The Tropicana will introduce a new twist on bad beat jackpots this Friday which it’s calling the “38 Special.”

Basically it works like this.

If a player is dealt a three and an eight in the hole, they have a shot at the jackpot. If another three and an eight come out, giving them two pair, they’re in it. If their two pair goes down to quads, they win the jackpot.

The jackpot is split 70 percent, 30 percent between the two players.

Both hole cards must be in play for the hand winner, making it possible to win without a pocket pair. If a player matches three on the board, he or she must also hold the best kicker, or basically be able to beat the board’s kicker.

Ok, sounds like a long shot, but according to Bruce Pearlman, poker manager at the Trop, he’s just trying to pump some energy into the bad beat scene.

“I actually saw this at a small place in California years ago, so its been around,” says Pearlman. “What I’m trying to do is to liven up the bad beats. I think things have gotten a little stale.”

The vig for the 38 Special bad beat will come from the regular bad beat take, at about 10 percent. The opening jackpot will be $1,000.

“We won’t be taking anymore money out of the room,” he says. “You know, we’ll monitor this and see how it’s playing out. The point is to do something new and hopefully exciting.”

Of course, part of the idea is to make one of the worst starting hands more playable and hopefully fun. But Pearlman did acknowledge that the three, eight combo leads to a much better name than the “27 special.”

By the way, there’s no actual connection between this jackpot and the southern rock group 38 Special. We just like this album cover.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 22nd, 2011 at 3:40 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.