Swinging Decks

From hirp.com (not sure where he go it, but it's a great story):

Spouses who play together, stay together. At least that’s what I tell Jocelyn whenever I’m aching for a game of cards. So it’s easy to see why I enjoyed this tale from a poker-playing husband. “I’m ready to tell the story today,” he wrote, “now that I’ve recovered from the shock.” (Note to self: Start every story that way.)

“My wife always gets these coupons for ‘free’ cash from the casinos. So, last night, she went and got 20 bucks from Ameristar and then took that over to Harrah’s and picked up another 15 bucks. She put her 35 bucks into two slot machines. Usually she burns through that and comes home. Well, last night she churned it up into about 130 bucks.”

That’s not all.

The story continues with her taking that $130 to the poker room, winning a couple hundred bucks more before:
“She was dealt Qs-Qd. The betting was multiway and capped. The flop was Jh-Qh-7d. The betting was multiway and capped. The turn was the Js. The betting remained three-way and capped. The river was the Qc. The player with K-10 missed his open-ended straight draw and dropped out. She and her opponent went at it and capped it a fourth time. She turned over her queens and he flipped over the Jd-Jc.”

So her quad queens beat his quad jacks? Sounds like a bad beat to me. Enough of a bad beat to trigger Harrah’s jackpot, which on this night stood at more than $130,000 as it waited for someone to lose with such a colossal hand.

“There was a moment of silence and a collective gasp as everyone realized what had just happened,” he wrote. “Then the place went nuts. As the winner of the hand, she got 25 percent of the jackpot pool. Mr. Jacks got 50 percent for taking a brutal beat and the rest of the table split the remaining 25 percent for witnessing. Not bad for having 20 bucks to her name when she walked in the door.”

Now you can see why I’ve tried to protect their identity. Imagine the “friends” who would want to mooch part of a $32,500 payday. As it is, she’s already received the celebrity treatment. Here’s her husband to explain some more:

“Once the bad beat hit, they stopped everything at the table. The pot was frozen as-is. The floor people came over and checked everything out to make sure the hand and pot size met the requirements. “Then they asked for everyone’s players cards and identification and left to fill out a bunch of paperwork. Thirty minutes later, they were told they could start playing cards again. An hour or so after that, they showed up with the payoff.

“What’s interesting is that everything is paid in chips — orange $500 chips! After that, you’re free to keep playing or cash out.” She cashed out.

And what about the bad-beat jackpot? Because they start planning ahead before the old one is won, the new one already tops $80,000.

Good luck getting beat. You can even make a date out of it.