February 13, 2020

Bad Beat

I have never told this story before. In part, because it makes me look petty, spiteful, and small. And, in part, because it makes me look like a fucking idiot. I ordinarily don’t let these things get in a way of a good story and this is, well, I guess I will let you be the judge, a pretty good story.

It dates back to when I was living in the condo in Hallandale. In those days, I would go to the poker room at Gulfstream four or five times a week. Florida allowed poker rooms at venues which had other gambling such as the dog track or jai alai. Gulfstream was the venerable South Florida racetrack which held the Florida Derby every year.

The track, and attached poker room, were literally five minutes from my condo and allowed me to play for as long or short as I wanted. Even to go home between evening sessions.

I was playing 2/5 no-limit Texas hold ‘em in those days and had gotten pretty good at reading the table. I am a pretty decent poker player. Have a good understanding of the odds and, best of all, was not afflicted with too big of an ego. It meant that I was pretty good at taking a loss. I just tapped the table, said good hand, and moved on to the next deal. Many, if not most, players allowed losing, especially an unfair loss, what we players called a bad beat, to enrage them—looking to extract revenge or payback. It caused players to go on ‘tilt.’ Borrowing the term from pinball machines that started to go off kilter. I was not the best of players. But I rarely, if ever, went on tilt.

The 2/5 game at Gulfstream was pretty easy to beat because it included quite a few players with big bankrolls and even bigger egos. The thing about players with big egos is they absolutely hate to get bluffed out of a hand. As a result, when you had the goods, they almost always looked you up. In other words, they hated to fold and would call a bet when they were beat.

The thing about nearly always getting paid off when you had the goods is you really never had to bluff. You just waited for your hand. I would usually read The New Yorker or New York Times. Looking up periodically in order to fold an unplayable hand. And most of the hands in hold ‘em are unplayable. If you are getting paid off, you don’t need to waste time or energy bluffing or stealing small pots. Some nights the hands just didn't come and I would go home stuck a few hundred. But over time, the wins became bigger than the losses and I was able to build a healthy bankroll.

The game was very friendly and I knew many of the players and all of the dealers and waitresses. I never socialized with any of them nor did I even know their last names. But there were probably ten guys I would loan $500 to without batting an eyelash. That’s just how poker is.

On Saturday nights I might know and be friendly with six to seven players at the table. In those days, because of some arcane Florida gambling law, the card room closed at 2:00 am and there was a semi-unwritten rule about playing soft—not betting too big or aggressively for the last two hours—because it was the night we all played for the bad beat jackpot.

The bad beat jackpot was a progressive jackpot that was offered in many casino poker rooms. The house took a piece—known as a rake—out of every pot and added it to the jackpot. If the jackpot wasn’t hit, it would continue to build.

Here’s how it worked: the jackpot rewarded the player with a very good hand who lost to a player with an even better hand. You had to use both of your hole cards and the minimum requirement for a hand was four of a kind (actually it was aces full of jacks but I suspect I have already lost the poker neophytes amongst you). If one player had, say, four nines, but lost to a player with four queens, that player, having suffered a really bad beat, would garner 50% of the bad beat jackpot. The winning hand would get 25% and the other players at the table who participated in the hand would divide the remaining 25%.

I was once sitting next to a table which had been dealt a bad beat. A lady who had been playing at the table for three hours went to the bathroom and was not part of the hand. The players voted not to give her a share.

Poker can be cruel.

Although regular bad beats at a poker table were ubiquitous, and the source of the majority of conversations, the jackpot bad beat was as rare as a white billed woodpecker and, on this particular Saturday night, the jackpot had already reached $88,000.

That meant $44,000 for the loser. $22,000 for the winner. And $3,000 for each other player at the table.

Four of a kinds, or quads, as we called them, almost never occurred. Nor, as you can imagine, quads appearing twice in the same hand.

Which is why it had climbed to $88,000.

At midnight the game would take on a new rhythm. Players would only play pocket pairs that could make quads or suited connectors that could make straight flushes. The dealers, who would usually get tipped out 10% of the bad beat, would deal very quickly in order to get in as many hands as possible.

