The invisible flush

Boards which support flushes are easier to spot, generally speaking, than boards which support straights. Sometimes, however, they're devilishly difficult to spot. Last night, I hit the felt for the first time when I failed to spot that the board supported a flush. The board was as follows:

9s 9d 8h 5s 8s

I missed the flush support for three reasons:

1. it was a backdoor flush (i.e., it required running cards on the turn and the river)
2. the first flush card was in the window, as far as possible from the other two flush cards
3. I was distracted by the fact that the board made two pair

The upshot? I was beaten by an "invisible" flush :-)

style flavor buy_in entry players hands entries paid place winnings

MTT-R NLHE    43500  6500       9    64      58   12    22        0 

delta: $-400,000
MTT with rebuys NLHE balance: $36,849,500
2018 balance: $3,126,000
balance: $48,639,260