Bad beat mania broke out big time this week in Atlantic City with early returns showing that somewhere near $900,000 in monies were paid out in three days, including today. We haven’t been able to sure up all the details from this bevy of hits, but here’s what we know.

The Tropicana bad beat jackpot, the biggest in the city, has finally hit for about $543,000, more than one month after topping $500K. The hit came Thursday, Oct. 13, at a $2, $4, $6 limit game.

Exact details haven’t been released, but the jackpot winner, Alan H. Silvani

Trop bad beat jackpot winner Silvani

from Toms River, won more than $217,000. The hand winner won $108,500 and $27,100 went to eight other players.

Like we said, this ends several months of a high level of play at the about 40-table Tropicana room since the jackpot first hit $300,000 in the summer and is by far a record payout for the Trop.

“Actually, I’m kind of sorry to see it hit,” says Bruce Pearlman, poker room manager for the Trop. “I mean I’m happy for the winners and sure, we were working hard, but that’s what we do. The room was full, the players were happy, the dealers were happy. That’s the point of the jackpot, to build some excitement.”

One strategy that seems to have worked was the low rake for the jackpot since it hit about $300K. That’s allowed the casino to reset its jackpot at $241,554, already the second highest in the city behind The Borgata.

“By Christmas, I’d like to see it back up there again,” says Pearlman.

The Taj Mahal’s bad beat jackpot hit Wednesday for $200,276.56.

Quad fives lost to quad eights (remember, the Taj has the old-fashioned minimum of quad deuces) and a guy named Tom Miller won $100,138.50. The hand winner won $50,069.25 and seven other players at the table won $7,152.75.

At the moment, the Taj bad beat is at $52K which makes you think there may have been yet another hit in between Wednesday and today (these things usually reset at about $100K). We’re checking.

Finally, the Caesars Entertainment combined bad beat jackpot hit today (Oct. 14). It’s the seventh hit of the combined since early August and the second hit since Oct. 3.  The Jackpot was $143,593. It’s now at $103,912.

The minimum hand was set at quad 10s. The winning hand was four  queens beating four jacks, The bad beat winner got $43,409 and the winning hand was paid $29,150 20. There were 111 players in the four Harrah’s rooms and each was paid $631.

So whew. That’s $885,000 in bad beat money for sure, and possibly another about $100,000 if The Taj did see a second hit.

And that’s since Wednesday. Today’s Friday.

There’s a reason the bad beat jackpots are worth following.

Meanwhile the only untouched bad beat jackpot is at The Borgata, which is now at $285,000 and had a hit on its small bad beat ($50K) last week,

You gotta figure its due.

The Trop’s bad beat jackpot has passed $500K, coming in at about $502,000 going into today’s play. And thanks to one of our sharper readers (thanks Allin), we’ve figured out why the rate of increase for the jackpot has slowed down noticeably.

Normally, the casino has a drop of about 70 percent towards its bad beat jackpot, 20 percent for its reserve jackpot (to be used to replenish the jackpot after a hit) and 10 percent for its 38 Special Jackpot (more on that later).

However, the casino changed that drop at about $300K. The bad beat jackpot is now getting only 20 percent of the bad beat rake, with 70 percent going to the reserve.

Trop officials say that with the jackpot this high, they know players will be coming to the room. Rather than worry about setting a record, they want to ensure that their bad beat will be in good shape when this jackpot hits, keeping the bad beat fun going.

If the jackpot were to hit today, the jackpot would be reset to about $200K, Trop officials said.

Still, even with the low rake, the jackpot is gaining about $2K a day. (more…)

The Tropicana’s bad beat jackpot survived the weekend and is now sitting at about $489,000. That means it picked up about $15K over the weekend.

The Trop has been busy 24/7 for the last couple of weeks, but as a smaller room (about 18 cash games going at one time on weekdays) it’s not going to see the kind of day-to-day growth we’ve seen at rooms such as The Borgata and the Taj.  And of course the Caesars combined bad beat jackpot grows daily through play at four casinos.

