At my local card room there's something called the flush jackpot. I never really paid much attention to it. I understood there was a ballot or something.
Anyway the way it works is if you lose flush over flush and both cards play for both players then the losing player gets to put his name on a ballot. Then from Sunday-Wednesday at 6, 8, 10, 12 PM there's a draw and if you are in the room at the time your name is drawn then you win. If the drawn name is not present then the jackpot for next week at that time increases by $50. If the jackpot is won then next time it resets back to $50.
So I ended up with a ballot for the first time. On the hand I limped with 87cc on the button in a multiway pot. The flop was 6c 9c 2c I believe. There was a bet and raise before me. I made it $110 with $80 behind. The original better in EP went all in for his remaining $65. The middle position guy then moved all in; he had me covered.
I thought about it for a bit and decided to call. I figured if I called preflop I have to stack off on this flop and I was always drawing live with an open ended straight flush draw. If the other guy had a set then we would be drawing live to crack the super bad beat jackpot for $80K at the time.
After the money was all in we showed and the EP guy had Kc 5c. The middle position guy who moved all in had Ac 9 for top pair and the nut flush draw. As it happened blanks slid off and EP took the main pot. Luckily EP was short and I still made around $70 profit in the side pot. Plus since I lost the main pot flush over flush I got a ballot.
Looking at the flush jackpot board I noticed the Tuesday 10 PM was $650 and the Wednesday 10 PM draw was $500. The other times were pretty low. So I went there Tuesday and Wednesday for short sessions. As it happened I didn't hit, but I was fortunate to win a bit at the tables while I was there. On the Tuesday the winner was a likable woman regular who hit the $650 so that was all right. I don't think I'd been there on a Tuesday or Wednesday before. It was quieter than on Friday-Saturday but still there were 3-4 tables going.
