You don’t hear much about online poker bad beat jackpots anymore. Back in “the day,” they were quite popular, as players loved having that miniscule chance at a gigantic payday in what would otherwise be a regular cash game. But over time, people stopped wanted to pay the extra drop for the jackpot and the bad beat tables declined in popularity. They still exist, though, and one of the largest jackpots of all time was hit this past Sunday night on the Chico Network, worth $994,119.
The Chico Network is comprised of just three poker rooms – BetOnline.ag, TigerGaming.com, and SportsBetting.ag – but it still sits at 15th in PokerScout’s cash game traffic rankings with a seven-day average of 700 cash game players. One thing that likely elevates the Chico Network despite having such a small roster of skins is that it is a “gray market” site, meaning that it accepts U.S. customers.
On the Chico Network, the bad beat jackpot starts at $100,000 and increases constantly, as long as it hasn’t been hit. An extra rake is taken from the pot at specially-marked bad beat jackpot tables at the rate of 10 cents per $4 in the pot, with a maximum of 50 cents per hand. For a hand to qualify for the bad beat jackpot, a player must lose a hand holding four of a kind Jacks or better. At least four players must be dealt into the hand, the hand must go to showdown, and both the winning hand and losing hand must use both of their hole cards.
The loser of the hand – and thus the “winner” of the bad beat – receives 27.5 percent of the bad beat jackpot. The winner of the hand gets 15 percent, the other players who were dealt cards at the table split 15 percent equally, 5 percent is split evenly among players at the other bad beat jackpot tables, 10 percent goes to the house, and the remaining 27.5 percent is used to seed the next jackpot.
In the big hand on Sunday, there were four players dealt in. “pokerplayer4ever” had Qd-Td, while “Tyrant” had Js-Jc at a $1/$2 No-Limit Hold’em table. Tyrant raised to $5 pre-flop, pokerplayer4ever re-raised to $18, the other two players folded, and Tyrant called.
The flop of 8d-9d-Jd had to have made pokerplayer4ever’s heart jump, as he had just flopped a straight-flush. Tyrant checked, pokerplayer4ever bet $10.17, and Tyrant called. The 4d came on the turn and both players checked. The river was the Jh, giving Tyrant quads! He checked, pokerplayer4ever moved all-in for $179.22 and at that point, Tyrant had to know he was about to profit a couple hundred bucks or nail the score of a lifetime.
Think about it. Tyrant had quads and saw his opponent, who had been aggressive except for the turn, move all-in with four diamonds on the board, plus straight and flush possibilities. Tyrant had almost every hand dead to rights, so he was definitely winning – in most cases – a $400 pot.
But there were two combinations of hole cards he could lose to – Q-T or 7-T of diamonds – and one of those was the hand that pokerplayer4ever had. And since they were at the bad beat jackpot table, Tyrant knew he was about to make some money.
As the loser of the hand, Tyrant won the largest portion of the bad beat jackpot, $273,382.82. pokerplayer4ever received $149,018.49 for winning the hand and the other two players won $74,509.25 and $74,509.24.
The sad part of this tale, though, is that there were two players at the table who were sitting out. Those bathroom breaks cost over $37,000 each.
