My Ninth Final Table for 2026

On Friday night I got to my ninth final table of the year in a WSOP online tournament that awarded a physical gold ring to the winner. The picture above was me at my chip peak. There were four players left, and I had more than double any other player after winning a big hand and knocking out another player. This was a mystery bounty tournament where you get money for each player you knock out. Each player is assigned an unknown amount of cash (the “mystery bounty”), and you only find out after you knock them out. I knocked out two players.

Note: if you want a reference for poker lingo, click here.

Here is how I finished fourth. You can let me know if you think I took too big a risk. I had Q♦8♦ in the big blind. The player under the gun (Donkinchips2) min raised. He had about $600,000 at that time, and my stack was at about $800,000. I called. The flop was K♦8♣3♦. I had middle pair and a big flush draw. I decided to shove. I figured 1) there was a chance I was ahead of him, 2) he would be reluctant to put his entire tournament life on the line, and 3) if I was behind, I still had a big flush draw. He hesitated then called, showing K♣10♣. It was about as close to a coin flip as you could get: 50.7 to 49.3 in his favor. Unfortunately he won the coin flip as two more clubs came. I had a hard time recovering after that and busted out in fourth place.

My schedule has been too busy to play in any of the WSOP tournaments due to a weeklong family vacation in Hawaii and three clients needing me to submit reports to court, and a fourth one next week, which is why I’m traveling to Dallas today. In the meantime, I’ve been playing in one or two day tournaments at the Wynn Las Vegas, the Venetian Resort, and the South Point Hotel Casino. Unfortunately, all of those ended with bad beats including my pocket Ks running into pocket As, my top set running into a flopped straight, and various other combinations where rather than beating the odds, the odds beat me. Below is a picture of just one of those bad beats, this one at the Wynn.

Cards were dealt right to left.

Bob Zeidman is a high-stakes recreational poker player. He created Good Beat Poker, a free online poker site using patented technology for audio and video—see and hear the other players at the table if you choose.