Welcome To The Bad Beat Tables!

So I decided I should really practice what I`ve been preaching and venture onto the Bad Beat tables. To say it has been a roller-coaster ride so far would be an understatement.

I sat down at the table with just $20,and waited for the BB. It duly came and went and I saw no action in my first orbit of the table until I was UTG. I glance down and see QQ. I make it $2 to go and the action folds to the BB who makes it $3. I decide to just call and the flop comes down Ks-Qc-9d. Perfect I`ve flopped a set. He bets. I decided I could perhaps get a little more value on subsequent streets and smoothcalled. The turn is Ah and he checks, I bet $2 and he raises. Again I smoothcall. The river is another ace and he bets, I raise and he re-raises his remaining 60 cents. The cards flip and yes of course he has AK for a runner-runner fullhouse to beat my own queens full. Welcome to the bad beat tables! Unfortunately not bad enough for the jackpot. Looking at the hand afterwards I can see I played it pretty badly but as things turned out there was no way I was getting him to fold, especially after the turn gives him top two.

So I`ve only been there a few hands and I`m already down a buy-in. Still I wasn`t about to be deterred and reloaded. Only to see myself outdrawn time after time and I wave goodbye to another $20.

Again I reload and it looks like this money is going the way of the first $40. I was down to about $7 when I finally had a hand hold up and I was on the road to recovery. After about three hours and after picking up AA I was back up to around $58 and considering leaving. Of course I decided to stick around just a little longer and again caught AA. This time it wasn`t anyhere near as profitable. Costing me around $6.

I departed soon after down around $6 but relatively happy with the session. True I`d ended up down but I`d been patient and hadn`t become downtrodden. I`d maintained discipline and fought my way back from a pretty large deficit.

Onto today`s session. I`ve just finished playing and it was more of the same for the early part of the session. Now I`m the first to admit I`m not the greatest FL hold`em player but when you play nothing but premium hands you`d expect to be at least close to a break even player. Again though my KK was snapped on the river, my AK ran into KK and there`s no ace for me on the flop. Again I`m down about $40 and debateing wether I should just call it quits and maybe play some NLHE to try and rescue what remained of my roll at the site.

What I actually did was move tables. At first that looked a desperate tactic as I lost $10 in short order. Fortunately though salvation was waiting for me at this table and finally my quality hands started hitting and holding. I climbed back up to over $30 and then hit this monster of a hand.

I have 10-10 in the cut-off. The action folds round to me and I raise. The SB 3-bets and the BB calls as do I.

The flop is 9h-7d-6h giving me an overpair and an inside straight draw. SB bets, BB calls and I smoothcall on what looks a dangerous though good board.

The turn is the 10c giving me a set and leaving me extra options for winning the hand. The SB bets out and the BB re-raises and I figure I`m probably behind now but reasoning I still have draws to the nuts I coldcall the 2 bets. SB call as well and we`re onto the river.

The river is quite the most beautiful card in the world at that moment, the 10d. The case ten and I`m now holding the stone cold nuts. SB checks, BB bets and I raise. SB fold and BB re-raises. Obviously I re-raise again and at last realising he`s in trouble my opponent just calls and then mucks his hand. I rake in a $38.50 pot and I`m again pretty much back to even.

Now I asked what he had and he said the straight which I kind of figured him for. The funny thing is he was awfully annoyed about losing the hand. Now I`ve just checked the HH for this post and this guy called 2 bets with K-8o. In other words I have very little sympathy. Actually I have NO sympathy because I just can`t see how he could justify that call.

He actually left the table a couple of hands later when my A-10 outflopped his KK. The flop came 10-10-J and it was only because I figured that he might have JJ that he didn`t lose more money on that hand.

Anyway the good news is that I ended up about $10 in profit from todays session and up $3 or $4 over the two sessions. With that huge jackpot out there waiting to go I`m happy enough if I can pretty much break even all the while hoping that someone is going to hand me the best bad beat of my life.

So after all that I`d better add that the jackpot has now climed to over $1,120,000. That`s a huge chunk of cash and it has to go sooner or later. If you have the roll to play at the levels required and you can break even or better taking into account the deduction for the jackpot then you should be playing those bad beat tables. As they used to say on our lottery adverts "It could be YOU!"

