Sometimes it’s just fun to get lucky.
Low-limit and even middle-limit players are probably well versed in the concepts of bad beat jackpots. That little chip that gets dropped, sometimes in a separate drop box, separate from the rake, and the big gaudy numbers posted somewhere in the room.
Friday night I was the one who scored. But then, I would have been just as happy with the hand as it played out.
I was playing what now seems to be a typically loose $6/$12 game and not catching any cards early on. I even turned to my dealer, who was also a player at times at the club, and asked idly about the odds of not catching a single pocket pair during a half-hour dealer shift. Neither she nor I knew, but figuring probably a good 20 hands in that half hour….
Then the question became moot as I snagged pocket kings just before she got up. Dutifully I raised before the flop, and kept betting out as the flop and turn showed nothing that could be threatening. The river paired an 8 and a player on my immediate left, who had gone all in leaving just a small side pot, flipped over K8 offsuit for the winning set. The piddly side pot didn’t even recoup my investment.
About a half hour later I found Kc Qc. I think I was about in middle position and I decided to play it hard and raised pre-flop. As usual, everyone who had limped in called the raise.
The turn showed Jc 10c 2. I knew I’d be, as Phil Hellmuth so eloquently puts it, rammin’ and jammin’ that pot. I’d already had a bet and several callers to me when I raised. Three others stayed with me to see an ace hit the turn. I had my straight, but no one wanted to bet into me. Of course I bet out and got two callers.
Another ace hit the river, the Ac. I bet, the player on my left (who had played that K8 offsuit raised, the player on his left called (what on earth did he have?), and I re-raised. They both just called at that point and I showed down my royal flush, casually tossing the cards in the center of the table.
And then the fun really began.
This club’s bad beat jackpot pays aces full of kings or better beaten by four of a kind or better. The player to my left, showed AJ offsuit for the full boat qualifying hand.
What did the third player have? A pair of deuces for deuces full.
And what did I think of? I wanted that massive pot. It turned out to be somewhere between $300 and $400 and made my brief night profitable even without the stroke of luck.
But I never, ever play with these bad beat jackpots, which are different from establishment to establishment, in mind, at least not for my own play. I know that, and have read that, such jackpots do affect others’ play, that their play might be a bit looser in the chase for those really long jackpot odds.
Yet mine (where I scooped up 25% of the $15,000 for having the winning hand) was the second one of the day at the club. And when I stopped in on Sunday night for some more plan, the jackpot was already back at its maximum. I was told that the Hold ‘Em jackpot grows so fast because of the popularity of the game.
I’m not playing for that long shot. I want my game to be a steady, solid one. If it happens that a jackpot hits, well, I’ll accept the luck. I just don’t think the long odds justify the chase that will more often than not suck chips little by little off my stack, turning a net profit into a net loss.