Any (Good) bad beat Jackpot stories? (1 Viewer)

Nanook

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I play a lot live and have been involved in 6 Bad Beat Jackpots. 2 as table share, 2 as the small end and 2 as the big end. The most recent one was almost 2 years ago now. I was down in Tampa in the winter (Feb I believe 2019) and my flight home was that night. I decided to check out & go to the Hard Rock Tampa & play cards until it was time to head to the airport. By the way, if people have not played there, it is a FANTASTIC Room, especially in the winter. There are lots of snowbirds there and lots of action with plenty of tables to choose from. When I am away from my local card room I don't table change a lot because I don't know the players and it seems sort of useless, but the table I was at was sort of dead and I wasn't getting any cards so I put my name up for a table change. A little while later I was called for the table change. I get up and move. Playing 2/5nl Within an orbit or 2 I find myself in the 1 seat in the big blind with 44 with a small raise and a couple callers so I just call too and BAM flopped a set. No waiting for me, I donk right out, not too big & I get 2 callers. Turn gets checked around & the river brings the magic 1 card that gives me quads and gives him a straight flush. At the time I am thinking "geez, I hope he has some sort of full house so I can at least get a little call out of him so I bet small hoping he calls and he raises and I insta shove and of course he Insta calls. I am like what ever dude "ship it" and roll over my quads and then he rolls over the straight flush and the other players at the table then proceed to slow roll me. They say "hey, you got a jackpot" me: how much is that? them: It's right about 288k. Me: what, you mean to tell me the jackpot is 288k & I just got the losing hand or big end of the 288k jackpot? them: yea, woo hooo... right? They wait for a minute or two and here I am thinking I am getting 144k. Not too much longer they say the good news is you did get the big end of the jackpot and it was 288k, but there is a qualifier and you need Quad 10's to qualify for the Big Big Jackpot. Fortunately there is a mini jackpot and you did qualify for that. It is 10% so that is 28.8k & you get 50% of that so you get 14.4k. Nothing like 144k, but still nothing to sneeze at. Took for ever to get paid and I thought for sure I was going to miss my flight, but it turned out that my flight was delayed so I made it no problem. Would have been worth missing my flight...
Here is a pic of the hand:
 
Pre Covid one of our local PCF hosts ran a 2 table cash game including a BBJ. Once a while back one table hit the jackpot and we nearly did on the second table too,

Not a great story necessarily but what are the odds of both tables hitting the BBJ at the same time at a home game?
 
I had a deal with a friend of mine for a few years running where we would chop any bad beat proceeds. We both played 20-30 hours a week at that time, so we figured one of us would end up with something eventually.

One night I hear an eruption from his $2/5NL table and walk over ready to stake my claim to half of his portion (this room paid the whole table when BBJ hit) only to find out that he had flopped a straight flush and decided to 4-bet the flop against a guy who had flopped top set. Top set folded, my buddy showed, and he tossed a redbird to the dealer to rabbit hunt (highly frowned upon by management in this room). The dealer obliged and the guy would have made quads on the turn. Funny how table eruptions in pain and pleasure sound pretty similar.

TLDR; I partnered with a moron who 4-bet a guy off top set on the flop and cost us a collective $30k.

The epilogue is that I called off the BBJ chop after that and got a table share the next week, which I loved texting him about. The epilogue to that epilogue is that I hit a deer on the way home that night.
 
I was playing at the Trop in AC many many years ago with @Chippy McChiperson and the BBJ hit twice in the span of about an hour.

Unfortunately it did not pay the room, and neither of us were sitting at either table that hit (and it was not a big room, maybe 15 tables going tops at the time).
 
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Can someone please clarify BBJ and the rules revolving around it.... I think I get the juste of it, but what is the usual qualifier at most cardrooms/casinos?
 
Me and one of my great friends would drive to Cactus Pete's every 6 or so months, get free rooms, and play in there 6 table poker nook. We show up at 3pm. Sit down in the 3/6 limit, suddenly, the 1/2 game pops and hits a bad beat for 120k.

