After seeing the network’s Bad Beat Jackpot hit in January for over $500,000, the CEREUS Network once again paid out a staggering amount of money when the Bad Beat Jackpot was hit on Absolute Poker Wednesday evening.
The CEREUS Network, which is the teaming of sister rooms Ultimate Bet and Absolute Poker, has been running its Bad Beat Jackpot since the two rooms combined player bases in late 2008. In January, a player who had only been on the site for a week, QUANTOM47, earned a payday of $173,693.20 when his quad Queens were crushed by an opposing player’s Royal Flush.
Since that time, the CEREUS Network Bad Beat Jackpot had been hit on several occasions, but not for nearly the stakes that the QUANTOM47 saw in January. After dealing out a Bad Beat Jackpot payout on March 15th, the CEREUS Network’s Jackpot had not been hit and the money had climbed to $807,543.95.
On Wednesday night at approximately 6:25pm Eastern Time at Absolute Poker, a hand began to brew between EMILIE14 and his opponent, PEACE2UALL. By the time the smoke had cleared, EMILIE14 was the victim of a brutal bad beat when his Jack-high straight flush was demolished by PEACE2UALL’s Royal Flush. Under normal circumstances, this would have been tremendously demoralizing but, due to the CEREUS Network’s Bad Beat Jackpot, it became a cause for celebration.
For his loss at the table, EMILIE14, a longtime Absolute player from Orlando, Florida, secured $270,843.03, which likely soothed the pain of losing that particular hand. As the winner, PEACE2UALL garnered an additional $132,904.14 along with what he won on the hand. Two other players who were playing at the table and had been dealt into the hand each took home $2,678.25 in cash. Fifty-seven other players each pocketed $1,678.25 for simply playing at Bad Beat Jackpot Tables on the CEREUS Network with the same stakes.
To qualify for the CEREUS Network “Bad Beat Jackpot,” players must be seated at specially declared tables at either Absolute Poker or Ultimate Bet. There is an additional $0.50 taken from every hand played on these tables to increase the jackpot until the kitty is hit. To qualify for the bad beat, a player must have at least quad Eights or better get beaten by a better hand.
Once a player hits the jackpot, CEREUS breaks down the prize pool to everyone at the Bad Beat Jackpot tables. The network takes 10% off the top for the site and another 25% to seed the jackpot pool for the next round. After this, the player who absorbed the bad beat takes down 50% of the prize pool, 25% goes to the player who administered the bad beat, and the remaining players at the table get a minimum of $1,000. In addition to this bounty, players who are playing at the same stakes in the jackpot arena at the time divvy up 25% of the remaining prize pool.
While the CEREUS Network Bad Beat Jackpot was hit for over $800,000, the reseeding of the prize pool after EMILIE14’s win should guarantee plenty of action almost immediately. As of press time, the new CEREUS Bad Beat Jackpot was at $254,355 and over 20,000 players were on the tables to try their luck – good or bad – at capturing it.
