The local poker hall has a bad beat with quad 4s being beaten. Pretty standard bad beat rules. I have a question on what I should consider sticking around for at least until I see the flop.

The reason I ask is because last week I saw a bad beat get thrown away and I got to thinking about the bad beat more and was thinking I should increase the cards I am willing to bet into. This means Ill be loosening up which scares me.

Currently I play all pair of 4s or higher as long as the bet is no more than 5 times the bb (standard raise from the loose players). If it is more than that it depends on who I am up against. I was thinking last night I needed to start playing more for straight flushes and royal flushes.

What are the types of ranges do you all normally play?

I am pretty tight and am currently ahead in 2017 in winnings. (I keep a spreadsheet). I am afraid to loosen up but the chance I throw a bad beat away when I should have been in the hand is keeping me up at night.

How about 8, 9 suited. Reason for this is because most people keep AK suited and it could hit bottom of their royal.

Playing a hand for the bad beat that you would not otherwise play is going to depend on the amount of the jackpot and the chances of winning it. Generally it's not going to be worth it. If the jackpot gets really massive or the hand is marginal, probably OK.

This is just another manifestation of results orientated thinking.

To win a bad beat jackpot, not only do you have to have a monster hand, but your opponent has to have even a better one. The odds of that happening are near zero. On top of that, typically you only get 1/2 of the jackpot at best. A quarter goes to the winning player and the table shares the other quarter. If the room takes a cut for "promotional fees," it is even less.

Your odds of hitting a straight flush on the flop is 649,739:1. I'm pretty confident that your bad beat jackpot isn't in the millions of dollars range. Therefore, don't change your game to chase the bad beat.

Winning the BBJ is like getting hit by lightning and gaining a super power instead of being turned to toast. It is not worth considering it in your play 99.9% of the time.

Thanks for the responses. The bad beat is up to $220,000. I will stop trying to play hands I normally wouldn't play in order to hit it then. To be honest I think iv lost a few hundred already trying to chase things I should have folded in order to try to connect hands.