How to Lose $1.93 Million in 7 Hands of Poker
By Twisted Sifter on Thursday, November 5, 2009 filed under SPORTS VIDEOS.
In celebration of the long-awaited final table showdown to determine the 2009 World Series of Poker - Main Event champion, I decided to compile a collection of monster poker pots witnessed on television or online. The seven hands below are from high-stakes cash games (Texas Hold em) between the top professionals in poker. When I say high-stakes, I’m talking pots over $800,000 cash! Can you imagine losing $400,000 in one hand of poker?
Before we dive in, let’s quickly recap the 2009 WSOP main event:
- There were 6,494 entrants into this year’s $10,000 buy-in ‘Main Event’
- Total prize pool was a staggering $61,043,600
- 9 players remain with play resuming this Saturday (Nov 7) to determine who will win the $8,546,435 first prize purse (and a gaudy bracelet to boot)
- Payouts for the other 8 finalists as follows: 2nd ($5,182,601), 3rd ($3,479,485), 4th ($2,502,787), 5th ($1,953,395), 6th ($1,587,133), 7th ($1,404,002), 8th ($1,300,228), 9th ($1,263,602)
- To see the rest of the payouts for this year, click here
- Heading into the final table, the chip stacks as follows: Darvin Moon (58,930,000), Eric Buchman (34,800,000), Steven Begleiter (29,885,000), Jeff Shulman (19,580,000), Joseph Cada (13,215,000), Kevin Schaffel (12,390,000), Phil Ivey (9,765,000), Antoine Saout (9,500,000), James Akenhead (6,800,000)
Without further adieu, I present:
HOW TO LOSE $1.93 MILLION IN 7 HANDS OF POKER
“Inevitable”
GUS HANSEN VS DANIEL NEGREANU
TOTAL POT: $575,500
Gus sums it up rather succinctly: “Pretty sick”
“Ivey League Education”
PHIL IVEY VS PATRIK ANTONIUS
TOTAL POT: $807,400
Check the stare down at the 4:07 mark
“Telemarketing aka Bad Call”
PATRIK ANTONIUS VS BRIAN TOWNSEND
TOTAL POT: $363,300
Larry the Lamb says: “That was a baaaaaaad call”
“You gotta know when to hold’em…”
PHIL IVEY VS ILARI SAHAMIES
TOTAL POT: $443,400
Could you make that lay down?
“Keep your head(s) up”
PATRIK ANTONIUS VS TOM ‘DURRRR’ DWAN
TOTAL POT: $375,770.50
Google ‘Durrrr’. True rags to riches story, kid’s only 23 and he’s an online legend
“The sickest call of all time”
PATRIK ANTONIUS VS KINGOFCARDS
TOTAL POT: $496,023
“Own-tonius” has titanium balls. Definitely my favourite hand of the lot because of the magnitude of the call. So sick! LOVE the comment window at the end, classic material.
“What’s $400,000 to a billionaire?”
GUY LALIBERTE VS DOYLE BRUNSON
TOTAL POT: $818,100
Why did they run the river twice you ask? Here’s a terrific answer from surprisingly, Yahoo Answers:
This kind of thing happens in high stakes cash games from time to time. It cannot happen in tournaments (so anyone saying it is joking), and it just isn’t tolerated in casino medium to low stakes games because it wastes time. Basically if two players are in a very large pot and one of them is all in, the players may agree to ‘run it twice’ or even thrice or four times!
So let’s say they both get all in on the turn and turn over their cards. They agree to run it twice. This means that the river card is dealt twice. The first time the river is dealt, the dealer looks and determines a winner. Then that card is pushed out of the way, and a second river card is dealt out. Half the pot goes to the winner of the first board, and half the pot goes to the person who wins, with the second river card.
In an example like this, either one player will win all the money, or they will split the pot. It is not uncommon for this decision to be made with the turn and river to come (i.e., on the flop) or even two entire boards if both players are all in pre-flop.
Both players would have to agree on this BEFORE it happens. Unless both players are in agreement, it cannot happen. The reason players do this is because sometimes in very high stakes games, there might be $500,000 of real money in the pot. Even if you are a 60/40 favorite to win, do you really want to risk losing such a massive amount of money on a single hand? By running cards twice, you reduce the ‘luck’ factor (or variance) from the situation. Even if you split the pot 50/50, there is usually additional money in there that other players had put in with antes and blinds. So you will be better off than if you had not played the hand at all.
High stakes poker players are playing for the long term. It doesn’t really matter what happens on a single night, if they finish the year up one million dollars. However taking lots of these gambling situations for very large amounts of money can add too much risk and fluctuation to a bank roll. So while some players are happy to just accept what happens. Others consider it wiser to run cards more than once, to make their swings smaller.
Now who wants to play some [high stakes] poker!
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If you enjoyed this article, the Sifter highly recommends: One Man Shows in Team Sports
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WSOP '09 Final Table - The November Nine - TRIBE - tribe.ca
November 5th, 2009 at 2:00 pm[...] Originally Posted by toney Two big time momments this yr on ESPN : 1. Pocket AA get mucked by the dealer - Some French Hottie didnt protect her hand and the dealer mucked her cards … but she did take the beat well. 2. Ivey mucks the winning hand - he had 88 and hit a one card flush with the 8 of spades in his pocket BUT mucked his hand when someone showed a pair of Aces. It was a $2 million pot .. crazy!! Those are both insane! I need to see these asap! In anticpation of the upcoming final table i put together a quick compilation of Youtube vids last night with some of the largest cash game pots i could find. 7 hands with a total prize pot of about $3.86 million The second last vid is the nastiest call ever by Patrik Antonius. so sick How To Lose $1.93 Million in 7 Hands of Poker [...]