The first happened very recently to a good friend of mine, in fact, just before he came over for dinner at our house. My friend is a professional gambler, spending most of his time on one of the online betting exchanges. On this particular site you can play blackjack and you can play either for real or for fun. Often, when he is bored, my friend plays the fun money blackjack simply to unwind and relax. So while he was waiting for us to come and pick him up he sat down to play a few hands. Pretty soon he was up over 6000 play points at which time we knock at the door. When he gets home again he plays some more, loses the 6000 play chips he had won earlier plus 75 more! The next morning, after studying the days racing he logs onto his account as he has decided there is a good bet, only to find his account light. He goes into his account history thinking he must simply have had a bet that he had forgotten about and discovers, to his absolute horror, that he had all along, been playing for real money! It wasn’t losing the £75 that hurt as much as the fact that he had won over £6000, had been completely unaware of it and just gambled the whole lot away again!! I think he is still seriously considering therapy to help him get over it!! The next tale should teach us all a good lesson in mixing excessive alcohol with poker! My friend and his son had had a very boozy evening and after staggering home have the bright idea that they will play a bit of online poker. My friend, in his inebriated wisdom, decides that they should play “large” and tells his son to pull up £5000, the maximum allowed on his account on any one day. They sit in a no limit game with blinds at £10, £20. They actually play pretty tightly for nearly an hour and are still about level when they find the aces. There are quite a few flat callers and they make it £600 to play, finding 2 callers for the raise. The flop comes Ac Qc 9h and the player under the gun bets £800. My friend moves all in for about £3500 more (about £4,300 total). The third player, who has not acted yet, calls, and the original bettor passes. As it is a cash game it does not go on their backs. The next 2 cards are running clubs and my friend thinks he may already know his fate and curses: though it was nothing to what came out of his mouth after he sees his opponent’s hand. They turn over 7d 2c, having made a back door 2 high flush to scoop an £11,000 pot, against his top set: their only way out!! Rather than take this most absolutely appalling bad play/bad beat lying- down, my friend orders his son to get him the number of support for the site he is playing on. He now finds himself feeling astonishingly sober and is in the middle of telling the lady from customer support that not only will he be reporting their site to the gaming commission for quite obvious site rigging (how else could the player have called) he is going to be contacting his solicitor to personally sue them for his losses, when his son discovers that they have, in fact, been playing in a play chip game all along!! Though he was literally giddy with relief, he still had a very profuse apology to make to the site representative at the other end of the phone! I am only including my last story under “amusing” as the person who it happened to can also see the funny side of it now! It is, for reasons that will become clear, the worst bad beat I have ever heard! He is playing in a big online tournament and is only a few off the money but is desperate for the loo. Knowing he won’t be able to concentrate properly at this most crucial of stages, he decides that as his time bank will kick in, if he’s quick, he’ll be able to go without missing a hand. In his house he has a spiral staircase and his computer desk lies at the bottom of it. On his way back down, at the bottom of the staircase, he can see his cards and its 2 kings! In his obvious haste to get back before his time runs out, he trips and breaks his nose on his computer desk. Undeterred, on his knees and pouring with blood, he manages to slide his mouse all the way to put himself all in, with milliseconds to spare before his time runs out, only to walk into aces on the big blind and pretty much bubble in the tournament! It really gives a whole new meaning when we say that any bad beat was like a kick in the face! |
