Well in our monthly poker game I got the worst beat imaginable. Over $350 in the pot pre flop and I have aces and other guy has kings. Guy who put a lot of money in the pot said he had king queen suited before folding. Flop comes 2, 7, 8 rainbow, so dude has one card in the deck that he can win on. Wanna guess what comes on the river!!

So losing to a true one outer is about as bad as it gets in poker, except for runner runner hands after the flop...

But of course that is not crazy or particularly unusual. It has happened to me several times, I have seen it several times, and in spite of the odds of it happening it is quite common for poker players to have these kind of stories...

As for real crazy shit, I guess having my eventual wife just show up at my doorstep in the middle of nowhere one day, after I had already made my peace with being single the rest of my life. Now that is some crazy shit, and beats the odds of a one outer any day!!!

i may have mentioned this before.......Crazy Jury Duty of all things

this was when i lived in the UK. After 2 days sitting around being bored in the pre-smart phone age i got called. No jury selection like here in the US; i think it was 12 of us and a reserve - so if you are called you are on the jury

turns out to be an indecent publication case - which i understand could have been horrific, but wasn't. The police had raided a naughty video shop, confiscated the stock and the owner was on trial for selling goods which contravened the indecent publications act. The case started, and the prosecution began showing the first video. it was graphic, but no kids, animals, violence etc. About 20 mins in the judge asked how many videos the prosecution plan to show....and the answer was some huge number. We would have been there for days. The judge sent them away to narrow it down to the bits that would make their case; which they did. Again - nothing with kids, violence, animals etc. So me and 11 strangers spent a few hours watching pornography (which didn't contravene the indecent publications act by the way)..... which was pretty weird. Then we huddled in the jury room and found the guy not guilty.

Back in the days of nickel ante Sat night pokers and too many beers --
Bro-in-law used to read up or make up silly games, often split pots to keep every one in.
One night he called a low ball game. I was known for staying in waaayy too long. Nobody was bumping, so I stayed in with suited royals and damn me if I didn't draw to a Royal Flush. The only one I have ever seen in a game.

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RayGovett
Hughson CA
Be Prepared-- Strike Swiftly -- Who Dares Wins- Without warning-"it will be hard. I can do it"

damn me if I didn't draw to a Royal Flush. The only one I have ever seen in a game. //

About 25 years ago on New Years eve I was in Mesquite Nevada gambling late into the evening. I was on some board card game where they had the suckers circle, where you put money and got paid big odds for big hands. I was of course a sucker and was putting 5 dollars in it each time. Just about midnight I hit a royal flush, for an 800 to 1 payoff on the suckers circle. Only time I can recall getting a royal in live play, happens pretty often on the internet.


Saw one in our home game last week too, but no one to pay the guy off. Now that is a bummer. My mom used to get them all the time in video poker, I think paid 1000 to one or something like that. She would always send us kids a 100 bucks when she hit one

I am stood at the bar in a gay bar in Chicago with a group of friends (not a regular hang out.........)

I hear someone say my name

Turn round. It's a friend from university in Manchester, UK, I have not see or heard from in more than a decade who was on a one night layover in Chicago who'd never been there before

Small world.............

I’ve had many strange things happen to me in life but yestersay topped them...a sampling.

I once befriended a homeless man named Lucky when I was sleeping in a parking lot in Hartford. I gave him cigarette money; he protected my car.

I once was attacked by an elderly homeless woman in Maine after I gave her a hitchhiker ride & was nice enough to try to purchase her new contact lenses & that process went awry.

I once awoke to see the naked body of a band member of a very famous band in the hotel room. It was his room, we were friends (this was another life for me), but I’d never expected to see him prancing nude, or nude at all for that matter. We weren’t friends like “that,” so it was especially weird. It wasn’t the first time I’d crashed in his suite after a show (he often would get a larger suite for friends or at least make sure we had a couch), but walking around naked was not something I’d seen before, or anytime after, fortunately.

