Unibet Ambassador Dan Glimne
Article by Dan Glimne
Inevitably, just like in any other game involving the element of chance, good and bad luck play their part in poker; and our obsession with it can sometimes go beyond most limits.
One classic anecdote in this regard concerns Jack Straus, the 1982 world champion. It is the mid-1980’s and Jack is in the middle of a poker game one evening at Binion’s Horseshoe in Las Vegas – and stuck for a couple of thousand dollars, after suffering some severe bad luck. There is a phone call for him and Jack goes over to the poker manager’s desk to take it; this is before the age of mobile phones. At the other end of the line is an old friend of Jack’s, who is making his last call from Death Row in one of the prisons down in Texas.
“Jack”, says his friend sorrowfully, “the Governor denied my pardon earlier today, so I’m afraid it’s the electric chair for me tomorrow…”
“Yeah, yeah”, Jack impatiently interrupts him, “Just wait until you hear what an unbelievably lousy day I’ve had at the tables…”
The Main Event in this year’s World Series of Poker was a short affair for me: some five hours or so of Day 1, and then I was out. When I hit my best hand of the day, a full house, a Japanese player on my immediate left had slow-played a pair of Kings to sneakily hit a higher full house, which cost me half of my stack to find out; and the rest of my stack vanished when I hit my second-best hand of the day, a King-high flush… which of course right at that moment was up against an Ace-high flush. Bad luck, bad play, bad timing? Whatever the combination of the three, it sent me to the rail.
Play poker long enough, and you will see not only the improbable but also the nearly impossible happen. Mathematically, when playing hold’em, the worst bad beat you can suffer at any given moment is being outdrawn on a 1-in-990 shot: if after the flop you have the stone-cold nuts, and your opponent’s only chance of outdrawing you is hitting the perfect turn card AND the perfect river card in succession. In other words you can have a 99.9% chance of winning the pot, and still lose it. That is the reality of poker.
Has it happened? Of course: On Day 1A of the 2006 Main Event of the WSOP, one player got his chips all in with a pair of Fives against another with a pair of black Eights, upon which the flop was 5-5-6 with two spades. Nothing less than quads, versus a mere weak overpair; has the player with four Fives won the pot? No, as the turn was the 7 of spades… and the river the 9 of spades, giving the player holding 8-8 a straight flush. Now that’s as bad a beat as it gets.
Another famous hand, but from Day 1 of the 2008 Main Event of the WSOP, had the American player Justin Phillips with K-J of diamonds up against the Japanese player Motoyuki Mabuchi holding A-A. The board came A of hearts, Queen of diamonds, 9 of clubs… and then 10 of diamonds on the turn and A of diamonds on the river, and of course the money went all-in since Mabuchi had quad Aces but Phillips had caught the perfect turn and river to make a royal and bust Mabuchi. Ooops.
But wait, it can actually get even worse. Here is an anecdote told by former world champion Greg Raymer to journalists when he visited Oslo in 2005 – and I am not about to argue about how true it is, I am just quoting him:
It is a cashgame in Las Vegas, and two players are all-in before the flop. Even though they do not have to (as it is a cashgame), they turn up their cards: one has 7-7, the other has A-A. The dealer turns up the flop… which is 7-7-x!
“Oh well”, the player with the Aces mutters. “I’ve still got two more Aces in the deck.”
“No, you don’t”, replies a third player at the table. “I folded an Ace with a weak kicker when you guys went all in.”
“So did I”, says a fourth player. “There are no more Aces left in the deck.”
Right then, it happens; at the adjoining table a player wins a huge pot, jumps up to shout with joy… and bumps into a passing waitress so that her tray, drinks and all, spill out over the table with the upturned Sevens and Aces and cause the dealer to drop the cards in hand; in short, everything is a total mess. Once things have been mopped up, the floor manager is called over to take a decision. He calls for a new deck, orders the exposed hole cards and the flop to be restored, and the rest of the cards to be shuffled together and the turn and the river to be dealt out to finish the hand. And of course, the turn is… the third Ace, and the river is… the fourth Ace, giving the pot to the player who now has quad Aces.
As the Danish writer H.C. Andersen once said, some stories are so good that they deserve to be true.
And in this year’s Unibet Open live series, with two more events to go in Dublin and in Riga, there is a special “award” for suffering the worst bad beat of the series: a specially engraved Rolex watch, as a consolation prize. And the candidate so far? It is this hand, from the Barcelona Unibet Open:
Player A raises with 7-7, player B reraises with K-K, player A calls, and the flop is K-8-7 rainbow. Both players have hit their sets, and of course all the remaining chips go in, via a flurry of bets and raises. The cards are tabled: 7c-7d versus Kc-Kd, and Player A is drawing thin indeed: no re-draws to any improbable flushes or anything else, so his hope rests on one single card in the deck, the remaining Seven. Player B with the three Kings has a massive 96% chance of taking down the pot… but of course that fourth Seven hits on the turn, followed by a blank Queen on the river.
As you can see from the above WSOP examples, there is however plenty of room for “improvement” when it comes to improbable bad beats in the two remaining Unibet Open events! And with my luck in Las Vegas this year to go by, I would not be surprised to find out that it is me in the end wearing that Rolex on my wrist, while I bore my friends and poker colleagues with yet another war story from the green felt.
But my favourite bad beat story of all time, and a guaranteed true one at that? It has to be this one, from the early 1990s and once again the legendary casino Binion’s Horseshoe in Las Vegas. In a single-table satellite to the Main Event of the WSOP, there are now only two players left, heads up: former world champion Jack Keller, and Todd Brunson, son of the famous Doyle Brunson. Todd Brunson is holding the A-K of diamonds, Jack Keller the Queen of spades and the Jack of clubs, all the chips go in before the flop, and the flop is… Queen of diamonds, Jack of diamonds and Two of clubs, giving Keller top two pair but Todd a monster draw. The turn card is… the Ten of diamonds, giving Todd Brunson a royal straight flush!! Keller gets up to shake Todd Brunson’s hand and congratulate him on his victory – but is it all over? Has Keller lost the satellite? Is it really game, set, and match?
No… the river card is a second Jack of diamonds!! “I had never seen anything like that, and still haven’t to this day”, writes Doyle Brunson in his book “My 50 Most Memorable Hands” when he recalls that hand which he witnessed as a spectator. The floor manager of course has no choice but to step in and declare the hand void and the chips returned, so that the match could continue.
As the saying goes, ”It aint over till it’s over.” Goes to show you that sometimes not even a 100% chance of winning the pot is enough. See you in Dublin and Riga, fellow optimists and pessimists alike!
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