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Breakdown of the world’s biggest ever online cash game hand ($7.75m)!

Breakdown of the world’s biggest ever online cash game hand ($7.75m)!

Those of us who have been sitting around waiting for the band to get back together since the days of Full Tilt Poker’s ‘Rail Heaven’ need wait no longer as CoinPoker, a new crypto poker site, has recently delivered the most scintillating nosebleed action ever seen on the internet. 

At eye-watering stakes of $5,000/$10,000 blinds Tony G, ‘HannibalGetya’ and ‘Chattahoochee’ went to war in the Pot Limit Omaha streets last week. After over 9 hours of battle the session culminated in a humongous $7.75m pot won by Lithuanian businessman and poker celebrity Tony G. True to his character he instantly celebrated with a ‘we did it!’ in the chat, echoing the ‘get on your bike!’ and other antagonistic phrases which propelled the controversial player’s rise to poker fame decades before. 

Before the birth of CoinPoker the previous record stood at $1.3m in a pot contested between Patrik Antonius and Viktor Blom, all the way back in 2009 during the Full Tilt Poker glory days. For that record to stand for so long yet be brushed aside by a pot almost 6 times the size is mindblowing, so let’s take a look into the hand from a strategic standpoint and discuss some key takeaways.

Video: $7.75 online poker cash game hand

Here's how the hand went down:

Omaha Pot Limit (5000/10000 ante 2000) 2022/02/12 00:15:43 GMT
Seat 1: Chattahoochee (1,452,480 in chips)
Seat 4: HannibalGetya (7,392,290 in chips) Q 4 A 3
Seat 6: TonyG (3,800,320 in chips) J K 3 Q

Preflop

TonyG: raises 25,703.1 to 35,703.1
Chattahoochee: calls 30,703.1
HannibalGetya: raises 113,109 to 148,813
TonyG: calls 113,109
Chattahoochee: calls 113,109

Flop: Q A 10

Chattahoochee: checks
HannibalGetya: bets 225,819
TonyG: calls 225,819
Chattahoochee: folds

Turn: Q A 10 8

HannibalGetya: bets 903,275
TonyG: raises 3,423,690 and is all-in
HannibalGetya: calls 2,520,410

River: Q A 10 8 4

Showdown

TonyG shows J K 3 Q (a straight, Ace high)
HannibalGetya shows Q 4 A 3 (two pairs, Aces and Queens)
TonyG collected 7,750,650 from pot

(Video via HighStakesPokerStream)

Strategy breakdown

Preflop

Tony G comes in for a standard open on the button to pot with K Q J 3 and Chattahoochee peels SB. HannibalGetya in the BB elects to squeeze full pot with A Q 4 3 .

BB is definitely incentivised to squeeze here a lot, Tony is opening wide on the button and the SB peel is definitely capped in the sense he won’t have the super premium hands in range. BB’s hand selection seems fine with exactly the Ace and Queen suit giving him strong potential draws and nutted equity to realise or barrel postflop. It’s a spot in Omaha where you don’t really ‘bluff’ as the BB like you can in No Limit Hold’em, equities run closer and, specifically versus a loose recreational as Tony G, you can’t expect much fold equity preflop. Thus he wants to have a linear range centering around high pairs, high suits and connectivity. This is an example of a hand he will probably defend vs Tony’s open raise but with the SB cold call can look to squeeze and generate a slither of fold equity by being able to go an extra 3.7bb and give his opponents a worse price to continue.

Both players call. Tony G’s continue is wide, his hand is easily dominated and once he calls he will be ‘sandwiched’ in between two fairly strong ranges postflop. Something to note in these situations is that the SB’s range should be fairly snug here as he is disincentivised to enter the pot, due to having to play the entire hand out of position. There is also a fairly common occurrence in which the SB will have weak Aces or a hand like AKKx with poor suits/connectivity and elect to back pot to commit the majority of his stack. 

Flop

A Q 10

Hannibal’s decision to go half pot seems quite reasonable, the flop hits all 3 ranges fairly neutrally but he will have the higher concentration of high card connectivity and top set whilst his opponents less so. His top 2 + nut flush draw is a good candidate to build a pot with, but he doesn’t want to go too large (full pot) and potentially fold out worse flush draws or 2 pairs.

Tony G has flopped the nuts but he sits 370bb deep with a stack to pot ratio of nearly 10. His hand has zero side card equity and is a nice candidate to call in position, thus having a ‘disguised’ nut hand on future streets and avoiding committing too many big blinds should the turn card bring a club or board pair. He also allows Hannibal to potentially barrel hands like KKxx and AJJxx, blockers to the nut straight, on the turn by calling where if he were to raise he would freeze these potential zero equity bluffs out of the hand. 

Turn

A Q 10 8

This is the moment the hand veers off of a cliff. Hannibal now elects to turn his hand into a bluff (?) by betting full pot, with the only better hand that folds likely to be some kind of TTxx combination. Worse draws and 2 pairs will almost always fold to this sizing and once he sees Tony G continue again his hand will be extremely difficult to navigate without improving and the range in which Tony G continues will mostly include better hands.

Hannibal’s hand is a perfect candidate for a check, this allows him to keep in worse draws and made hands which could pay dividends should a club or A/Q river roll off. He can call any sizing from Tony G but is up shit creek without a paddle should he face an all in. That’s exactly Tony’s move. His hand actually could be preferred as another call facing this pot sized turn bet. With the board being wetter than an otter’s pocket the hands he should be up against have significant equity versus him and there is also the possibility of being freerolled by KJ + hearts or clubs. Once again he potentially freezes out KK or JJ type blocker bluffs from tripling off completely dead. Out of position I think he has to commit but in position he can be much more comfortable navigating the plethora of awkward river cards, as his opponent cannot simply bluff any card that changes the board texture with Tony likely to have improvements on clubs, hearts and board pairs also. 

River

A Q 10 8 4

Despite all of the aforementioned points $7.75m has been rifled into the pot and a hand which would not look out of place in a $5/5 live game in Texas happens to obliterate the world record for the biggest online pot ever played. This can be seen as a shining example of the opportunities for all in Pot Limit Omaha, where the level of play is still extremely weak in comparison to the solver nerds and robots encompassing No Limit Hold’em lobbies both online and in live game play. If you are not well versed in Omaha I would implore you to learn the game and see for yourself, there is value to be had everywhere and a much weaker general understanding of the great game amongst the population.

George Sandford

George is a professional 4/5 card PLO cash game player. He plays on GGPoker as Kacicka.

You can check his tournaments results on Hendon Mob.

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