While walking through the alleyway behind my office building there was just an older homeless woman and me. We made eye contact, I smiled, said “hello.” She scowls. I’m 10’ past her, across the other side of the alley, and she loudly yells, “I am so sick of you fucking fat girls.” Puzzled, I glanced around, realized she and I were still the only people around. That’s the moment I developed a complex and body issues, despite being a mere 140lbs.

And yesterday the guy who cuts my hair invited me to an orgy. That came out of nowhere. Of course, I did what every good hopeless romantic monogamist does and politely declined. So he instead offered a 3 way with himself and his stripper friend. My reply was another polite decline. And I realized what kind of weirdo cuts my hair. I knew he was a bird of a different feather, but didn’t realize he’s more of a platypus than a bird. But he gives me discounts and does a fantastic job, so I’ll put up with the weirdness.

My life can be so strange at times. It’s been riddled with sitcom moments.

When I was in undergrad, I worked at a graphic design shop in Ocean City, NJ. My mother was at the time working as a personal assistant to the CEO of a financial planning company in London, Ontario. He apparently asked her about her family and she described where I was attending school and working. Long story short, turns out my boss and her boss were estranged half brothers who hadn't seen each other since their family split during their teens, but had been keeping track of each other from a distance.

That's basically like saying, "So you have family in the States, eh? Do they by chance know Bob?"

"Yep, sure do!"

That's somewhere in the range of three hundred million to one odds.

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The devil made me do it the first time, second time I done it on my own - W

That's tough.

I got my first straight flush ever the other day. And a year or so ago I witnessed a friend flop a royal flush. That was wild.

Some time in the mid 1990's a plea went out from a local production company for extras on a film, for a nightclub scene. With nothing to do that weekend, and being a starving student the promise of free pizza was enough to get my interest. I was pretty naive at the time but off I went anyway to the local gay nightclub on a Saturday morning. It was a pretty fun day but I must admit it was my first real exposure to the gay culture, so I was kind of gawking at some of the clothes they were wearing, and their "out there" attitude. Even though I definitely had "totally heterosexual female" stamped on my forehead they were the most fun and welcoming group of people to spend a couple of days with. It was later that I learned the film was about a lesbian love triangle, so I can honestly say I was in a lesbian movie.

mine was a meal. Vegetarians will want to stop reading here.

It was the late 80s and it was my first job, for a Japanese company with a small office in NYC. We all went over to Tokyo for meetings. Our hosts at the parent company decided to take us for a 'traditional' Chinese dinner.

The opening cocktail was made with "turtle blood". For potency, which mens thought was hysterical.
Next came the soup, also turtle, with pieces of meat floating in it with shell still attached. More rounds of sake.
Then came some roast snake, chopped into segments, you had to chew around the ribs.

I was still ok at this point but

Then came the live lobster. Cut open, sushi'd. The red-faced guys had a great time poking the lobster and making its antennae wave.
Then came the 'dancing shrimp.' Live shrimp drowned in sake in a glass bowl, so you could see the death throes.

Despite all the sake and theatre of cruelty I made it without upchucking, barely. But it did change my romantic opinion of the host country forever.

Since you brought up poker, a couple of crazy things I've seen. I was playing in a small charity tournament and had a span of 4 consecutive hands dealt to me in this order - AA, AA, AK suited, KK. All 4 held up and two of them ended up all in and knocking out players. Another time just playing with some friends and it was late so we decided to play one more round of each player dealing. Came to the last hand and 2 to my right raises, one to my right re-raises, I look down at AA and reraise again. Buddy to my left calls and then the original raiser shoves, #2 calls and I call. Player to my left folds. Hands turned up KK, AK suited, AA and the folder says he had QQ. Crazy big pot and everyone thought everyone else was just being frisky because it was the last hand of the night.

