Poker, like the movie industry, tends to report bigger numbers year after year. 2009 has been about breaking records in every department. The biggest pots ever to change hands happened in 2009. The most massive tournament pools in history? 2009.
And the largest Bad Beat Jackpot ever triggered happened in February of this year.
The hand in question played out on the Merge Network, and the unlucky player (or incredibly lucky, depending on your opinion) was a member of Carbon Poker. Carbon’s terms for what constitutes a bad beat are more flexible than many other sites: to trigger the Jackpot you need to lose while holding quad sevens.
On the day it happened, a player with the screen name of RUGGIO was playing a $100 buy-in No Limit Texas Hold’em game at the poker website Carbon’s Poker. If you’re not clear how this works, the company kicks a slice of the rake into the Jackpot on every hand, at specific tables only.
RUGGIO held 7-8 suited, and the matching 9 and J arrived on the flop. He held out through some low level bidding in the hopes of completing a flush, and the river brought him a 10, giving him a natural straight. Confident of success, he went all in. He was beaten by a higher straight, but this triggered a Bad Beat Jackpot worth $1.2 million! After the split, RUGGIO took home $417,396, the biggest pot of its kind in history.
