Arizona Bad Beat A Reminder Poker Can Be The Cruelest Of Games

Three-handed no-limit hold’em action at the Casino Del Sol Poker Room in Tucson, Arizona this week led to what has to be considered one of the worst bad beats of all time.

The player who ended up in third place on the river posted a picture of the outcome (seen above) on a Reddit poker forum. He later explained that he’d flopped quad nines and a second player in the hand flopped tens full. Apparently, it checked to the turn, where a third player in the hand picked up a gutshot straight flush draw.

The ten of diamonds river gave that player his straight flush, but it also made quad tens for the player who’d flopped the boat, leaving quad nines in third.

Bad beat out of the bad beat

Ordinarily, it wouldn’t matter who came in second or third in a hand, but the Casino Del Sol Poker Room had an $18,000 bad beat jackpot on the line.

That meant the player who made his straight flush earned an additional $4,500, or 25 percent. Plus, because the Casino Del Sol Poker Room bad bead jackpot rules state that bad beat payouts are based on the strength of the hands at the end, the player who rivered quad tens while drawing dead was considered to have taken the bad beat.

That means he got 50 percent of the jackpot, or $9,000. In the meantime, the player who flopped quad nines had to settle for $665 — the same share of the other 25 percent everyone else at the table earned.

He was bad beat out of the bad beat, leaving him with little more than a consolation prize consisting of a legendary story and the sympathy of any Reddit forum posters that managed to get past the oddly designed cards used at Casino Del Sol.

Cards can be cruel

The hand also serves as a warning to all players that cards can be cruel. A not-so-gentle reminder to everyone, that the poker gods giveth, and the poker gods taketh away. And of course, that all outs are undoubtedly real in Texas Hold’em, and just about anything can and will happen.

Remember when Nicolas Manion picked up pocket aces against Antoine Labat and Yueqi Zhu both holding pocket kings on the bubble of the 2018 World Series of Poker Main Event final table last month? If that absolutely insane hand didn’t convince you of these things, this one surely should.

The worst bad beats of all time

It’s a reminder, at the very least, of some of the worst bad beats of all time captured on TV.

Like the one where Motoyuki Mabuchi ran quad aces into Justin Phillips‘ royal flush to bust out of the 2008 WSOP Main Event. The jury is still out on whether it was worse for Mabuchi to lose the hand to a man wearing a wife beater tank-top on national TV, or the fact that well-known comedian and actor Ray Romano was at the table to witness it all. Either way, things really couldn’t have been any worse for Mabuchi.

Or maybe the one where Cary Katz knocked Connor Drinan out of the Big One For One Drop, four-flushing in a hand where they both had pocket aces. A beat clearly exacerbated by the fact the Big One For One Drop has a $1 million buy in.

The sad tale of Matt Affleck

Then of course, there’s always the sad tale of Matt Affleck in the 2010 WSOP Main Event.

With just 15 players left, holding pocket aces, Affleck got it all in versus Jonathan Duhamel for the chip lead. Duhamel had pocket jacks, but he’d flopped a gutshot that became an open-ender on the turn. Affleck was still a huge favorite to win and take a massive lead into the playdown to the final nine.

However, an eight on the end made Duhamel a straight, breaking Affleck’s heart. The rest is history, as they say, and Duhamel went on to win the 2010 WSOP Main Event title.

It’s one of the worst beats of all time. Particularly considering the circumstances and amount of money ultimately on the line.

But alas, much like Arizona hand, just another sad reminder that defeat can be snatched from the jaws of victory. And that poker is among the cruelest of games.

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