Last summer, my wife and I traveled about a 7 hour drive to ride in a Gran Fondo. About 1/2 way through the ride, we are in a group of about 10 and my wife is riding in front of me talking to some guy for a while. After a bit the guy drops back and starts talking to me, asking where I'm from etc. I tell him and he says that's cool because he is moving there next year and explains that he's a doctor and is taking over the practice of another doctor that is retiring. I ask him what doctor and he says the name - turns out it's MY doctor (that I didn't know was retiring). On top of that, he's dating the daughter of a friend of mine.

Trapped in HBO late-night world?

Nearest to death was likely in a B-52 ingressing at low level in a Red Flag exercise out at Nellis. Aircraft commander not paying attention to what he was doing while approaching a ridge; copilot grabbed the yoke and pulled for all he was worth...our radar altimeter went to zero over the ridge; we crossed the ridge by about 10 feet or so.

Hit a turkey vulture going about 540 knots in a B-1 during a low level training sortie. Bird went into an engine inlet and punched a hole in sheet metal. Came very close to taking out the fuel lines right over the motors. Had it been a bit bigger and hence more energy, the result would have been gas spraying all over two smoking hot jet engines.

One night over Baghdad in a B-1 I was somewhat concerned over the amount of tracers and SAMs coming up at the airplane. The pilots were pushing the nose down to gain energy and maneuver and I was dumping chaff in case they tried to guide any of the SAMs. Ended up at 15,000’ MSL over Baghdad...not a good place to be. Could see red AAA tracers out my little window going past the airplane; my whole body was tensed up was I was certain something was going to hit us. Ended up getting more gas from a tanker and going back up north again to hit some Special Republican Guard barracks. The cold beers we had after that sortie tasted particularly good.

Weirdest thing ever was when my wife and I were living in Boise. Both of us were awakened out of a deep sleep by somebody pounding on the sliding glass door in our bedroom that led to the backyard. I bolted out of bed and drew back the curtains to reveal....nothing, and absolutely no footprints or anything else in the new fallen snow anywhere in the backyard. That was one of several rather bizarre incidents in that house.

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Taco cat spelled backwards is....taco cat.

What were some of the others ?

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"I think I've cracked the code. double letters are cheaters except for perfect squares (a, d, i, p and y). So Leddy isn't a cheater... "

Not quite that good but...my wife grew up in Laramie, WY. We lived in OH briefly and she took a temp job as a secretary at an aluminum factory in some random small town. Goes into her first day of work and the other person working there was a girl she had gone to school with in WY.

We were sitting at a bar in DE and some guy she went to school with in WY recognized her, he was working in NJ as an investigator for fraud in horse racing (which was memorable!).

Then there was the time we were in VT on vacation and parking at Shelburne Farms which is a place to go to hike, eat, see farm stuff going on, etc. when the car that pulls into next to us was some guy she dated briefly in college in DE, with his wife and baby. Awkward all around.

Boy, can I ever contribute to a bad beat thread.

Final board of: 23844

I’m holding 88.

He’s holding 44.

This was about fifteen years ago so I don’t recall the exact betting on each street but there were raises and re-raises preflop and we both put the other on AK or AQ, but neither was sure. After the flop I was hoping he had a high pair. The only thing that slowed us down was the possible straight after the turn. On the river we couldn’t get the money in fast enough.

The guy was surprisingly apologetic after the hand, telling me that he thought his pair was good and then he was fairly sure when he hit the set but did respect the straight possibility. After the river we were both hoping the other guy had a straight (but his confidence made me think he had 33344 or 22244). Oh, and the board was a rainbow from the flop, so no concern about a flush at any point.

I lost my ass on that one.

Arrived back in Kathmandu after 6 weeks hiking in the backcounty of Nepal, walked out of the hotel and ran into a guy who was on my high school soccer team.

Have had several chance encounters with famous people on Martha's Vineyard (most of my wife's family lives on the island). But it's the Vineyard, so chance encounters with famous people are not uncommon.

