Bad Beat Stories – When You Could Have Won

Roger at Compatible Poker announced he wants the absolute worst bad beat stories from bloggers. I don’t normally complain about getting beat when playing poker, because quite frankly I am sure there are others who have stories about me. I have decided to write mine, although it’s a bit different from most. Here it is

We take a couple trips a year to Casino Rama located in Orillia Ontario. Although I’ve been to the casino plenty times before, I had never played poker in the card room simply because Rama’s card room is very small. I think in total they have 7 maybe 8 tables which means you literally wait on a list and hope your name gets called. I always signed up but by the time there was a seat available for me I usually donked off my money at the slots or three card. Anyway on this trip we took the drive to Rama early in the morning in hopes of getting on the list way before peak hours hit. An hour wait and both my friend and I were in and took the only seats available at the $2/$5 table. (Yes they do their limits different here.)

Remember this is the first time I have ever played poker in a real card room and not online, so I wasn’t exactly aware of what rules play and which don’t when it comes to etiquette. Basically I was the complete newb at the table sitting there so I kept my mouth shut. Now for most people that wouldn’t matter so much but players and dealers don’t take well when someone stalls the game for a little Q&A. It doesn’t go over any better when it’s a woman who does this. I know that’s a sexiest remark but its true In small casinos and even local tournaments it’s still very much a male dominated game. The last thing I wanted was to look like a dumbass.

I don’t even think I had seen 5 hands dealt when my bad beat took place. The dealer began the deal and after everyone received their first card he began dealing the second hole card. Unfortunately my second card flipped off the table and landed face up on the floor showing a K. Again I wasn’t sure what the rules are when something like this happens so I waited for the dealer’s cue. He says “Pick the card up and lay it face up on the table. “ I told him “nobody seen it” which they couldn’t because it had fallen right before my feet. He asks me again to pick the card up and place it face up on the table so everyone can see what it is. I did as requested and the table seen it was a K of hearts. He then gives me a new card from the top of the deck and continues the deal. While dealing the remainder of the game he excluded the K. He did not use it as a burn card,  it was shown to the table and from that point was basically disqualified screwing up the deal.

Once all the cards were dealt I peak at my own to see K of diamonds and J of spades. The first card given to me was the K, which means my original hand was pocket K’s however because of his sloppy deal I now have K-J. This isn’t that bad of a hand to start with but you know when you have that feeling that your gonna get screwed on a hand. Not the whole my A’s lost but that gut feeling in the pit of your stomach where you know you just got screwed. That’s how I felt.

The table opens with one raise so considering we are playing limit and my hand is semi-decent I call. The flop is K – J – 2. I open and immediately get raised by the guy beside me and before it even comes back to me to make my call the hand was capped. I know my K is gone which meant only one more was left in the deck..obviously a long shot and with nearly everyone still in the hand the likely hood that a number of them are chasing their straights was very much a reality. That feeling I was talking about earlier where you know you’re going to get screwed had gotten a lot worse by that point but I still called.

The Dealer turns a Q. The hand is once again capped and I call. The dealer lays a J on the river giving me J’s over K’s. Again similar to other betting rounds the pot is capped. Looking back at it now it was probably a silly move to be in that hand once the turn came, but the pace of the game was so fast and the number of people in that hand and pot size I couldn’t fold. By the river I felt I had the best hand. Actually I was pretty damn confident I had won, but once we placed our hands on the table that confidence quickly diminished. The guy who originally raised me on the flop had pocket Q’s giving him the bigger full house.

Obviously that part of the story is not a bad beat so to speak. I mean he beat me with a better hand but as I said from the beginning I normally don’t complain about hands beating me. My bad beat here is from a sloppy dealer. Had he not fckd the deal to begin with my hand would have been good. Ask me what the pot was and I can’t tell you since I don’t remember the number of players on each round who were still in the hand. But I do remember it was capped and the hand was big enough that I actually felt sick to my stomach and pissed. It’s great when you know yourself what would have been, but when you have the other players at the table say “if only your card didn’t fall off the table” it makes it that much more difficult to swallow. Yes I did choose to play the hand, but knowing what the outcome would have been had the dealer not been so shitty at his job..all I could do was stand up and leave.

So that is my bad beat story… and I never ever play a hand now where the cards have been misdealt

btw go check out Rogers blog or his site Compatible Poker. His contest is open to all bloggers, but he also has a pretty kick ass site. Whether your looking for poker news, gossip or even info about US poker and  what’s legal and what’s not you will definatly find it there.

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