Another enormous bad beat jackpot hit in Canada, an author battles bots on the poker table, and a card room closing are the short stacks CardsChat picked up in the latest orbit of poker news.
Another monster bad beat jackpot was hit at Playground Poker Club in Canada last week, this time for CAD $1,817,990 (approximately $1.3 million). It’s the third bad beat jackpot at the Montreal poker room worth more than $1 million since 2022.
The “loser” of the hand held two red jacks and hit quads. The winner held 78 of spades, which locked into a straight flush on the river.
The player with quads took 40%, about CAD $720,000, the winner of the hand about CAD $360,000, which is what the rest of the table split. The last 20% went to everyone else playing poker in the building. Names were not released.
It’s reseeded at $100,000 and grows by taking $2 out of every pot that qualifies.
The Playground is the world record holder for largest bad beat jackpot, which was hit at a $1/$2 table last August. The players lucky enough to be in that hand split CAD $2,590,185 (about $1.9 million).
That broke the previous world-record of CAD $2.2 million jackpot, which was also hit at Playground.
Maria Konnikova battles bots
Maria Konnikova, the author of several best-sellers including “The Biggest Bluff,” which is about her foray into the poker world, recently published a meaty article in The Atlantic Called “When AI Meets Its Match.” It details the role poker has in creating both game theory and AI.
An excerpt:
“In poker of the No-limit Hold’em variety—the most popular form in the world, during which a player can bet any amount, up to her entire holding—the number of possible situations is greater than the atoms in the universe. Add to that mathematical unwieldiness the very human nature of the game, and you have a problem of compounding difficulty. How can an AI parse the shifting emotional dynamics of a table? How can it fight back if a few human opponents decide to single it out and collude, even on an unconscious basis, against it? (While outright collusion is illegal, subconsciously altering your play to single out the “other” at the table, be it an AI or a human outsider, is far from rare.)”
It’s a solid read. Check it out here.
Poker room shuttered
A small casino with a poker room just outside of Montreal was closed by the gaming commission “based on numerous concerns arising out of investigations conducted over the past several months.”
The Kahnawake Gaming Commission pulled the gambling permits of the Magic Palace on Monday.
According to a press release from the KGC, “The effect of this directive is that Magic Palace must immediately close all of its gaming operations—including both Electronic Gaming Devices and Poker Room tables—pending further decision by the Commission.”
Royal Canadian Mounted Police investigated the establishment for about year before handing its findings to the KGC.
Magic Palace has been on the KGC’s radar since at least October, when it determined that one of the owners “was unsuitable to be licensed by the commission as a key person.” That man, Luftar Hysa, also owns casinos and restaurants in Mexico as has been accused of working with the Sinaloa drug cartel.
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