Atlantic City Weekly

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It’s been a long while since an Atlantic City bad-beat jackpot has gotten really huge and taken a run at the record jackpot of $672,000 set in June 2010.

So it was pretty exciting when the Borgata bad-beat jackpot blasted past $600,000 — $610,000 to be precise — this President’s Day Weekend. It appears to be the first time an Atlantic City jackpot has topped $600K in nearly a year.

Except it didn’t last.

Tuesday morning, the Borgata’s small bad-beat jackpot hit for $50,000, knocking the total jackpot down to $560,000.

Not that that’s chump change or anything, but it essentially shaved off the same $50K the jackpot picked up over the holiday weekend as players mobbed the casino. Every table in the spacious Borgata room was reportedly filled as players chased the jackpot.

It’s pretty simple. The more players playing, the more money goes into the progressive bad-beat jackpot, which is fueled by a rake of cash games. It creates the bad-beat mania casinos see as their jackpot climbs.

Still, Borgata’s unique system of splitting the jackpot between small and full hits has always stopped the casino from getting into record numbers.

Under the system, any player that is beaten with a minimum hand of quad deuces to quad nines wins the small jackpot. That jackpot is about 25 percent of the total jackpot, but tops out at $50,000. In this case, the small bad beat has been at $50,000 for a couple of months. To win the full jackpot, a player must have quad 10s as the minimum.

For the last month, as the total Borgata bad-beat jackpot has been rising above $400,000, the small bad beat has been hitting. In fact it’s hit three times since mid-January.

If you put that $150,000 back onto the total jackpot, there would be a new record of more than $700,000. But, without the small bad beat, the minimum hand for that for jackpot would be ridiculously high. The Borgata can only set the minimum at quad 10s because there is a small bad-beat option.

So what’s it all mean?

Well, that it’s tough for the Borgata to break bad-beat jackpot records. It’s previous record for total jackpot paid was $465,000.

But while records are fun to talk about, no player currently chasing the $560,000 really cares. It’s plenty high enough.

Most poker room managers say they start seeing a real increase in play when a jackpot climbs to $400,000. Some would put it even lower, say $250,000.

On the other hand, for some purists, the whole concept remains a pain. Bad-beat chasers, as they are called, have a tendency to throw conventional strategy to the wind and stay with hands they’d never ordinarily play. After all, the winner of the full Borgata bad-beat jackpot, as it stands right now, will make about $225,000. That’s worth riding out a pair of deuces any day.

Meanwhile, Borgata, which is already the city’s dominant poker room, will continue to ride this wave until the big one hits and bring in a lot of players who usually play other rooms.

That’s kind of the point of the bad-beat jackpot promotion in the first place.

By the way, the $50,000 hit Tuesday was the 100th time the Borgata’s bad beat has hit, though there have been a lot more small hits than full hits.

In this case, Robert Addeo (Philadelphia) had quad fours, which didn’t hold up against Frank Maione (Egg Harbor Township) and his four queens. Addeo won the jackpot for $20,000 while Maione won the hand and an additional $10,000. Seven remaining players at the table evenly split the remaining $20,000.