Note....right now, as I post this, I'm back in Vegas. As I said last time, if any of you in Vegas, either because you live here or are visiting, would like to get together for some poker or whatever, drop me an email or a tweet. I have a sorta private game to play in tonite, and I will probably hit the Orleans Friday night tourn at 7PM tomorrow night. Otherwise, I'm pretty open. Contact info is to your right.
But for now.....one last hand to report on from my pevious trip to Vegas, last month It was a brutal bad beat. The good news I wasn’t the loser of the hand. The bad news was, I wasn’t the winner, either.
But for now.....one last hand to report on from my pevious trip to Vegas, last month It was a brutal bad beat. The good news I wasn’t the loser of the hand. The bad news was, I wasn’t the winner, either.
Once again playing at the M Resort 2PM tourn with the add-on/prize guarantee described here. I didn’t have much luck, but it wasn’t as bad as the fellow to my immediate left, a poker dealer around town, and who is a twitter follower of mine, and vice versa. Dunno if he reads the blog or not, perhaps after this post I’ll find out. I have absolutely no reason whatsoever to give him a phony name, other than, at this point, I just can’t help myself. So I’ll call him Steve.
It was a few rounds into the tournament, I guess after the break. Since it isn’t a very deep stack tournament, by now a lot of folks were short-stacked and had to make moves. So Steve shoves after a flop of Q-10-6, the first two cards are both spades. He has pocket queens for a set. He is called by a shorter stack, a player he knows, who he has dealt to regularly.
Short stack turns over AK spades. I don’t recall the preflop action, I assume there was a raise and a call, I don’t remember who raised. So now AK spades has nothing, but he has a hell of a draw. Any spade gives him the nut flush, a Jack gives him the nut straight. A Jack of spades gives him….well, come on, what are the odds?
The turn is harmless 8 of clubs. As the dealer is about to put the river card out, Steve calls out, “Come on, a red deuce.” Instead, it was the Jack of Spades!
“Or that,” he said meekly. Any Jack, any spade would have beaten his set of Queens (except for a spade that would have paired the board), but that particular spade gave the other guy a friggin’ Royal Flush! Ouch. Double Ouch. Triple Ouch.
I’ve seen Royals a few times before, in cash games. I got beaten by one once (story told here). I got a great bad beat story when a girl lost to one when she had quad Jacks (story told here). But I’ve never seen a Royal in a tournament before. That was a first for me.
Steve was a pretty good sport about it. He took out his cell phone and snapped a picture of the board, which you see here. He tweeted the pic.
Crippled, he busted out not long thereafter. At least it was only a $55 tournament!
Whatever job you have that allows to to frequent Vegas as much as you do I want! Except I want to frequent LA.
ReplyDeleteIt's not as good as it sounds, trust me.
DeleteIs that really a bad beat? The guy had a TON of outs. I always considered a bad beat someone hitting their one-outer or runner-runner outs.
ReplyDeleteGotta agree with Anon - and by the way, that cat gets around, doesn't he? Now what would have made that an EPIC bad beat is if the turn came the case queen. THAT would have the rail pooping some fruit in their looms!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Gary and Anony, and technically you are right, this wasn't a classic bad beat, but not really because it has to be runner runner or a one-outer to be a bad beat. A bad beat, certainly from the "bad beat jackpot" point of view, just has to be one monster hand losing to a bigger monster hand.
ReplyDeleteBut what if the exact the same card that gives one person a monster gives the other player a bigger monster? That's exactly the scenario I described in a much earlier post, and I'll give the link back to that at the bottom of this comment.
But the reason this current post isn't quite a classic bad beat story is that, while a set of Queens is a great hand and you expect it to win, you see sets lose to flushes and straights all the time. So, yes, I was kind of using poetic license to call this a bad beat. Still, anytime you see a hand as strong as a set of Queens lose the absolute best hand in poker, a hand you see once in a freakin' blue moon, I don't feel guilty about my post title.
But last night, in a hand I will surely be blogging about soon, I saw a Royal beat Kings full of Ace's. Does that qualify as a bad beat? The same card made both hands.
Anyway, here's the link to the earlier post I alluded to:
http://robvegaspoker.blogspot.com/2011/09/olivia-she-wasnt-jack-off.html
that was an entertaining afternoon, HI Rob... this is Steve BTW-or more commonly known as Chuck. And yes, I do occasionally read you blog:)
ReplyDeleteHi Rob, Steve here, or more commonly known as Chuck. Very entertaining recap of that memorable day (bad dealer delivered that Jack of Spades...JK Russel) I thought it was definitely picture worthy.. One comment on FaceBook was " Dude, a 9 beat you". Yea, whatever:)
ReplyDeleteThanks Chuck. If you read my blog enough you know why I gave you the fake name, in your case mostly for the gag, as I have nothing even remotely embarrassing to say about you--YET!
DeleteThanks for reading! Hope you don't mind me using your photo without permission.
If your set is getting run down on the river, it might as well be by a royal flush... Good luck this trip!
ReplyDeleteI suppose it might be better being beaten by a Royal instead of an ordinary straight or flush. Losing sucks regardless, but you get a better story.
DeleteThanks for the well wishes, Coach.