But none of that really matters now. Only a handful of bad beat jackpots have ever topped $500,000 in the city and the Trop is knocking at the door. Expect the lines to just get longer.

Meanwhile, in some other Tropicana news, the casino seems to have developed a philosophy of “If you can’t beat them, join them.”

The casino has tapped high roller Don Johnson (not the Miami Vice guy) to host a $100,000 winner take all Blackjack tournament Sept 2^nd and 3^rd. Johnson was the high roller who clipped the Trop for more than $5 million at the blackjack tables in April.

Since then, Johnson has become a quasi-celeb, famed for some indulgent champagne purchases, and a pretty feared whale at the casinos. But the Trop is turning what was at first some bad press into some positive buzz.

The tournament is actually invitation only, but you can score an invite by signing up for a free Diamond Club Card on September 2 at the casino.

The Trop is also donating $10,000 to the Jon Bon Jovi Soul Foundation, Johnson’s favorite charity.

You gotta hand it to the Trop. It’s a pretty smart play. Go here for details.

It’s official. The Tropicana is now in the grips of bad beat mania.

The bad beat jackpot has climbed to $474,533, by far a new record for the casino and not bad by any A.C. casino’s standards.

Isabelle Mercier

“We’re going 24/7 here now,” says Bruce Pearlman, Trop poker manager. “This thing just keeps climbing. We’re running 27 tables all day on the weekends and 18 on the weekdays.

“It’s great to see this, but it is beating my staff up a little,” he says. “They’re working non-stop. You kind of want to see it crack, but at the same time you don’t.”

The Trop sets the minimum for the bad beat at quad eights, a move made more than a year ago to pump up the jackpot. Yet despite that, the Trop has never made it to these lofty heights.

Of course the record for an A.C. bad beat is still $672,000 set in June 2010 at the Taj Mahal, a room nearly twice the size of the Tropicana’s.

The Borgata has the next highest bad beat jackpot in the city at $366,022, while the Caesars combined jackpot is at $149,124.

And the Taj’s bad beat jackpot is back down to $23,000, indicating yet another hit this week, but no details have been released.

This weekend also offers up the Put a Bad Beat on Hunger tournament event on Sunday at the Borgata. The tournament is being run through Cabot Creamery Cooperative in support of the Food Bank of Southern New Jersey

The casino is also offering up a satellite for The Sept. 18 Borgata Open Championship on Sunday. Get the details for both events here.

See you at the Trop grinders.

Here’s a few quick hits from around town.

The Tropicana’s bad beat jackpot has climbed to $444,000, one of the highest ever for a mid-sized room like the Trop’s with 40 tables.

Last year, the 20-table Bally’s poker room saw its bad beat climb to about $400K in July just before Caesars Entertainment combined its bad beat jackpot among its four properties and, of course, Caesars (24-tables) set a then record for an Atlantic City bad beat in January of last year at $553,000.

Still, the Trop’s bad beat is pretty impressive for a single room that’s not the Borgata or Taj Mahal.

Meanwhile, the casino has added some affordable midnight poker tournaments to its schedule. The games are $35 + $7 Sunday through Thursday and $50 + $12 Fridays and Saturdays. That’s one of the lowest priced tournament deals in Atlantic City.

Over at the Borgata, the casino announced the winner of its weekend, $1,500 + $150, No Limit Deepstack event.

The event drew a healthy 400 entries and had a total buy-in of $600,000, more than doubling the guarantee.

The winner was Russell Crane of Howell Township (Woo Hoo, go Howell), who takes home $148,705. The tournament paid 45 slots.

And the Borgata also saw 991 entries for its Saturday series Aug. 6. The $350 + $50 tournament got 991 entries for a total buy-in of $346,850. The winner, Ohmar Ghanim of Patterson won $75,720.

Of course, as always, these are just the official win totals and there may have been agreed upon splits at the final tables, which are the player’s prerogatives and pretty much unreported.

News has come down of another big hit of a bad beat jackpot, this time at The Tropicana. The jackpot hit for $294,992.78 about 9:30pm Tuesday.

