I call BBS!

I hereby take this solemn oath: I will never deliberately tell a bad beat story again. Ever.

Here's why:

1. I don't like telling them.
   • They keep me living in the past and distract me from paying attention to what is going on right now, in the present.
   • They promote or prolong tilt.
   • They reinforce feelings of victimhood, which are never helpful in poker.
2. No one likes hearing them.
   • The only reason anyone ever voluntarily listens to a bad beat story is because they assume it means that you'll reciprocate and they'll get to tell theirs. Stop the madness!
   • All bad beat stories are essentially the same, and can be summed up in five words: "I got really screwed, again." If you must tell a bad beat story, for the love of god, take the guidelines laid out in this article to heart.

If someone asks me how I went out of a tournament, or why I lost the third buy-in in a cash game, I'll oblige with details of the hand. But I'll only mention the specifics if asked.

You can tell me your bad beat story, if you must. But part of me will not be listening, part of me will consider it a foible of yours that you are determined to share every last detail of it with me, and part of me will be comparing your pathetically inadequate bad beat story with my extensive personal archive of horrible beats that I've suffered and finding it totally lacking in terms of quality, quantity, and depth of despair-engendering elements. I will make sympathetic noises, and I may actually even be sympathetic, but I will not gush.

Let's not enable one another: put an end to BBS!