A horrible beat

While I'm not a big fan of everyone's bad beat stories, I had to share this one. After all, this is my blog and I'll post about what ever I want to. Anyway, back in late 2005, I was crushing a small stakes online NL Hold 'Em game. The blinds were $0.50/$1.00 and I had taken my $50 buy in up to about $250. I had everyone at the table out chipped except for one player who was up to about $400. I find A-A in early position and made my standard raise of 3.5x BB to $3.50. After one caller the big stack raises me to $7. This raise seemed weak--perhaps going for an isolation move with A-K. Knowing that I had the best hand, I reraised to $20. This prompted the caller to fold and the action was now back on the big stack.

The big stack reraised me again making it $40 to go. I now knew I was up against A-A or K-K. Since I held two of the four aces, I figured it was most likely K-K and that I might be able to double through this player. I decided that I would push all in at this point. I'm either a 4-1 favorite or have a split pot situation. A series of small reraises from the big stack also indicated to me that I was up against a big pair. Sure enough, I get called instantly. I had the two red aces and my opponent had the two black ones. Since this is a bad beat story, I'm sure you know what happens next. The flop came all black cards with two spades. The turn was a spade. The river was a spade. I got flushed. I played a big pot with the only player that could bust me and I held the only hand that I would not fold preflop. Such a beat does not happen often. I decided to not rebuy back into the game and take a break after such a beat. As they say: "That's poker."