Kevin Hart wins a $40,000 poker pot only from misreading his own hand and decides to give almost half back to the other player.

I will try to explain the feelings of this game, as an experienced card player. This is not an argument for or against.

At a certain level of poker play, you have weeded out everyone who plays objectively poorly (excluding people who are just there to be whales IE rich people). This brings a level of skill the the game that is missing at lower level play.

Experienced players fold in certain situations pretty much 100% of the time, not because they want to be predictable, but because if you play enough poker then not folding in those scenarios will cost you a lot of money. The odds of winning are just astronomically low, and the risk (the money you would need to bet to take those terrible odds) is just way too high. There are few (if any) players so good at bluffing that they can make these scenarios work consistently. It can be objectively called a "bad play".

Most people are pretty happy with this, because knowing what is good play and bad play allows you to develop strategy, and counter-strategy. You know your opponent isn't going to bet $100,000 on a 20% chance to win (from his perspective), so you force him to make that decision. You know this, because you know he is a good player.

This is where bad players become scary. They actually do remove the skill from the game, and make it straight gambling.

Most of the time this is great. As a good player, you should statistically crush a bad player, since you know the odds better than they do. The rule-of-large-numbers in action. This is why people love to play with whales.

There is one really bad scenario that can occur, however.

A good player (or someone you thought was good), makes a terrible play for huge money, and gets lucky.

There is just no way to see that coming, and all of your strategy and planning go right out the window. If you had known he was willing to make terrible bets, you would have never challenged him.

It feels shitty.

No doubt, it is part of the game and a risk you take. Noone wants it to happen to anyone at the table, but that's life.

Someone might be wondering what the difference between the womans play and Harts play was. They both made bad bets right?

It has to do with the order of play. The woman bet offensively on the last round, which is a move to force your opponent to make a terrible bet (from his perspective) or to walk away. Hart made the final, answering bet, to which there could be no response. This means he was not making a strong psychological play, he thought he was just making a good bet. He objectively was making a terrible bet.

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