Record Bad Beat Jackpot - Over $1,000,000

That`s right folks the record for the largest bad beat jackpot is now held by PDC/Carbon Poker. It finally passed the $1,000,000 mark earlier this month and as I write is approaching $1.1 million.

So what does that mean?

Well if you`re lucky enough to have your quad sevens or better beaten at one of the bad beat tables you`ll receive over $350,000 in compensation! You`ll sort of have the last laugh because the guy who beats you will only get a little over $175,000! Those are some very pretty numbers and you`ll be pleased to know that if you just happen to be in the hand with those players you`ll receive a share of over $175,000. With a minimum of 4 players required to claim the jackpot you could get as much as half that figure but even at a full table you`ll still be looking at over $20,000.

And here are the official T&C put down by Carbon

Bad Beats happen to every player, but at CarbonPoker we have a way to potentially win big after losing with a monster hand!

In any Texas Hold'em game, you will be looking to maximise your value when you pick up Quads. The chance to go all-in is automatic, but what happens if your opponent is holding higher Quads, or eveHEn a Straight Flush?

These are the worst of the Bad Beats, and usually result in thousands of chips being passed over the table. Our new Bad Beat Jackpot will ensure thousands of dollars in cash will be won, all for losing a hand.

On specially labelled ring game jackpot tables, we will collect 50 cents from every pot which contributes to the Bad Beat Jackpot. As soon as a player has a monster hand cracked, the jackpot will be won, with every active player at the table receiving a portion of the prize money! The player with the losing hand will pick up the biggest percentage, so if you have Quad sevens or better using both hole cards, you should definitely hope to get beaten!

Bad Beat Jackpot requirements:
The losing hand must be at least a Four of a Kind 7s, with a 2 kicker
The winning hand must be at least a Four of a Kind 8s, with a 2 kicker
Both the winning and losing hands must include both hole cards, and in the case of a Four of a Kind must include a pocket pair.
At least four players must be dealt in at the start of the hand
The hand must have generated jackpot rake (ie. $0.50)
Two or more players must be active at the end of the hand, and it must go to showdown.

And the payouts



You can play for a chance at the jackpot on both fixed limit and no-limit tables at various stakes. So get on over to Carbon and start playing!

Lambs To The Slaughter . . .

Hello again :-)

I`ve been trying to get a home game going for some time. Unfortunately I don`t really know many players in my area. Well we finally got one arranged and four players turned up at my door tonight to sit down, chat, drink and play a few hands of cards.

We`ve had a few of these in years past and they`re very relaxed affairs with more attention paid to chatting than the cards at times. I`ts not unusual for a hand to stretch out to over five minutes. As I actually enjoy the cards I tend to end up being the one telling people it`s time to act and how much it is to call etc.

Now I`d quite like a formal game but in all honesty the format we played tonight was ideal for me. We played for a little over five hours and put the blinds up just three times. That just gave me plenty of time to play cards and wait for reasonable hands to call with whilst they pretty much played every pot.

They tend to play very passively early on and when I came out firing at an early pot my aggressive betting obviously caused some consternation. So hoping for a repeat game in the near future I slowed down a little. The funny thing is no-one online would have considered the bets huge compared to the size of the pot. It didn`t really matter too much anyway. That first big pot I raked set me up for the game and I really never looked back.

The guy I was most worried about was pretty drunk and tired and his 2nd place stack gave me a huge lead when his AK ran into my AA and he made a crying call on the river with AK high for all his remaining chips.

We`d started with five players and by the time we were down to two I had a huge lead and knew I could only lose the game if I was impatient. My HU opponent proved very resilient raising pre-flop and making substantial bets on the flop. He had recovered to a nice healthy stack but I knew I was going to catch him eventually and get everything he`d won back to my side of the table. Again in part I think it was partly down to stamina that I finally won. I was prepared to play for as long as it took and knew I`d trap him for all his chips eventually. He staged a couple of recoveries along the way but I was not to be denied.

I thoroughly enjoyed the game. Winning was obviously very nice but it was a fun evening. I knew there was a possibilty I`d get donked at sometime but it only really happened once as far as I can recall.

I did enjoy making an attempt at picking up some tells and spotted a couple that helped me a couple of times. I really must read through Mike Caro`s book if we`re going to play again. I know there are more recent volumes but I think Mike`s book will be more than adequate against players who have no knowledge of the game. Certainly tonight I saw a player either glancing at or actually reaching for chips before it was his turn to bet. That saved me betting a few times and gave me a nice opportunity to trap.

