 36.9% equity against any two cards.
It’s better than 72o – but not by much. Just fold it and move on with your life.
8-3 Offsuit
83o has the same problems as 82o except you might make a pair of threes instead of a pair of twos. Not a massive improvement, and that’s reflected in its equity calculator results.
83o has about 5.8% equity versus 8 random hands, and 37.5% heads-up.
Fold it!
6-2 Offsuit
Yes, 62o can make a straight. But making a straight is very hard in Texas Hold’em – especially when you need three specific cards to come.
Against 8 players holding random cards, 62o wins around 6% of the time. If you are heads-up, it’s 34.1% versus any two cards.
3-2 Offsuit
32o is statistically the worst hand in a heads-up situation against any two cards, winning only around 32% of the time.
Against 72o (the so-called worst hand in poker), 32o loses 65% of the time!
32o fares better all-in against 8 other players holding random cards than the other cards on the list, winning around 6.1% of the time.
But it is still one of the worst poker hole hands you can be dealt, and you should be folding it almost every time.
Other Bad Poker Hands
The traditional method of running simulations against 8 people holding any two cards is a very rough-and-ready way of ranking hole cards.
In practice, you’ll find the worst poker hand isn’t the two hole cards that lose an imaginary all-in situation against random cards.
A bad poker hand is any hand that causes you to lose more money than you should. These are known as “Trouble Hands”. They are hands where you rarely know where you are at and cause you to lose a lot of money if you are not careful. These hands can ruin a calling station or unhinged loose player.
Usually this happens when you don’t realize you have the second-best hand. That’s why there’s a saying: “The worst hand in poker is the second-best hand.”
You won’t get into trouble with trash hands like 72o because you won’t play them very often, and if you do you will know where you are on the flop – either you flop something amazing or you still have complete trash. There’s not really any in-between. The strategies for a bad poker hand are very straightforward!
72o won’t be in many players top ten least profitable hands, because they just won’t get into big pots with it. It’s easy to get away from, even if you do see a flop.
Worst Poker Hand Ever Told
But a hand like KJo can look pretty good, even if someone has raised from early position. KJo is what’s known as a dominated hand. If you hit top pair, but your opponent has a better kicker, you have the second-best hand and you are going to lose money.
And when they don’t have the better kicker, you might worry that they do and end up folding the better hand!
With a dominated hand, you never really know where you are at. Even when you do have the best hand, you just can’t stand any pressure.
Worst Poker Hand Ever Wins
Finally – and this might sound stupid, but bear with us – sometimes big pocket pairs can be the worst hole cards to have.
This is because they can be really hard to fold, even when the board and your opponent’s actions are screaming at you that you are beat. This means you can lose a lot of money – something that just won’t happen with trash hands. With big pocket pairs you can feel entitled to win – and that’s a recipe for disaster!
Nobody likes folding pocket Aces – but at the end of the day, they are just a pair. Hand strength in poker is always relative. Aces are the best pre-flop hand, but after the flop, everything can change. Just don’t ever fold them pre-flop!
That’s why starting hand rankings are a useful starting point but not the be-all and end-all. Poker is not a game where you can just memorize a bunch of charts and do well. You have to play the board and your opponents if you want to be a winner.
When people talk about the worst possible hand in poker they are often referring to the starting hands that do worst in equity simulations against random cards. But you are unlikely to lose much money with these trash hands – it’s the Trouble Hands that you need to watch out for!