Sports Articles Johnson

Hand of the Week

When I’m not playing online, I like to visit my local cardroom. These fine folks offer a bad beat jackpot. Basically, if you LOSE a hand while holding Aces full of Kings or better, the loser gets 35% of the jackpot, the winner gets 20% and the rest of the table splits up the remainder. This jackpot was hit 3 times over the summer.

Last week as I was playing $2-$5 no limit hold em, there was a $1-$2 no limit game going on. Normally, I like to play 1-2 but when I arrived, the table was full so I decided not to wait. Boy would I regret this decision later.

About an hour into the session, I went over to talk to one of my friends playing the $1-$2 game when the craziness happened. Someone from early position raised to $15 and 2 players called. The flop came down and it was A-K-10 of spades. I figured a couple players had to hit this one. All 3 players checked and the turn was the Ace of diamonds. That’s when the fireworks started. The original raiser bet $15 and a late position player min-raised him to $30. The other player folded and the original raiser moved all in for $150. The 2nd player called faster than the player could move his chips in.

They turned over their cards. The original player had AK for Aces full of Kings and the other player turned over the Q-J of spades giving him a royal flush! The room absolutely erupted as everyone realized they had hit the bad beat jackpot. The players chopped up a whopping $57,000.

I was happy for my buddy but I was very angry at myself. Had I just been patient, something I preach about all the time, I would have raked in about $4000. Oh well. What can I do?

Until next time, may the chips fall your way


by Johnson