I guess I`ve waffled on long enough in this phoenix like return to blogging. I`ve enjoyed writing this though so maybe I won`t wait three months for the next installment

Two Wins But No Accolade

I was just chatting with one of my longtime internet mates Murry The Cat and he comented I hadn`t been writing much. He is of course correct. It`s partly because I`ve been playing a lot of ring games and I don`t really like to write up individual sessions because I`m trying to take the long view. It`s also all too easy to get out of the habit of blogging. However I`m here at the moment and I`ve had a pretty good weekend so I might as well bash out an update.

Friday I had a fun game with the MLP crew. We played PL 2-7 Triple Draw. I was one of the few players with any experience of the game although I`d never played it PL before. I had a few nice hands early on and was able to capitalise on a few mistakes made by other players and was up or around the chip leader for the first hour. I dropped down a bit as the field narrowed and decent starting hands became scarce. I was patient though and eventually found myself HU against Adam a player I know very little about. We swopped the chip lead about for a while neither of us getting much advantage then after he`d limped in I raised pot with a solid 4 card hand and he check-raised all-in. It was the first time he`d pulled that move on me and I decided to respect the raise and reluctantly folded. That and the next couple of hands left me with a 2-1 or so deficit. I picked my moments and clawed my way back to pretty much even and then came the key hand. I`d made a pat hand 8-7 high and put in a pot sized raise and he came right over the top to put me all-in. I knew my hand was vulnerable but decided it was too good to fold and made the call. It turned out his raise was a stone cold bluff and it took just a couple more hands to finish him off and give me my 4th MLP medal. As always it was great to win, and I suppose I was the pre-game favourite as I was the more experienced player. I know my opponent was the one with the bigger set of cheerleaders on the rail. A couple of people commented on the forum they would have liked him to win. Not through any dislike of me (at least I hope not) but because he`s a popular fellow and so far has just the one win on his record. I`ve no problem with that, I`m just pleased to take the win.

I had a short break and then it was into the First Depositors Freeroll on PDC. I`ve had a poor run in the ones I`ve played with only one final table (10th) and one other cash. I managed to build a chipstack this time though and found myself at the final table. I played patient and opportunistic poker and eventually found myself HU. My opponent had a 4 or 5-1 chip advantage though and although I rallied a little I was never able to really get on terms and ended up taking 2nd. A nice little cash but I was disappointed to miss out on the accolade.



I didn`t get to play on Saturday. I went down to see a couple of mates in the Midlands. Had a fun day and came back Sunday morning. I was shattered and crashed out for the afternoon before getting up for an MLP game and the 50K freeroll on Walker. I managed to bubble the MLP game. It was annoying not because I bubbled but because I lost connection at Nordice twice and saw KK, AQ and JJ autofold. The AQ and JJ were whilst we were six handed and the blinds were pretty steep. Of course I might have busted out with either of those hands but it was cruel to see them and not have the chance to play them.

Playing the MLP game had made me 45 minutes late for the 50k but I still ahd around 1800 chips and by the first break I`d managed to get myself up to approx 3500. I was eventually crippled after 3-betting QQ to put a player all-in. He called and turned over AK then hit a K on the flop. That left me with a couple of hundred chips and I was out a couple of hands later.

I wasn`t going to play again but after noticing there was an OPT game at 2am I decided to jump in. There were only 7 or 8 players and I played a nice game. I was chip leader for the most part. Myself, Murry amd Magooch were the final three. For the major part of the battle I had about half the chips on the table. Then I ended up with AKs in the SB. Blinds were 200/400 and I made it 1k to go. Murry called the 600 and the flop came 3 diamonds. I shut down and folded to a bet on the river. I flipped my cards and Murry showed me K-7d for a flopped flush. That hand cost me the chip lead and I was hoping I could take out Magooch just to get HU on even terms. That`s exactly what happened when I raised with J-10d and called the small amount extra that Magooch had pushed in. His Q-8h went further ahead on the flop pairing his 8. The river saved the day for me though delivering a jack to send him to the rail.

So it was another cat and mouse game. We went back and forth for a bit with very little post flop action. The key hand was when I pushed from the SB with A-5 and Murry called and showed AK. It looked all over but the flop came 6-7-8 rainbow to give me some hope. The turn was a blank but the river was a 9 to give me the straight. That left Murry with just 2xBB and it was all over the next hand with my K-10 holding up against his 8-10. I don`t like to win via suckout but with blinds so high I don`t think my play was bad. It`s just poker as they say.

