No Royal For Me

You can play a lot of poker and never get a Royal Flush.  I know, because to this day, I have never had a Royal, either in live poker or online.

So it caught my attention recently when someone on twitter copied something off the South Point Poker Room Facebook page.  It was a picture of a woman with the caption to the effect that she had gotten two Royal Flushes within a half hour of each other.  Not one, but two!  I've been playing live poker for going on 15 years and never had one. And this woman gets two in the span of half an hour?  It doesn't seem fair.  Or even remotely possible.

I responded to that tweet with the only logical thing I could think of.  "Live poker is rigged."

A few days later I was at PC Ventura to play my usual 2/3 game.  Their Bad Beat Jackpot had grown to over $50K so it had been quite some time since it had been hit—it resets at $10K when it does hit.  I couldn't recall ever seeing it that high. I've rarely seen it reach $20K.  Aces full of Jacks beaten by quads or better is the requirement, so it's not as hard to hit as most of the BBJ's in Vegas are.

Well, I was at the table and we started talking about how long it had been since it was hit.  And someone said that when it hits, it will likely hit again a day or two later because that's what usually happens.  Someone mentioned that they could recall a time it hit twice in one day a few hours apart.

That reminded me of the lady with the two Royals, so I related that story.  Of course, everyone was amazed and a few of the players told their stories about Royals they had hit.  As I mentioned, I had no such story to tell.

Well, about 10 minutes after we stopped talking about Royals, a player in our game tabled a Royal Flush!  Yep, on the board was the King, Jack and 10 of diamonds.  The 10 was the river card.  And this guy, an older gent, showed Ace-Queen of diamonds.  Nice.  Sadly for him, it wasn't a very big pot.  There hadn't been much action and when he bet a modest amount on the river (a pot sized bet would have been modest sized), the lady next to me proudly called.  Apparently she was friends with the guy who had the Royal.  She even said to him, "You remember what my favorite hand is, don't you? Jack-5!"  And very proudly tabled Jack-5 offsuit for two pair..

The guy showed his Royal and we all ooohed and ahhhed and I pointed out how it was funny that we were just talking about Royals and not 10 minutes later this guy showed up with one.  Coincidence?  You be the judge. 

Aside from the smallish pot, the guy won nothing else for his beautiful hand.  No high hand bonus. Generally speaking, the poker rooms in CA don't have high hand bonuses.  Although this room does….on certain days of the week.  But not on Saturdays.  Oh well, it's still a Royal.

Honestly, I can only remember seeing two or three Royals at my game over the years.  I do recall one time in a limit game a guy beat me with a Royal.  I don’t remember what I had but it didn't cost me much to make the call and I must have had some kind of hand, even though I was obviously concerned about the scary board.

As for my session, I managed to win a few pots, but no monsters for me.  In the small blind with 5-4 off, I completed.  Four of us saw a flop of 9-6-2, two diamonds. I checked and then called a $10 bet with my gutshot. We were now heads up.  The turn was a beautiful 3—isn't that the way it's supposed to work?  I was fairly sure the guy would bet again so I checked.  Sure enough he put out $15.  I made it $45.  He called.  The river was a third diamond so I just checked.  But he checked behind and all he had was a 6.  No diamonds.

In the big blind I had Ace-Jack off, and just checked after six players had limped in.  The flop was Jack high, I bet $10 and got two callers.  The turn was a blank and I bet $35 and got one caller.  The river was blank and I just checked, as did he.  He didn't show when I tabled my Jack.

That got me up over $100 but then poker occurred and I managed to drop to below $50 up. In the big blind with Queen-Jack off, there was no raise and four of us saw a flop of Jack-9-8, rainbow.  I bet $6 and got two callers.  Another 8 on the turn and I bet $10 and got one caller.  I bet $20 on a blank and he folded faced up, showing that he missed his straight.

That was it.  I booked a $75 win and headed home.