Over the past couple of decades of the poker boom, we’ve seen some truly awful bad beats that have stunned the world, leaving really good hands beaten by even better ones. Sometimes, the game is about luck.
This is a bad beat that might best (worst?) all of them.
Let’s set up some context: This is at the 2019 World Series of Poker $50,000 Poker Players Championship. Bryce Yockey is facing off against Josh Arieh in Limit 2-7 Triple Draw. Per Poker Central, “the goal is to make the worst possible five-card hand without a straight or a flush.” So a 2-3-4-5-7 is the worst possible hand. You get three chances to exchange any number of new cards that you want.
Got all that? Good. Now watch what transpires and we’ll break it down below (WARNING: There is an NSFW word uttered in it):
Yockey (1.18 million in chips) starts out with 2-3-4-6-7, the second-best hand you can have in the game. He re-raises a bet from Arieh — who starts out with 3-5-6-Queen-Ace, which seems good since he’s got three low cards — to 450,000 chips. Arieh, at this point, is the table’s chip leader with over 10.7 million.
Yockey sits back and bets as Arieh draws — first he gets a 2-3-5-6-Q, then 2-3-4-5-6. And when he tosses his 6 in, up comes … a 7. It’s the ONLY hand that can beat Yockey’s. Yockey goes all-in and Arieh calls. The announcer in the booth calls it “the worst beat I’ve ever seen in a televised tournament.”
Yockey, of course, was in shock. He left in fourth place and took home $325, 989 for his troubles.
What. A. Hand.