Carbon Summer Championships

These finished quite some time ago but I`ve been meaning to write up my results and here they are.

This was a month long series of games and 250 players would get a shot at the $15k jackpot at the end of the series. I didn`t really feel rolled enough to play all the events but I figured I could make a decent run on the leaderboard with a third to a half of the games.

First up for me was the FL Badugi a game I fancied my chances at and indeed proved reasonably successful at. I finished 14th/252 and my campaign was under way. The next game was the NLHE Turbo and wasn`t on my original list of games. However as I`d cashed in the previous nights game I decided to play. I had poor cards and a worse connection for most of the first hour but manged a slight recovery finishing in a respectable if not inspiring 113th/460. Not a great result but valuable points for later.

Next up was the PL 5 Card Draw another game I expected to do well in. I made a couple of errors throughout the game (although one did save me from elimination as it turned out) and never really managed to get any momentum going. Even so I finished 36th/232 an annoying six places shy of the money.

Then we had the Intercontinental Cup. No Americans in this one and subsequently a much shorter field. I played pretty well throughout and made my first final table of the series. I finished 9th/105 when as a shortstack my QQ was snapped by 99.

PLHE was next and I again managed a solid 67th/276. The next game for me was another I thought I would do well in,7 card stud. Unfortunately I was carddead throughout and finished a disappointing 110th/240. The next game was even worse and I wasn`t even going to play at first. PLOM8b is not a good game imo. As a FL game it`s great but it really doesn`t work in PL format. It certainly didn`t for me and I finished 193rd/251.

The next game gave me the chance to play a game I love but rarely get the chance to play, A-5 Triple Draw. Again I expected to do well, perhaps even win but in the end I only managed 47th/163. Not particularly my fault, I was outdrawn after standing pat with a very solid hand and was crippled after that. Amusingly I did make some profit from this game as Jazzer payed me a coaching fee after I`d given him a few tips and he cashed for $130.

The PLOM Second Chance was next on the menu and I played my usual tight omaha game to take 28th/216 without having to re-buy.

The NLHE Shootout was not on my initial list but as I was running ok and I wasn`t going to be able to play the HORSE game the next day I opted to play. I thought I might have done well Indeed I might have done had I not been still embroiled in the FTL HORSE MTT. We went on to take 1st,3rd and 4th in that and pretty much seal up the league. It really screwed up my Summer Champs game though and I crashed out 83rd/186.

Next up was the HORSE and although it was a game I knew I stood a great chance in I had guests and looked like missing it. Circumstances changed though and their unexpected and early departure saw me join 188 other hopefuls at the tables. I played solidly and well and went on to my second final table of the series finishing 7th/189.

The good run in the limit format continued the following evening as I finished a very reasonable 28th/227. Actually I probably should have done much better as I was in or around the top three for most of the game.

It was bounty time next and a game I really wasn`t looking forward to. That might have been why I ended up 103rd/281. Next up was Razz and I really wasn`t holding out too much hope as I`ve been running terribly in Razz of late. True to form I continued to hit brick after brick and finished a lousy 136th/179.

I was intending on missing the NLHE Rebuy but in the end decided to give it a whirl. I rebought once when my JJ ran into KK and I took the add-on at break managing a decent points position 97th/286.

The next game was the big one $20k GTD and I was freerolling. I had a coupon I`d won in a freeroll to cover the $60 entry and I`m glad I did. I felt full of energy and was buzzing to play when I first sat down. Within minutes though I knew my heart and mind wasn`t in it, or on it, or even remotely near it. I knew I was beat when I decided to call and just didn`t care. I don`t seem to have the number of players that entered but I know I was the 35th one out.

The disappointing result in the Main Event left me in 119th on the leaderboard where I`d expected to be inside the top 100. Only 231 of the qualifiers turned up and the field began witha staggered chip stack total relating to points scored throughout the series. Top stack was an online mate of mine Marjan with 6262 chips. The low stack had 1207 and I began with 2513. I just played pretty much ABC poker for the majority of the game. I was pretty short-stacked and looking like being eliminated but managed to double up on two consequetive hands and went from zero to hero challenging for the lead. I couldn`t maintain the pace though and ended up finishing 16th/231 for a nice little cash of $150.

