I used one of my comp tickets for the breakfast buffet and headed back to the Colorado Belle hoping maybe today I can catch a bonus or two on the 2/4 poker table. There were two seats available at the same table I was at yesterday and one of them was seat #2, which was so lucky yesterday. I sat down and won the first two hands. Across the table in seat #7 was Tom, the player who won so many bonuses yesterday. I asked why he didn’t sit in this same seat. Tom is a regular and says he doesn’t pay attention to things like that. For the next couple of hours, I was holding my own but was getting pretty low, I was going to quit, but decided to buy in for another $20. On the very next hand, I had pocket unsuited Aces and lost to two pair. That gave me a $50 bonus. Super, now I’m set to play for awhile longer.
Here we go: At 12:45, Tom gets up, leaving his chips, to go get some lunch (he’ll come back after lunch). I’m dealt a nothing hand and fold, Rene, the player on my left raises and three players call. The flop is 10h, Qd, Ad. All three players bet. I’m looking at my phone playing Words with Friends not paying that much attention. The turn is a Ks, one player drops out, one player goes all in leaving two players still betting: Rene next to me and John in seat #5. The river is Kd. Suddenly these two players are raising each other over and over again. What’s going on? John says, let’s stop, I thing we both know what’s going on here. Finally the betting tops out and both turn over their hands. Rene has four Kings, and John has a Royal Flush. The table erupts! We just won the high Bad Beat for $40,000! I say “we” because under the rules, the losing player, Rene with quad kings, wins 40% ($16,000), the winning player wins 20% ($8,000) and the remaining active players in the room (only our table was playing) split the remaining 40% ($16,000). There were seven of us at the table when it hit (Yes, Tom who went to lunch doesn’t qualify), so we each received $2,285. Just yesterday, we were all talking about it not being hit for so long and here we are waiting to get paid.
After we hit this, the sign was taken down for good.
There were two pots because the third player had gone all in so there was a side pot.
The royal flush hand
At this point, everything freezes. The dealer, Mike (who had just started dealing here a couple of weeks ago) counts out the cards in the deck for the “eye in the sky” to take pictures. All of us at the table are given tax forms to be filled out and driver’s IDs were given to be photocopied. All the money is paid out in cash, so after the casino manager comes and confirms everything, the cashier has to set up all the different payments. To make things a little more time consuming, one of the players is a Canadian and his tax amount is kept by the casino to be sent to Canada. The rest of us are paid in full. There were also pictures to be taken by the casino (with our permission, one player declined) for promotional purposes. The entire process took almost an hour.
Rene getting paid his $16,000
In the grand scheme of things, $40K being won in a casino is not that big of a deal; however, that Bad Beat had been sitting there so long and the screaming we all made when it was hit drew everyone to the poker room. Managers and dealers were calling their friends; all of us players suddenly knew each other by name. Everyone shaking hands, everyone taking pictures—it was quite a scene. And there…sitting at an empty table waiting for all the fuss to end, was Tom—having returned from lunch knowing he had just missed out. Of course, had he been there, the cards would have been dealt differently and it would never have hit, but that’s little consolation. He took it well and smiled. Mike, the newly hired dealer was very happy. Tips for him were varied, many of us gave him $85, a couple gave him a $100, one regular gave him $200, John who had the Royal gave $300, and Rene the big winner gave him $500. So, it was a very good day for him as well and his smile was wide and he shook each of our hands in thanks.
Here we go: At 12:45, Tom gets up, leaving his chips, to go get some lunch (he’ll come back after lunch). I’m dealt a nothing hand and fold, Rene, the player on my left raises and three players call. The flop is 10h, Qd, Ad. All three players bet. I’m looking at my phone playing Words with Friends not paying that much attention. The turn is a Ks, one player drops out, one player goes all in leaving two players still betting: Rene next to me and John in seat #5. The river is Kd. Suddenly these two players are raising each other over and over again. What’s going on? John says, let’s stop, I thing we both know what’s going on here. Finally the betting tops out and both turn over their hands. Rene has four Kings, and John has a Royal Flush. The table erupts! We just won the high Bad Beat for $40,000! I say “we” because under the rules, the losing player, Rene with quad kings, wins 40% ($16,000), the winning player wins 20% ($8,000) and the remaining active players in the room (only our table was playing) split the remaining 40% ($16,000). There were seven of us at the table when it hit (Yes, Tom who went to lunch doesn’t qualify), so we each received $2,285. Just yesterday, we were all talking about it not being hit for so long and here we are waiting to get paid.
After we hit this, the sign was taken down for good.
There were two pots because the third player had gone all in so there was a side pot.
The royal flush hand
At this point, everything freezes. The dealer, Mike (who had just started dealing here a couple of weeks ago) counts out the cards in the deck for the “eye in the sky” to take pictures. All of us at the table are given tax forms to be filled out and driver’s IDs were given to be photocopied. All the money is paid out in cash, so after the casino manager comes and confirms everything, the cashier has to set up all the different payments. To make things a little more time consuming, one of the players is a Canadian and his tax amount is kept by the casino to be sent to Canada. The rest of us are paid in full. There were also pictures to be taken by the casino (with our permission, one player declined) for promotional purposes. The entire process took almost an hour.
Rene getting paid his $16,000
In the grand scheme of things, $40K being won in a casino is not that big of a deal; however, that Bad Beat had been sitting there so long and the screaming we all made when it was hit drew everyone to the poker room. Managers and dealers were calling their friends; all of us players suddenly knew each other by name. Everyone shaking hands, everyone taking pictures—it was quite a scene. And there…sitting at an empty table waiting for all the fuss to end, was Tom—having returned from lunch knowing he had just missed out. Of course, had he been there, the cards would have been dealt differently and it would never have hit, but that’s little consolation. He took it well and smiled. Mike, the newly hired dealer was very happy. Tips for him were varied, many of us gave him $85, a couple gave him a $100, one regular gave him $200, John who had the Royal gave $300, and Rene the big winner gave him $500. So, it was a very good day for him as well and his smile was wide and he shook each of our hands in thanks.