The latest drama in High Stakes Poker on PokerGO saw three titans of the game clash in an unforgettable hand. With Daniel Negreanu, Patrik Antonius, and Phil Ivey all taking part in the hand, a gigantic pot went the way of one player when it could have gone a different way.
With the penultimate episode of the show providing drama throughout, let’s look back at an amazing episode of the classic poker show.
The Hand of the Season
“My brain is thinking out loud. Most likely Phil [Ivey] has a ten.”
Let’s go straight to the action, because the hand of the episode and indeed the ninth season to date, came early. Patrik Antonius raised to $2,500 with pocket fives and was called by Daniel Negreanu with pocket nines, Phil Ivey with king-ten and Jonathan Gibbs, a.k.a. ‘Johnny volcano’ with six-four of diamonds.
The flop of T-9-5 saw Antonius lead out for $5,000 which got a fold from Gibbs of course, but Negreanu was going nowhere, with both he and Ivey calling. Another ten on the turn saw Negreanu bet $26,000, and both Ivey and Antonius just called. The river was a queen, so with one player holding trip tens and the other two both holding full houses, it was all action.
Negreanu led out $54,000, which saw the room fall silent. The action was on Ivey, and he made a superb fold, laying down the trip tens. Antonius didn’t call, instead of moving all-in. Negreanu suddenly didn’t like his hand and made a stunning fold with the best hand. After a long think, Negreanu made the fold saying “I don’t want to waste anyone’s time.”
After the airing of this episode, Negreanu took to YouTube to explain his actions.
“He goes all-in… and I’m getting about 2 to 1. I’ve analyzed this hand for more hours than I’d like to admit. My brain is thinking out loud. Most likely Phil [Ivey] has a ten, Patrik can’t be bluffing here. When he overcalls, he has a ten or pocket fives, but when he check-raises all-in its not pocket fives. This isn’t even something that went into my brain.”
Dwan Wins a Few
Other players at the table I the penultimate episode of the season was Doyle Brunson, Tom Dwan, Jason Koon, DoorDash founder Stanley Tang, and the aforementioned Ivey, Gibbs, and Antonius. Dwan was successful in a number of pots, with one hand against Stanley Tang going his way as his diamonds flush beat Tang’s weaker flush on the river. Dwan called that one off to stop the delivery takeaway boss in his tracks to win just under a $100,000 pot.
It wasn’t long before Dwan took another pot, this time against Negreanu, who endured a miserable session at the gray felt. The Canadian poker legend held ace-king, while Dwan had king-queen of spades. The board was 6-K-4-8-Q, and when Dwan made a bet that covered Negreanus stack, he got a call, and Kid Poker would have to rebuy, having been rivered for the pot worth the better part of a quarter of a million dollars.
Just one more show remains in the season, but will Negreanu win back his losses, could Tom Dwan crush the opposition and will Doyle Brunson pull out some of the moves that won him back-to-back world championships over 50 years ago?