All in all I thoroughly enjoyed the series although the starting times were far too late for most Europeans. I was pleasantly surprised by just how well I did throughout. If I had played all the games and managed the same average I would have been in, or close to the top 10 players in the series. With the final game I made a nice enough little profit but it could have been much better if I`d managed to convert a final table into a top 3 position rather than 9th and 7th.

Negative Attitude = Positive EFffect?

So can a negative attitude to poker actually result in a positive effect on your play?

It sounds a rather unusual question and you may be thinking that the answer is pretty obviously a resounding "No!". I`m not so sure though.

Now obviously I wouldn`t have asked this question if I didn`t think it related to my play. You see for the last couple of weeks I`ve hardly been playing. I went through a very bad patch losing so many hands as an 80%+ favourite on the turn or river that it became extremely annoying. Eventually that annoyance turned into resignation and I thought I`d take a few days off and only play again when the desire struck me again.

Well although I`ve hardly played since that decision, when I have played I`ve played extremely well. I won the Charity Ball and I`ve cashed in 7 of the 8 games I`ve played this week. None of them big wins, two of them just small free-roll cashes. Nonetheless I`ve played some very good poker in them.

So I`ve gone from being unable to cash to a very high success rate. Now there are several factors I can attribute this to. It could be that I`ve been luckier, hit a few more flops, sucked out more. But I don`t think that`s a big part of it.

It could be that I`ve made a significant advance in my play. Well I did read part of a book I was very impressed with that dealt with aggressive style play in NLHE tournaments. I do think that some of what I read sank in and helped my game. However, whilst I`d consider it a contributing factor I don`t think it`s the main reason.

I`ve also given HORSE a break and been playing mainly NLHE which is refreshing but whilst again it might be part of the reason I don`t consider it a huge factor.

So the main reason I think I`ve been playing well is this. I`ve played more aggressively and been much more willing to gamble than I usually am. As you can see that ties in with the book I read but I attribute it more to an uncaring attitude. I really haven`t cared wether I was going to win, or cash. As a result I`ve bet bigger, bluffed bigger, gambled a little more and as a result had a few more suckouts.They say a great high stakes player has to have a complete disregard for money and I truly understand what they mean. Not that I`m claiming to be a high stakes player. I just mean that not caring about the result grants you a level of mental freedom in your play. I haven`t been playing crazy loose just more aggressive. In situations I would normally call or fold in I`ve been far more likely to raise and for the most part it`s worked. All of this has given me an excellent set of results. The funny thing is I still feel rather disinterested in the game despite the fact I`m playing some very good poker. So has a negative attitude had a positive effect?

I think it has and hopefully as my enthusiasm for the game returns (as I`m sure it will) I`ll be able to take what I`ve learned and continue to employ it as a very effective weapon.

YES! YES! YES!

No I`m not recreating that famous scence from "When Harry Met Sally" I am however extremely pleased with myself at the moment. Two wins in two days and this time it isn`t a little sng. In fact it`s a tournament I`ve wanted to win for absolutely ages. It`s not a tournament that has a huge payout because half of the buy-in goes to charity. Instead the winner is gifted with a rather nice shield accolade on their avatar. Run every month this is one of the best spirited games you`re ever likely to play. I guess the kind of people that get off bad mouthing players and generally annoying people aren`t the kind of people that are going to donate money to a charity. Go figure . . .

Anyway it means I`ve finally managed to pick up an accolade after about two years of trying. I`ve been close on numerous occasions but I`ve always fallen just short. But not tonight! What makes it even better is that I played what might well have been the best game of my life in winning it. I ran in 2nd and 3rd place for the major part of the game, only taking the lead when at the final table. It slipped away for a while when we got down to four players but after I eliminated 3rd place I had a 2-1 chip lead and was in no mood to let it slip away from me. I can`t recall a time I`ve played so aggressively throughout an entire tournament. There`s no doubt I had some very good cards but I took more than a few blinds betting out with mediocre hands against a pretty tight table. I had a couple of lucky breaks on the way too but that`s to be expected in a tournament.

If anyone wants to play this fun tourney it`s held on the first Saturday of every month on the Merge network. It`s called The 5th Street Charity Ball. It`s a $4+40 buy-in and $2 goes to the prize pool, the other $2 goes to The Make A Wish Foundation. It`s a great cause and I know you`d have a great time playing.