Not all bad stories happen at the poker table, as Gary Clarke knows all too well. [Image: Shutterstock.com]
“Bad Beat Story” by Gary Clark won the Unibet Open Bucharest Prize worth €2,000
In 2013, Danish poker Adonis Gus Hansen pulled off a bruising win over Gary Clarke, but the Irishman had the last laugh today when the fine folks at Poker.org made him the winner of the “Bad Beat Contest” on The Chip Race poker podcast.
He will drink wine and have dinner
Clarke’s prize is a €2,000 ($2,117) package for the upcoming Unibet Open Bucharest tournament starting November 29. Thanks to Unibet Poker and The Chip Race, he’ll be staying at the luxury Marriott hotel, getting paid for his travels, playing in the €1,100 ($1,164 USD) main event, and Dara O’Cierne and I will be having dinner with him in the Romanian capital.
It’s a really cool prize, so at this point you’re probably wondering what hand Clark caught and what kind of horrific runout took away the pot. Well, this particular bad shot didn’t happen on felt. Instead, it was at a nightclub in Galway not far from the poker scene where an unlucky-in-love Clark was trying out a completely different line with a lady called Sarah.
my parent! Alas, pain, pain ever, forever!
If poker is pain, tournament poker is torture piled upon painful agony, punctuated by a rare moment of glory. “Ah me! Alas,” said Percy Bysshe Shelley, “pain, pain ever, ever! No change, no stop, no hope! And yet I endure.” It’s that kind of thing, but you get a reprieve from time to time. Faced with this, you have three main options as a player:
You become numb
Developing a cold detachment from outcomes and a strong resistance to outcome-oriented thinking is perhaps the best way to navigate your little ship through the tsunami of variation you encounter in the game.
let it out
If you can’t understand the pain, it’s probably best to get rid of it. There are different forms of catharsis. Giving out an expletive-laden stream of consciousness was my personal preference in the early years, but you could punch your computer screen, smash your mouse, or kick a chair.
Learn to love him
The poker gods have a sick sense of humor. They will harass us, torture us, beat us, and worst of all, give us false hope. Masochism is the antidote. Learn to love pain and become invincible. After all, death smiles on us all. All we can do is smile again.
From 37 to 5…
Well, it turns out there’s actually a fourth option.
Write it down as a funny, self-deprecating story and enter it in the “Bad Beat” contest.
37 people participated in the Chip Race Bad Beat competition, which was announced on September 28. Entries included videos, Twitch clips, hand histories, short stories, and a poem. On October 14, the ten finalists were announced:
From that list, a four-person Poker.org team took over, using a “Eurovision Song Contest” style points system to rank the entries. On this week’s edition of “The Lock-In,” (Chip Race Cameras’ sister show), Poker.Org’s Director of Live Events, Terrance Reid, stopped by to discuss the top five:
The one that came in fifth place was English poker player Mark Tierney’s story “Stupid Hand, Stupid Game” about an unfathomable win he took in a home game:
With the fourth-highest point pool came a funny, fragmentary story provided by Welshman Ed about the time his propeller plane broke down on his way to a poker tournament, and things got worse and more embarrassing from there:
The third place winner was another video submission – this time from Matt Skidas – which was coined ‘The Dangerous Bet on Football That Never Happened’. Watch it to find out why.
A lesson in obstacles
According to Reed, there was very little between the top two entries, as the top two were voted on by all four jury members. It’s very clear when you read both stories how difficult the decision was, as both stories are beautifully told, lavishly drawn, and thoroughly interesting.
In the end, second place and the hastily added but very well-deserved runner-up prize of €250 ($265) went to Kiplesworth and his Joyce tale of woe involving the cruelest badass ever, a new pair of Diesel jeans, and Fluffy the dog Mulkerin. I dare you not to cry from laughter:
The winner was a piece of writing guaranteed to become part of Irish poker folklore as Gary Clarke received a hard, imperceptible lesson in blocking at the hands of Don Juanesque Gus Hansen. With less scruple than he had in buttoning his shirt, the Dane snatched the pretty girl Sarah from the arms of the unlucky Gary, who had nothing left but a bad story. But what a bad story.
