The Art of Poker's Bad Beat

By Virginia Prescott on Monday, March 9, 2009.
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Man playing poker

Every gambler has a “bad beat” story - a tale of a killer hand, a sure bet, robbed by a fluke. It’s a time-honored artform in casinos, barrooms and folding card tables. Today, with online poker forums making hundreds of millions a year, the bad beat story is flourishing.

Virginia Heffernan writes The Medium column for the New York Times Magazine. She wrote about the bad beat as a literary artform worth studying during a recession.

Virginia Heffernan in the New York Times Magazine: "Flop"

(Photo courtesy *owen via Flickr/Creative Commons)

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