button in SafariThis Will End Up as One of the Grossest Bad Beats at the 2026 WSOP
A player busting from a tournament with a bigger ace losing to a weaker ace happens all the time. But there was a hand like that on Wednesday at the 2026 World Series of Poker (WSOP) that was a bit out of the ordinary.
The hand in question took place in Event #11: $10,000 GGMillion$ High Roller No-Limit Hold'em, a GGPoker-branded event. There were 22 players remaining out of the original 627, all chasing the $1,089,964 first-place prize.
Ricky Landais was short-stacked and desperate for a double-up. He'd find himself in perfect position to do just that against Bobby James in what might be the wildest hand so far this summer.
Tough Bad Beat
All players at the time of the forthcoming bad beat had a guaranteed minimum payout of $41,942. But there were even bigger bucks still to play for, and of course a WSOP bracelet.
James, who had just under 3,000,000 chips with the big blind at 60,000, raised to 120,000 from the cutoff with A♦9♠. Landais had just 340,000, so when he looked down at A♣K♣, he only had one move, and that was to move all in. Action folded back to James, who wasn't about to fold for a few more big blinds. It was a standard all-in and call situation where the short-stack had the best hand. Nothing out of the ordinary happened, yet.
The flop came out 6♦5♦4♥K♦. Yes, four cards instead of three, as there was no burn card. A floor manager was quickly called, and made the correct ruling to have the dealer re-shuffle the four cards, and then choose one of the face-down cards to be the burn card.
The flop was re-dealt, and it came out 4♥6♦5♦, still fine for Landais, but losing the K♦ hurt. James picked up a straight draw on the 8♥ turn, and then hit the straight with the 7♣ river that sent Landais home in 22nd place on a cruel bad beat.
"This is one of the worst things that I have ever seen," commentator Joe Stapleton said as Landais exited the feature table area.
