For those of us that play poker often enough, we all catch a bad beat from time to time and walk away with nothing more than a story to tell, that nobody truly believes anyway.
Last week at Playground, club member Sam Mashtoub found himself in a most unusual hand with a loaded board in front of him.
Playground Poker Club offers a Bad Beat Jackpot in hold’em where any player that has Aces full of Kings or better beaten by a higher-ranking hand is awarded the cumulative Bad Beat Jackpot. Playground officially opened its doors on December 17th, which is when the first ever Bad Beat Jackpot was born and climbed to over $57,000 in just under eight weeks.
Sam’s good friend was headed to the club on Tuesday, February 15th and invited him to come along for a firsthand look at the place. It was Sam’s first night at Playground and he was in for an interesting night.
Sam jumped into a $1/$2 NLHE cash game and this particular hand was straddled to $5 pre-flop. Sam raised it to $20 with two callers.
The flop comes 2 3 2. There was action on the flop and Sam had pocket 2s and was well ahead with quads.
Turn comes 3 checked all around, river comes another 3. With a full house on the board and after careful deliberation, Max Thomas pushed on the river and Sam called him. Max turned over 7 3 suited and hit quad 3’s while Sam was left picking his jaw up off the table with his quad 2s in hand. It wasn’t all bad news for Sam. He walked away with $22,820. The complete breakdown went like this:
40% to the loser of the hand (Sam in this case): $22,820
20% to the winner of the hand (Max in this case): $11,410
20% to the six people sitting at the table with them: $1,900/player
20% for the rest of the players at cash game tables (65): $175/player
Bad Beat Jackpots are just one way that Playground Poker Club gives back to its players and is a true testament to a poker club that is built for players, by players.