6 hours later, we have moved to the 1/2 table. The 3/6 table pops and hits the backup bad beat for 120k.

*Glare*

We almost hit it at the 1/2 later for the backup-backup (which was 50k)... I flopped a straight flush, he flipped trips.... But no quads hit on the turn or river. I did get paid off on someone who hit the nut flush on the same flop
 
Can someone please clarify BBJ and the rules revolving around it.... I think I get the juste of it, but what is the usual qualifier at most cardrooms/casinos?

Different card rooms have slightly different variations, but more or less they go something like this:
$1 or sometimes $2/hand gets collected separately from the rake and is held until the Bad Beat Jackpot (BBJ) hits. The Card Room keeps track of how much it is. It is usually required to be posted somewhere.

The qualifying hands vary from room to room and sometimes even from time to time within the same room. Something like any quads beaten with both hole cards from both hands playing will usually do it. I have seen lower qualifiers like Aces full of 10's and I have seen much higher qualifiers like Quad JJ's beaten.

Payouts are usually something like 50% to the losing hand, 25% to the winning hand and the remaining 25% to the rest of the table.

No written rules about tipping the dealer. I have seen and heard all sorts of crazy amounts all the way from nothing at all, all the way up to 10%. I know lots of dealers and they usually do not like to talk about this topic much, but almost all will agree that 2-3% of a large jackpot is a nice tip.
 
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Different card rooms have slightly different variations, but more or less they go something like this:
$1 or sometimes $2/hand gets collected separately from the rake and is held until the Bad Beat Jackpot (BBJ) hits. The Card Room keeps track of how much it is. It is usually required to be posted somewhere.

The qualifying hands vary from room to room and sometimes even from time to time within the same room. Something like any quads beaten with both hole cards from both hands playing will usually do it. I have seen lower qualifiers like Aces full of 10's and I have seen much higher qualifiers like Quad JJ's beaten.

Payouts are usually something like 50% to the losing hand, 25% to the winning hand and the remaining 25% to the rest of the table.

No written rules about tipping the dealer. I have seen and heard all sorts of crazy amounts all the way from nothing at all, all the way up to 10%. I know lots of dealers and they usually do not like to talk about this topic much, but almost all will agree that 2-3% of a large jackpot is a nice tip.
That's what I thought. Thanks :)

A player who mucks on showdown would have his or her cards pulled from the muck and forced to show and thus avoiding a calamity of missing the BBJ... correct?

I have heard of aces full being the qualifier... but I guess it depnds on the room. Do they usually post the qualifying BBJ hand or is just something you ask the desk on sign up?
 
.......A player who mucks on showdown would have his or her cards pulled from the muck and forced to show and thus avoiding a calamity of missing the BBJ... correct?
No, not so. I have been at the table when this exact thing happened. A player called the river bet and when the player that was called showed his hand (quads) the other player mucked. The dealer announced "too bad you didn't have j10s there. The players face went white as a ghost. Another player pulled his two cards out of the muck and showed the j10s, but since they were in the muck, the hand was dead. That mistake cost all of us at the table. Jackpot was about 60k at that time....

........Do they usually post the qualifying BBJ hand or is just something you ask the desk on sign up?
You usually just ask. All the locals and the dealers all know.
 
I was never fortunate enough to be involved in a BB jackpot. I was involved in a hand at Borgata back in 07 where I flopped quad 8s in a $1/$2 game and my opponent turned quad 7s.
We got all our money in after the turn and when our hands were revealed, the table went crazy and started yelling Bad Beat Bad Beat!! The dealer then reminded us that Borgata didn’t have a BB jackpot, only casino in AC at that time with a BB was Caesar’s. I did rake in about an $1100 pot for the hand so all was not bad.
 
Years ago the Irving reservation had a poker room. The BB was quads losing. I had :as::qs: and called a short stack all in preflop, he had :8d::8h:.

Board came out :8c::8s::qc::qd::qh:.

Good news was that the only requirement for the BB was both hole cards had to play, so my :as::qs: was good enough to make it pay.

