Hella Hold'em

Hello again, I believe i feel the need to discuss a hand that i was a part of in a small tourney last nite. Now, I would like to say I won this hand, however and unfortunately i did not. It was won by my good friend Armando....good call buddy. So without further ado here's the "you don't see that everyday" hand.

OK, I have had only one really playable hand in this tourney which was hand two that i played. As the tourney progressed and the blinds got higher and my stack shorter i decided i was at the point of folding or all in. Blinds were at 150-300, i had about 900 in front of me. I am first to act and I look down at my first pocket pair of the entire evening 5-5. Figured the table was kinda tight i might be able to pick up the blinds on my first all-in. Every one ahead of the blinds folds......after mulling over the hand for a time, Armando in the small blind and fewer chips than I decides to call me with A-4o at which time i put him on over cards....and the big blind after a time decides to call as well....which i was scared of both callers, but was hoping to be at least the favorite going into the flop.So we turn 'em up, and as I have said I have my pocket 5's, Armando has the A-4o, and the big blind has pocket 3's. i am digging my chances here, just have to dodge the ace and i triple up, knock Armando(who i consider a very strong, smart player) out, and take a chunk out of the chip leader. Flop comes down 8-8-8. Think about that. 8-8-8. Im still digging my hand, flopped a higher boat, and the threes are now a non factor. I am back to my first concern just dodging the bullet. Turn comes a 4, so by the turn there are 3 boats on hand. lol. With my pocket 5's leading the way.....Anything but an Ace.....Anything but an Ace, hell put another 4 or 3 up there........Here comes the river.......Case 8, for a board of 8-8-8-4-8. Mando, takes the main pot of 1200 down, I take down a side pot, however with spirits crushed, and out in the next hand.

Now, let's think about this, the chances of the board flopping a three of a kind(the 8-8-8) are 1 in every 417 hands. A rare occurence but we've all seen it. However, the truly amazing stat is that the chances of quads being on a 5 card board are 1 in every 4, 167 hands!!!!!! So congratulations to Mando, for picking up a very nice pot and going on to finish second.....and congratulations to me for seeing my 4,168 hand. Unbelievable. Great call, great hand and one that we both will probably be talking about for a long time to come.

Now should i consider this a bad beat? I don't know, with two overcards vs a pocket pair i know is a coinflip, but one over card vs. pockets, and then vs. a boat. Not sure. I thought he was down to a 3-outer(the other three aces) only to learn the hard way it was a 4-outer. So I ran the hand through a program call the Bad Beat-O-Meter.....found on Pokersavy.com a cool poker site. You can link to the BBOM here . When I ran the hand thru it scored a meek 78 so I guess it was not a bad beat. I have had worse lol. But I thought this was a cool little program for y'all to check out your bad beats and see where they land. I think i hold the record for the BBOM....i scored a 3598 on one hand...I will tell that story some other day cuz i am still recovering from it. Feel free to post in the comments section if you guys get some crazy scores...I like to share in the sadness lol. Good luck everybody till next time......and Mando Ill see you soon lol good call again.