Bad Beats and Lucky Draws

As they say, Welcome to the Hellmuth.

There is a reason Phil Hellmuth Jr. wrote a book titled Bad Beats and Lucky Draws, as I found out personally at a table in New York City’s East Village.

One of the developments that came out of the poker explosion of the past few years -- besides getting everyone on earth playing online -- is that companies began using poker as the new way to get people to attend events.

Netflix did just that a year ago when they held a poker tournament for editors of male-audience magazines in a townhouse in the East Village of New York City to help garner coverage for their service. You would have to think their PR people would know that Maxim and Stuff wouldn’t be writing stories about renting videos online, but damned if over 100 editors and writers weren’t in the house.

Especially since the first prize was a seat (and free hotel and airfare) in the World Series of Poker. Factor in that it was an open bar and had a free cigar room, who in his right mind would skip this party?

The guest emcee of the tournament was Phil Hellmuth, who, besides garnering I am sure a pretty sizable appearance fee, was there promoting his new book Bad Beats and Lucky Draws. The book illustrates the point that even if you play the hand perfectly you can still lose the hand. Something I was about to find out for myself in about a half-hour.

My two co-workers and I arrived about an hour early to the event, so after our little tutorial on how to use Netflix, we were just sitting around waiting for the tournament to start. So Hellmuth, equally bored, decided to start up a side game with the 10 people sitting around. It sounded good to me and my comrades, so we grabbed one of the dealers and started up at one of the tourney tables.

All of us playing got $5,000 in chips and Hellmuth was just as mouthy and arrogant as the reputation that precedes him. I am not saying he isn’t a nice guy, but if you were the one of the best players in the world playing against a bunch of amateurs how would you act?

After about a half-hour, six people were already out, with Hellmuth taking about 60 percent of their chips. It was his turn to act first. He takes a quick peek at his cards and then does something nobody was expecting; he pushes all-in.

As the three players following him fold, I pull up the corners of my two cards and find pocket aces. So my decision to call has been made for me, as there is no way he could have a better starting hand. Even though I assume he must have a great hand himself.

Everyone else folds to me and I call, for which Hellmuth immediately says, "Got you beat," and flips over a King and Eight of Spades. "No you don’t," I reply and flip over the pocket rockets. By now there's about 40 people watching the game waiting for the tournament to start, and they all started to ooh and ahh. "You got me dominated," Hellmuth responded.

The flop comes; 3-5-10 of mixed suits, meaning that the flush draw is gone. The only way I could lose is with running Kings, and what are the odds of that with a King already accounted for? Another player at the table announces that he'd had a King in his hand, so there are only two Kings left in the deck.

Fourth Street, King. A murmur starts to rise from the crowd as Hellmuth remarks, "Only one card in the deck can help me." The fifth and final card is flipped, and it is another King. The crowd erupts as I sit in complete disbelief. "That is a bad beat," Hellmuth says to me, "it happens to the best of us."

While waiting for the tables to get set up for the tournament I decide to get some air with a glass of Scotch on the terrace. One after another, people are coming up to me offering their condolences with phrases like "Can’t believe he caught two Kings," and "That’s Hellmuth for you."

Despite that terrible start to the evening, I was able to rally and finish 25th in the tournament, which got me in the money, meaning I got a gift bag. Amazingly I was knocked out by my co-worker whom I taught how to play Texas Holdem in the office before we left.

He had called my all-in with a Q-8 offsuit against my pocket Jacks and caught a Queen on Fifth Street.

I guess it just wasn’t my night.