Bad news was that it was the third time it payed out in four days, so the jackpot was minimal :banghead:
 

Recently playing 1/2 PLO I made quad queens on the turn and the river gave my opponent the K-high straight flush as he held JT of spades

Fortunately he only had a couple hundred bucks

Unfortunately, Tampa got rid of the BBJ over a year ago, so all I got was this bad beat story to tell
 
One of my favorites occurred during our $20 NLHE nights before the casino opened.

Playing 8 handed and the host's buddy shows up fresh from work. Sits in the SB. (Home game. No one cares.) I have the button.

UTG+1 bets $5 pre-flop. One player folds, the others all call. I am sitting on $60 and look down at K,J. I decide it is worth a call. SB announces he is all-in and pushes his $20 stack over the betting line. Surprisingly, everyone folds.

$46 in the pot, $15 on me. Usually, I am wicked tight, but no one was left to keep him honest. So I called.

SB asks: "What do you have?" King, Jack I reply. He states, "Well I am ahead right now." and flips over sixes.

The dealer burns a card, then flops jack, jack, jack! :ROFL: :ROFLMAO:
 
One of my favorites occurred during our $20 NLHE nights before the casino opened.

Playing 8 handed and the host's buddy shows up fresh from work. Sits in the SB. (Home game. No one cares.) I have the button.

UTG+1 bets $5 pre-flop. One player folds, the others all call. I am sitting on $60 and look down at K,J. I decide it is worth a call. SB announces he is all-in and pushes his $20 stack over the betting line. Surprisingly, everyone folds.

$46 in the pot, $15 on me. Usually, I am wicked tight, but no one was left to keep him honest. So I called.

SB asks: "What do you have?" King, Jack I reply. He states, "Well I am ahead right now." and flips over sixes.

The dealer burns a card, then flops jack, jack, jack! :ROFL: :ROFLMAO:
"How to win with jacks"
 
@Nanook how often do you play? Being a part of 6 is crazy. You play PLO? I've had some lose encounters only.
 
@Nanook how often do you play? Being a part of 6 is crazy. You play PLO? I've had some lose encounters only.
I have played PLO, but the game does not work where I live because of local betting limit laws so I don't play PLO live on any sort of regular basis.

5 of the 6 were @ limit hold-em which is a bit easier than nl just because lots of hands that make jackpot hands get bet out of the hand especially in bigger nl or tougher nl games where lots of those same hands go to showdown in limit.

The 6th one was in a 2/5nl game in Tampa which is not my home card room.

To answer your question about how frequently I play. The answer is a lot. This past yr 2020 is the 1st yr in the past 12 yrs that I didn't log at least 1200 hrs and in probably at least 1/2 of those 12 yrs I logged > 2000 hrs of live play.

In other words, I paid my dues....
 
I have been involved in two at Canterbury Park. Both table shares. Both pre 2007 when the jackpot standards were lower.

6/12 omaha 8 (they weren't checking ids that day) there was a quads v quads. Table share was only 200.

8/16 Hold'em (pre kill) there was a straight flush v quads hands. Table share was about 700, and as I was playing 8/16 that day, gave most of it back.

Got close in stud once about the same time. (Believe the rules were still aces full of tens beat by quads.) Playing 2/4 stud I have quad 3s on 5th street (wired threes, not rolled up), and villain has three 5s showing and the case five is live. However three 5s guy just makes a full house and loses like 4 bets to me on the river, IIRC. I guess he figured out I did not fear fives full.
 
Playing 3/6 limit Hold'em with full kill back in 2005. I post the kill from UTG +1, and check my pocket fours. One guy raises in late position, only I call.

Flop comes three aces, which is the easiest way to get the small bad beat jackpot at our casino with aces full having to be beaten! I check call every street, after calling the river I ask my opponent excitedly, "Do you have a pair?!"

He flips over pocket nines and the table celebrates! I got paid almost $2,000 for my share and got to play more $3/$6 limit with a few $500 chips in my stack (could've pocketed the whole payout) just for the sheer absurdity of it all.
 

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