Timing is Everything

Well, I took my new wheels (here) to Vegas and here I am.  The trip went well and the car performed flawlessly.  I'm still getting used to some of the new features, the different locations of the buttons on all the instrument panels, etc, and also getting used to driving a bigger car than I've ever had. I am paranoid about running into something. But hopefully that process won't take much longer.

Anyway, last night I played at MGM and something rather unusual happened.  No, it wasn't that I lost with pocket Kings—that's typical.  Fortunately I was able to get away from them before I lost too much.  My session was uneventful and slightly non-profitable.  But there was an issue with one of their promos that I found noteworthy.

This is the Full House Pyramid promo that I wrote about here. The next qualifying full house that hit was worth $200, but the one after that was worth $599 (until you get near the top, the values go back and forth, usually there is a $599 payoff every other one or every third one).  Eventually the last one is worth $5K if hit within the week. 

A guy at my table hit a qualifying full house, the floor was called and he was looking forward to getting his $200.  Sweet, right?  Well, at almost the same time, at another table, the floor was also called for a player hitting a qualifying full house.  The floor didn't know which one was hit first and it mattered.  The first one was worth $200 but the second one was worth $599.

So the floor had to call the "eye in the sky" (do they still call it that?) and they had to check the security tapes. The determination was based on which hand at which table had the first card dealt earlier.  It took about 10 minutes or so for the answer to come back.  In the meantime, the floor told the guy at our table that he was going to get paid but it was still unclear how much.  Since he couldn't get less than $200 and that's what he expected he couldn't really lose.  Presumably the player who hit at the other table had the same notification.

A few minutes later the floor came to our table with the payoff.  Indeed, the player at our table had lucked out—his hand was the second hand and therefore he got $599 instead of $200.  Really sweet.

The floor person said that the other hand started a mere 45 seconds earlier than the hand at our table.  Kind of amazing.  Of course leave it to me to think of the negative possibility.  Suppose both players at separate tables had actually hit the exact same full house?  Well in that case, only one of them would have gotten paid and the other one wouldn't have qualified for anything since that full house would no longer have been available for the promo.

When I presented that thought to the floor he said, "Oh man, that would have really sucked."  Indeed.

Fortunately that wasn’t the case.

For the guy at my table, I guess that's like hitting a slot jackpot that you think is worth $100 and finding out it's really the progressive worth tens of thousand dollars (it seems like every time I read about somebody hitting a big slot jackpot, that's their story).

The timing was incredible in another way.  Just about the exact same time both of the boats were hit, there was some commotion at the table between our tables.  Apparently they had a had a hand where quad Kings were beaten by a Royal Flush!  Before you ask, no the MGM doesn't have a bad beat jackpot.  The guy who lost with quad Kings got nothing but a story to tell.

You know, now that I think about it, it's hard to believe that someone lost with quad Kings in a room without a BBJ and it wasn't me.  That would be the ultimate dreaded pocket Kings story for my blog.  I guessed I dodged a bullet there, huh?

Just remember….timing is everything, even in poker promos.