I was briefly detained by the Guatemalan military in the mid-80s. They had stopped the bus I was on to check for papers and detained me for a couple hours. It wouldn't had been such a deal had there not had been a reputation for people "disappearing" after such stops. While I was scared shitless throughout, the individual soldiers were pretty cool in my interactions with them.

Lots of stories from the mid-80s there, like finding a decapitated body on a river bank and, the next day, the head.

The military was always scarier that the guerrillas. I once hitched a ride with some guerrillas. I was thumbing for a ride, and a pickup stopped. Hopped in the back, only to find that it was full of assault weapons. (For all the gun enthusiasts here, I wouldn't be able to tell what they were.) They gave took me to the town where I was heading, and I bought them lunch when we got there. They seemed to have no concern about parking a pickup with guns in the bed while eating lunch. But this was a town that had known revolutionary sympathies.

Four of a kind beats three of a kind. I'm no poker expert, but that stuff seems to happen all the time. I see it all the time on TV and movies. What am I missing?

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It doesn't really matter what Phil is saying, the music of his voice is the appropriate soundtrack for a bicycle race. HTupolev

We were pulled off a bus in Columbia in the mid-90s. Ostensibly to search for drugs and weapons. Had to leave our bags on the bus, thought for sure at a minimum we were going to get shaken down but nothing happened.

Same trip in Equador there was a national strike by the peasants to protest some agrarian laws, we just happened to being going down into the Amazon as it was starting. Ended up in some village we had to take a canoe to, then went out into the jungle for a few days. When we came back the strike was still going on, long story, but when we eventually got back up river to the main town, there were a couple hundred Quechuan indians decked out in war paint and traditional garb with spears facing off the military/police with riot shields and tear gas. We were out of money as we had left most of our's in a bank in Quito. Had to bum a ride on top of a bus that a tour group was using to get back to Quito. They eventually decided as we were climbing into the mountains that it was safer to have us sitting in the isles of the bus than on top with their luggage where we could steal stuff :)

Four of a kind beats three of a kind. I'm no poker expert, but that stuff seems to happen all the time. I see it all the time on TV and movies. What am I missing?

First of all he had top full house on that board, so 2nd best hand possible and not 3 of a kind. And you seem to see it a lot because of all the hands they like to show on TV, the ones that are bad beats are the most entertaining. In pre taped shows they take out all the boring(90%) of hands and just show you the biggies.

In most casinos they have what they call a bad beat jackpot, usually where 4 of a kind(or better) beats at least a big full house or a smaller 4 of a kind. These jackpots can go on for months, while tens of thousands of hands are played without them ever hitting. So yes it is pretty rare for this hand to play out like it did, but given the number of players and hands played it just seems to happen all the time. Odds of quads over quads is <0.01%..

But you did say you were no expert in poker, so will give you a pass...(-;
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The movies is about the only place you see this. Not sure if you’re serious or not. After the flop he needed to hit exactly A5 or 56 or 44. After hitting a four his situation was reduced to just over 2% to hit the last 4. You compound the problem in my situation by whether the opponent’s hand is in a normal range of hands that he is likely to have. Putting him on 44 at the end is pretty much impossible, so my full house (I didn’t have three of a kind at the end) would beat every other hand except his.

Hitting runner-runner (two cards in a row that make a hand) does happen but it isn’t that bad if you can put them on a hand that benefits and can fold, like if the board is:

A 10 4 J K

...and you have AK but there are three other people in the hand, you are figuring someone with a Q just jizzed his pants.

Take it to the poker forum.

Honestly, what you write is gibberish to me. Do you guys find the general populace can follow poker talk? I'd think "I just did an ironman" would go over better in most gatherings. ;)

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It doesn't really matter what Phil is saying, the music of his voice is the appropriate soundtrack for a bicycle race. HTupolev

Oh no. You can't just allude to a great story like that and then not tell it.

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"If only he had used his genius for niceness, instead of Evil." M. Smart