2008 Year in Review: Craziest Poker Hands: Part 3

by Bodog Poker | Jan 12 2009

Every now and then a deck of cards can defy all logic and produce a poker hand that seems impossible. I recall dealing a hand in a home game years ago where one of the players was dead to running sixes. The only way he could win the hand was to hit a six on the turn and the river, to give him quad sixes. As we all do, we figured out the outs that were required before I dealt the last two community cards, and we all laughed a bit when the first six hit on the turn. As I flipped over the river card, everyone at the table yelled in disbelief that the two cards actually found their way to the right spots in the deck to produce the bad beat.

I’ve since gone on to play tens of thousands of hands, and every now and then this type of situation will be produced. Usually when one of these crazy hands happens we hear about it through word of mouth, when someone is telling a bad beat story. But at this year’s World Series of Poker one of these crazy hands was caught on tape, in the biggest tournament on the planet.

Justin Phillips and Motoyuki Mabuchi were sitting at a table in the main event of this year’s WSOP when a crazy thing happened. With a board of Ah-9c-Qd-10d-Ad Mabuchi pushed in the remainder of his stack. Phillips couldn’t call the all-in bet fast enough because he was holding K-J of diamonds for a royal flush. Mabuchi pushed in all his chips because he was holding quad aces. The chances of hitting a royal flush against quad aces in Texas hold’em is about 1 in 165 million. I don’t think the average player gets anywhere near that number of hands in a lifetime, but that time the cameras captured it for everyone to see.

Another crazy hand that occurred this year was on Poker After Dark when Gus Hansen was playing against a table full of some of the world’s best female poker players. Hansen was dealt Ac-3d and went all-in for his remaining $4550. Erica Schoenberg decided that she would call Gus’ bet blind, and threw in the remaining $2550. She flipped over 8-7 of diamonds. The flop came out in Erica’s favour in the form of Jc-7s-Jd. The turn card was another jack, giving Schoenberg a full house and an 86.36% to win the hand with one card to go. In typical Gus Hansen fashion, the river was the case jack, giving both players quad jacks. Schoenberg’s seven no longer played, and Hansen’s ace became the bigger kicker to win the hand. Her full house got counterfeited on the river, and to make it worse Hansen even called the case jack to come before it happened.

So the next time a crazy hand like that happens to you, you’ll know that it doesn’t only occur online. Crazy hands happen in live games as often as they do online, and it’s only a matter of time before another one happens in a game you’re playing in.

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