I recently received an email from Casino Jai Alai in Miami announcing their new BBJ. In order to qualify, you must get beat out of a pot while holding at least (lol) a queen-high straight flush. Anybody care to put an over/under on when - - - or rather if - - - it will be hit.

http://www.casinomiamijaialai.com/poker-promotions/

Yeah. Its absurd. They say the standard is going to go lower as the jackpot builds, and they point out that they put in the initial 50k, but still...I don't know why they would expect their patrons to have a positive reaction to this promotion.

So there's literally only one hand/board combination that can attain this? Seems completely absurd.

Might be a bit off, but I calculate the odds of one player (10 handed) holding AK suited and another player holding 98 suited in the same suit to be approx 1 in 4580 preflop.
Then "all you need" is for the river board to contain QJT of that suit.

WizardOfOdds gives the odds of the jackpot hitting at roughly one in 8.3 million

But hey, they let 18 year olds play poker.

Where did you read/hear this?

you also must use both "hold" cards. Doesn't sound like it was designed by someone that knows poker. Hopefully they forget to rake it.

No, it just means that it was written by someone whose first language is not English. Quite common down here.

Still not the toughest bbj to hit that I've ever heard of.

Dog track in West Memphis, AR had those electronic tables and seeded the bbj with one MILLLLLLLLION dollars. "All you had to do" was get your quad 6's beat by a Royal. Not "quad 6's or better", but specifically quad 6's.

I'm too lazy to do the math, but I estimate that the place could be open for a million years without ever having to pay out that money.

they may want the pot to grow to 150K or whatever first then lower the qualifications,

If not, they will never ever get my dollar for this jackpot which is just short of impossible to get hit. I would play elsewhere.

It might also be a typo or a miscommunication since whoever wrote that doesn't even know what a "hold" card is.

Hialeah is my favorite place to play cash, and I haven't been there in 18 months. I miss being the only person speaking English as a primary language at the table and the straddle any amount in any position. It's also really nice inside. I'm sure that BBJ is temporary, as said to build it up for when it hits. I remember Hard Rock Immokalee had an 85K bad beat back in 2012 where AAAJJ had to be beat (started at 9999), with both hole cards. Best part was there was only one table, maybe two running on any given day. I don't even know how to calculate the equity in playing that, adding in the table share, but I am sure it is somewhat significant.

BestBet Jacksonville now keeps their BBJ qualifier at quad 10s.... until it reaches $500,000. Then it drops to quad 2s immediately. lol

wtf

Am I the only person who thinks that when the jackpot is lower it should be easier to hit and the qualifications should get HIGHER as the jackpot grows.

BBJ like those described are just commercials for the room. Especially small rooms with only a few active tables! Just a carnival midway environment for casual players.

Why is this harder to hit? Is it because it requires 5 perfect community cards as compared 3 in the OP?

In my uneducated opinion, yes.

I just google'd it, turns out that $1M bbj was tried in AR and a few other places as a test to see if it would draw more business. I guess it didn't, as that room now advertises a $9500 bbj in hold'em, and I can't find any mention of the $1M ever being paid out.

I did find this 2+2 thread, though, where a PokerTek rep was asking us if this sounded like something that would attract players. Most responses were "I hate not using real cards/chips blahblahblah...", but my favorite response was: "We discussed this already and the consensus was we had a better chance at finding $1M hiding under a pile of dog ****."

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/27...d-beat-356868/

you guys realize it is just a scam so they can legally take out 10% of the BBJ money to use as promotion for the card room right?

When you say that are you aware that Florida regulations don't allow that?

So much for that theory......

I think if anything, this will hurt the room (which was already teetering on irrelevance anyway). All rooms in SoFla rake/drop $5+$2, with the vast majority of the $2 drop being paid back out in high hand bonuses throughout the day of as much as $1,500. With the implementation of this BBJ, this room will no doubt severely reduce the amount that they routinely pay out in such bonuses.

yeah, your the only one.

The reason the rooms love when the jackpot gets huge is because it draws in more players hoping to hit it. But if the jackpot is that much harder to hit with high qualifications, that will just turn the people away thinking it's too hard to hit it.

I'm not saying it should be impossible to hit. Just that the typical procedure of starting the jackpot low and the requirements high and then lowering the requirements as the jackpot grows seems screwy to me.

Why should I come in and play when the jackpot is low AND hardest to hit?

The incentive to get me in when the jackpot is low is should be that its easier to hit. Then if it doesn't hit as it gets higher the higher prize becomes the incentive and making it harder to hit (but not impossible) the fact that its harder will be offset by the size.

So if you have a jackpot that resets at $20k maybe Aces full of 10's beat is a reasonable quailification. But if it builds up to $120k maybe Quad 4's beat is more reasonable. And $200k maybe Quad 6s beat.

But why should I come in to play when the BBJ is $20K but you start the requirements at Qud 10s beat?

the point is you will just have the normal crowd when it's 20K. But if it's 500K with very high requirements as in the OP, you will never get the "extra" players who come in because the jackpot is so high because it is very hard to hit it, so it will still be the regular number of players.

I'm not suggesting you want to get to the qualifiers of the OP. Just that when the jackpot gets high it brings in a lot of people. You can prolong that period by raising the qualifiers (acknowledging its a balance if you make it too high you will run off players).

Even just setting reasonable qualifiers and not adjusting them at all seems more reasonable to me then reducing them as the jackpot gets higher

Both Milwaukee and Motor City had big increases in traffic when the BBJ was over $200K. I think Milwaukee's was over $400K when it hit a year or 2 ago. I also believe that they start at Quad 8s losing and it drops every $40k increase in the BBJ.

On the flip side ... Firekeepers in Battle Creek, MI saw increased traffic with the BBJ at only $50K with the AAAJJ getting beat as the initial and ongoing requirement. Then it hit 3 times in 4 weeks!! You've never seen sadder folks in a picture than when you 'win' a BBJ and 'only' take home $3500. They have 3 jackpots being 'fed' from the drop at all times, which can dilute those pots but keeps the 'new' pot from being significantly smaller than the one just handed out after a hit. GL

One thing that could go wrong here is that people who thought they knew what it took to win the BBJ are going to come in, find the qualifier has been raised, and become pissed off unhappy.