Poker Basics - Bad Beats vs Coolers

Some people use the terms 'Bad Beat' and 'Coolers' interchangeably but we explain the difference for newbies today.

Just as amateurs tend to get 'set' and 'trips' mixed up, so too do they get the terms 'bad beat' and 'cooler' confused for one another. There is a difference and it is actually quite important. 

Both point to occasions where you got unlucky at the table but they are a different kind of bad luck. 

A bad beat is when you have the best hand, get your money in good but your opponent out draws you . So for example you get your money in with Pocket Aces, get called by your opponent with Pocket Sevens and they spike a Seven to beat you. Aces wins more than 80% of the time so you were very unlucky, it was a genuine Bad Beat. 

You did everything right but still lost

A cooler is when you had a good hand, played it correctly but still lost to an even better hand. A classic example here is you had Pocket Kings and got all the money in the middle (as you usually should) but your opponent had Pocket Aces. Or the real gut punch of flopping a set and losing to a bigger set. 

Coinflip type hands, such as AK vs QQ, or an overpair against a combo draw, are not bad beats when the drawing hand hits their card. In spots like this although the 'made hand' was ahead, in terms of equity it was close to 50/50. So these hands are more like coolers.

Understanding the difference between a bad beat and a cooler actually helps you understand luck a little better. In both cases you played the hand correctly and in both cases you were unlucky. The difference is whether your opponent played their hand correctly or not. 

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