The $12,000 River Card

I guess you could call this post a follow up to my previous post (here) because the main point of it is to tell you a story about the pyramid promo I discussed there.  It's a happy story, but sadly, it doesn't involve me—I just heard about it.

This took place the night after my last post took place.  By this time I had heard that for the previous week, ending Wednesday at 1PM, the very top prize in pyramid promo had been hit, and it had progressed to a cool $12K.  I also learned that the dealer who dealt the big winning hand was my pal Heather, who's been appearing in my blog posts for almost five years.

I was getting ready to quit for the evening when I saw Heather was about to push into my table. So I decided to stay for her down.

I immediately asked about the big promo-winning hand and she confirmed that she had dealt it and that it was a good story. She proceeded to tell me about it.

It was like 2 or 3 AM, Tuesday night/Wednesday morning, and there was just one full house remaining to be hit.  And since the pyramid hadn't been completed for a few weeks, the prize was up to $12K.  The hand needed to win the prize was Jacks full of 6's.  Note: It would appear that the story I told last time, about the guy winning $6K for Jacks full of 4's, would have been the second to last hand of the pyramid, and must have hit just a few hours before this one.

When Heather came in to deal at that table, she recognized one of the players as not only one of the regs at MGM, but as someone she had played with recently at Golden Nugget.  So the player asked her if she was going to play in the main event of Golden Nugget's GPS series, which was going on at the time.  Heather said no, she didn't think so, it was a bit out of her price range at the time ($570).  So the reg said to her, "Well, if you deal me the winning hand for the full house promo, I'll buy you in to it."  She laughed and said, "O.K."  A real long shot of course.

Heather dealt her down and was talking to the reg all the way through.  On the very last hand of her down, it was heads up and the other player was all-in and the reg called.  This was on the turn.  So the reg turned up his cards and he had a set of Jacks.  One of the cards on the board was a 6.  The reg said, "Come on Heather, you gotta do this.  Remember, I'll buy you in if you do it."  Heather said to me, "no pressure, right?"  Well, not like she had any control over it.

So she peels off the river card and yes, it is indeed a 6.  The entire table erupted.  Heather calls the floor over to confirm the hand and the reg doesn't wait for his payout.  He takes out his wallet and hands her six hundred dollar bills.  And he says, "You don't have to use this for the main event if you don't want to."

How cool is that?

Spoiler: I saw Heather after the main event at Golden Nugget took place and she didn't play.  She had other uses for the money.

The poker for me this night wasn't nearly as exciting.  Early on, I made a full house that didn't qualify for the promo.  I called a raise with pocket 10's and the flop came Ace-Ace-Ace.  I called $17 on the flop and there was no more betting.  The last two cards were both 3's.  The other player said, "I'm playing the board."  I said, "I'm not," and showed my 10's.  I was fairly certain that it didn't qualify for the promo (even though Aces full of 10's was still on the board) but I asked anyway.  I mean—I made Aces full of 10's with a pocket pair in my hand, and both cards played.  But no, you have to have a pocket pair of the three-of-a-kind used to make the boat.

Later I was down to about $90 and from the big blind I called $12 with Jack-10 of hearts.  The flop was 8-7-6, two hearts.  In fact, a 9 of hearts would have given me the straight flush. I called $23.  The turn was a red 9, but it was diamonds, not hearts.  I didn't think I could bet less than a shove, so I shoved. He folded.

 

Later, now down to about $80, I woke up with the dreaded pocket Kings in the small blind. There was a raise to $7 and two callers.  So I just took half my stack and added it to the $1 small blind.  Nobody called.  Hey for me with Kings, that's a great result.

I ended up booking a small loss.  No promo money for me this time.