Truth be told, I never saw a bad beat dealt during the last two hours of a Saturday night. They came other days of the week at random times. Still, it was the way we played. A game amongst friends.

On this particular Saturday night I had arrived soon after dinner and found myself stuck (stuck is a poker term for down) two buy-ins. At $300 per buy-in I had already bought in for my max for the evening. But I had managed to knife and claw my way back and when the clock hit midnight I had a stack of mostly green chips totalling $826. Now it wasn’t really $826 because I was already in for $600. So I was actually only up $226. Ordinarily, if I made that kind of comeback, I would gather my chips and head to the cashier in order to book a win. In poker, you can’t take chips off the table. So all $826 was vulnerable on an all-in bet from a bigger stack. To play poker properly, you have to be willing to stick it all in if you thought you had even the slightest edge. But that is easier said than done after you scraped to get out of a $600 hole.

So, like I said, I would have ordinarily packed it in. But we would be playing the last two hours soft, so while I could give some of it back trying to hit the miracle bad beat, my entire stack would never be in jeopardy.

Which is why it really makes no sense why I didn’t get up and leave when the kid arrived and filled the seat next to me.

He wasn’t really a kid. Probably in his mid-20s wearing his baseball cap, Boston Red Sox, backwards. Well the kid came in and started playing poker. Raising nearly every pot before the flop and betting heavy after the flop. Nobody was going to say “Hey kid, we are playing soft for the last two hours,” because we would never say that out loud. Anyway, it was a poker room and the kid had come to play poker.

Kid said he had come straight from the airport, I guess from Boston, and he had a suitcase he checked with one of the floor managers to prove it. Said he had never played here before and spat out a “what a fucking joke” upon hearing the card room closed at 2:00 am.

In less than two hours.

So he was playing to make up for lost time.

I should have left. I thought to leave. But then two of the regulars picked up their chips and headed to cash out leaving us short-handed. If I left, it would leave them six-handed. Not terrible but the others might decide to also leave and shut down the game entirely.

I want to say that the kid was a jerk. Was a bit of an asshole. But he really wasn’t. Sure he was brash and a little cocky. And got even more so after raking in a few pots. But he was no different than dozens of others I had played with before.

But you can’t play poker scared and I was playing to protect my stack. My slowly dwindling stack. Twice he made all-in bets at the river and twice I laid down what I thought was the best hand. And then he re-raised me, all-in pre-flop when I had Queens and when I mucked after deliberating for two minutes, he turned over the 7/2 off suit. Ever the sport, I gave him a terse smile, tapped the table, and said nice hand.

And then he needled me. I don't know why he needled me. He already owned me. There was no edge. But he couldn’t help himself.

“They don’t have a 2/4 limit game here?” He asked the table with a smile. He was saying I didn’t belong at this 2/5 no-limit game. That it was out of my league. At that moment. At that time. He was probably right.

Anyway, that was where I was mentally when the next hand was dealt. I was steaming. I was on tilt. But I still had the composure to gather my chips and start to make my way to the cashier. Joey, the dealer, seeing me get ready to leave made a motion asking me if I was in. I said yes but when it came to my turn I folded without even looking at my cards.

I was done.

I stayed long enough to see the hand played out.

The flop came KJJ and it was checked around.

A ten came at the turn bringing both flush and straight draws.

It was checked around.

And then a second King came at the river.

The kid, like he had all night, came out betting. Ricky raised and then the kid went all Hollywood.

Hemmed and hawed for a minute before pushing all in. Ricky insta called proudly displayed his quad Kings.

The kid flashed me his pocket jacks—he hadn’t been bluffing this time—he had quad jacks—shrugged his shoulders—and deftly tossed his losing hand—and the $44,000 bad beat jackpot into the muck.

Once the cards hit the muck they are considered dead.

Was there enough time between the flash, the shoulder shrug, and the muck to tell the kid about the bad beat?

I don’t know.

Maybe.

It cost me $5500.

But to be quite honest, even now, all these years later, I still think it was worth it.

2/4 limit player my ass.