Richard Figiel Busts From the WPT; Wins Bad Beat Jackpot

Photo: Seven of the nine players at Table 13 posed for a celebratory photo with the dealer after the Bad Beat Jackpot hit. Richard Figiel is on the left of the dealer holding pocket sevens, and Dimitri Morcos is on the right of the dealer, holding his pocket tens.

Richard Figiel entered the partypoker.net WPT National: Canadian Spring Championship and found himself seated at a table with the voice of the WPT himself, Hall of Famer Mike Sexton.

Unfortunately, Figiel didn’t get to share the table as long as he would’ve liked, because he was eliminated fairly early in the day. So he pre-registered for tomorrow’s Day 1B and then requested a seat in a $1-$2 no-limit hold’em cash game.

Figiel was led to an open seat at Table #13. Good thing he isn’t triskaidekaphobic, or he might have asked for another table.

Shortly after 3:00 pm, Figiel raised UTG+2 to $16, Dimitri Morcos called directly behind him, and a third player called from the button.

The flop came [10c7d7c], and it checked to the button, who bet $11. Figiel and Morcos both called.

The turn card double-paired the board with the [10s], and again it checked to the button, who bet $20. Figiel and Morcos both called.

The river card was the [5h], and Figiel moved all in for about $104. Morcos called, and the button thought for a moment before he folded.

Figiel turned over [7h7s], presumably expecting to win the hand with quad sevens. But Morcos flipped over [10d10h] — quad tens.

The entire table exploded into cheers and applause. Morcos won the pot, but by losing to quads with quads, Figiel had won the Playground Poker Club Bad Beat Jackpot, which had swelled to $415,551.

For holding the losing hand, Figiel received the largest share of the jackpot, worth $157,865. For having the winning hand, Morcos received $78,955.

Everyone else at their table received $11,279, while everyone who was playing at a cash game table at the time received $500.

One last postscript to this story:

Back in the WPT event, Mike Sexton was eliminated moments before the entire poker room exploded with a loud cheer, causing him to briefly wonder why everyone was so pleased to see him bust. (He quickly heard that the Bad Beat Jackpot had been hit.)

A short while later, Figiel found Sexton and told him that he was the one that won the jackpot, and he’d take another shot at the WPT event tomorrow.