Bad beats happen regularly at the World Series of Poker. But the one endured by Ricky Landais on Wednesday was especially painful.
The hand occurred during the $10,000 buy-in GGMillion$ No-limit Hold’em High Roller event with 22 players remaining. Bobby James raised with ace-nine and Landais, who was short-stacked with about five big blinds, went all-in for his remaining 340,000 chips holding the superior ace-king.
James made a standard call, but that’s when the hand got weird.
Taking Running Bad to the Next Level
A floor had to be called over when a four-card flop was spread while Ricky Landais was all-in and at-risk against Bobby James’ worse ace deep in the $10K GGMillions.
The ruling was correctly decided.
The four cards were scrambled face-down… pic.twitter.com/1Qhd14jDCP
— WSOP – World Series of Poker (@WSOP) June 4, 2026
The flop came out six-king-five-four. That’s right. Instead of three cards on the flop, the dealer accidentally spread four cards.
Landais thought he paired his king to take a commanding lead in the hand, but a tournament supervisor had to be called to the table to make a ruling on the misdeal.
“This is really bad,” commentator Joe Stapleton said on the WSOP stream. “This is a bad omen for Landais.”
After more than one minute of discussion, the tournament supervisor ruled that the dealer must scramble the four cards face down and remove one to be the burn card.
When the new three-card flop was put out, it was four-six-five, meaning the king was the burn card and not in play. Landais no longer had a pair of kings but was still ahead in the hand.
The turn card was an eight, which kept Landais in the lead with an 84 percent chance of winning the hand.
“Don’t do it to him,” commentator Randy Lew said before the final card was exposed.
“This would be pretty, pretty brutal,” Stapleton followed.
When the dealer turned over the seven of clubs to give James the winning straight, the remaining players at the table gasped in disbelief. Landais silently stood up from the table, put his backpack over his shoulder and walked away.
“This is not right. This is not right,” Lew said.
“This is one of the worst things that I have ever seen,” Stapleton said. “It’s poker, things happen, things are randomized. But that was ugly.”
Landais, a tournament grinder from Milwaukee, finished in 22nd place for $41,942. James went on to take 12th place and took home $51,258.
Contact David Schoen at dschoen@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5203. Follow @DavidSchoenLVRJ on X.
