Royal Flush on the River Disqualifies Bad Beat Jackpot at Texas Poker Room?
A one-outer on the river, perhaps for the first time ever, killed a bad beat jackpot from being set off at The Lodge Card Club near Austin, Texas.
Yes, you read that right. The pot-limit Omaha bad beat jackpot at the card room co-owned by Doug Polk, Andrew Neeme, and Brad Owen, is up to $118,000 from its $100,000 starting point. The jackpot qualifier had been reached on the flop when two players in a mid-stakes game each hit a straight flush. But the qualifier ended when a one-outer royal flush appeared on the river, making the hand a true bad beat, and nobody was paid anything.
The Lodge Bad Beat Jackpot Details
The flop came out J♦9♦10♦, and one player had 8♦7♦ among their four cards, while the other had K♦Q♦, giving both players a straight flush. That was good news for the player with the weaker straight flush as it made for a bad beat jackpot qualifying hand.
Hitting a BBJ in PLO at The Lodge Card Club requires a straight flush to lose on the flop, and exactly two hole cards must be played. Straight flush losing to straight flush, by those rules, would qualify. The payouts call for 50% of the pot — $57,200 in this case — to be awarded to the player with the losing hand, 25% to the player with the winning hand ($28,600), and the remaining 25% to be shared among the others at the table and within the room. There were 39 players in games across the room , each would have received an equal share of $3,900, while table share would have been good for $5,700 a pop.
It appeared to be time to celebrate for every one in the game. One player was about to earn nearly $60,000, another set to take home around $30,000, and even the players who weren't in the hand were going to receive a few grand each. But nobody ended up getting a penny from the jackpot due to a unique rule at the Round Rock, Texas poker room.
The turn card was the irrelevant J♥, but the A♦ on the river very much was relevant, and costly. There's a unique rule at The Lodge Card Club, the largest poker room in Texas, that prevented the bad beat jackpot from being set off.
This bad beat jackpot is "flop only," which means for it to trigger, a straight flush must lose to a superior hand on the flop. But, per the rules, the winning and losing hands must be flopped. So, in the case of the above hand, the winning hand — a royal flush — occurred on the river, making the "sad" beat jackpot null and void.
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