That means in a span of four days, Atlantic City’s bad beat jackpots have hit three times and paid out more than $1.2 million dollars to 25 players.

This hit was a classic quads losing to quads and made the Trop’s quad eights minimum.

Michael Gendal of Coram NY hit quad nines at a $1/$2 No Limit table. A player wishing to remain anonymous (try that with the IRS, pal) hit quad jacks.

Gendal wins $117,997.78 while anonymous boy wins $58,998.58. Six remaining players won $16,856 each.

The about $295K bad beat was pretty high for the 35-table room at the Trop. With hits at The Borgata, The Taj and now the Trop, the Caesars combined bad beat could be next. It’s at $327,633 with four eights as the minimum.

Gendal and another big check

Way back on July 6^th, the bad beat jackpot hit at the Tropicana and paid $75K to the winner (or hand loser). And in our lightning quick fashion, we’ve got some of the info.

Here’s the rundown from the Trop:

On July 6th, we had the 28th Bad Beat hit at the Tropicana for $187,849.10.  Now…who said it couldn’t be done? Timothy Jones was sitting pretty with a pair of 9s in hand and  a pair of 9s on the flop. Charles Ferrara lingered in the game with two queens in hand and one on the flop, before catching the 4th queen on the river.  While the remaining six players strolled away with $12,523.27 each, s Ferrara grabbed $37,569.82.  And the BB winner, Timothy Jones pocketed $75,139.64.

We’re assuming Jones slow played the nines, which, ironically, worked beautifully.

Also, the “who said it couldn’t be done” reference comes from the Trop raising the minimum hand for the bad beat to quad eights. The move was designed to amp up the jackpot a little so the Trop could compete with the city’s larger rooms. In just over two months, the jackpot has hit twice.

Listening to Tropicana Poker Room manager Scott Griffin talk about his decision to up the casino’s minimum bad beat hand to quad eights, you come to a quick conclusion.

This makes a lot of sense, especially for a smaller poker room like the Trop’s with 35 tables.

As we reported one whole post ago, late last week the Tropicana upped the minimum bad beat hand from quad deuces to quad eights. It’s pretty clear Griffin quickly got some flack from customers worried that the jackpot would never hit. Then just two days later it did hit, proving Griffin’s point that the move is designed to create larger jackpots, not unhittable ones.

“Our average bad beat jackpot is only about $117,000 and it hits almost every other month to the day and then it hits multiple times, even twice in the same day,” Griffin tells AC Weekly. “There have been so many times that it hits several times in a few days. This is just a way to provide higher jackpots to our customers.”

Griffin also feels that the higher qualifier will cut down on players focusing on the bad beat, rather than the hand they actually have.

(more…)

Since bad beat jackpots were introduced in Atlantic City poker rooms about two years ago, they’ve become a huge draw for poker players. But there’s also been a slight trend lately for the rooms to up the minimum high hand that qualifies for the bad beat. When they began, most bad beats were at a high full house, usually aces over jacks, losing to quads or better. Now most rooms are set at quads being the minimum hand.

Enter the Tropicana, which late last week really upped the minimum hand to four eights or better.

I know. You’re thinking that will hardly ever hit.

Except that it did — just two days later. On Sunday, May 9,  10 players split an about $100,000 bad beat jackpot.

Cirmi and his check

“Many customers thought it was now too tough to hit,” says Scott Griffin, poker manager for the Trop. “But (Sunday) 10 players at a $1/2 No Limit table and everyone else in the room could see first hand that it is still possible, In fact, out of the now 27 times the jackpot has hit, 17 jackpots have been four eights or better.”

In this case, four queens lost out to a straight flush.

Player Jonathan Cirmi was holding pocket queens when the flop came out as queen of clubs, king of clubs and queen of hearts, giving him quad queens. But there was one little problem. Player, Devin Stoll was sitting on ace of clubs, jack of clubs — one card off the Royal Flush. The turn card? A 10 of clubs. (more…)