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Lederer was dealt 10-7 of spades and raised the blinds to $1,200 to go after everyone else folded the action to him. Kaplan made the call with Q-J of spades and the two saw a flop of 2d-Ah-8s. After Kaplan checked the action to Lederer, The Professor made a bold bluff of $1,300. Kaplan paused for awhile, and eventually made the call with nothing in his hand. He must have put Lederer on the bluff, or he had intentions to make a bluff of his own on the later streets.

When the turn card was the 2h, Kaplan decided to make good on his hunch and he bet out $3,000 into The Professor. Lederer was stopped in his tracks for a few minutes, but after thinking about the hand he begrudgingly made the call. The river card was another ace, the ace of diamonds, which was an action killer if you ever saw one. Kaplan had figured that Lederer must have had a hand if he called the $3,000 bet, so he checked the action to Lederer instead of firing again at the pot a second time. If he would have followed his instincts about the hand, he would have won it with another bet.

Lederer immediately recognized the opportunity that the second ace gave him and he bet $3,500 on the river. Kaplan was convinced that this bet was a pure value bet, and that Lederer must have an ace for the big boat. He folded the best hand and Lederer won a big pot of $8,200, and eventually went on to earn the $120,000 winner-take-all prize pool.

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With blinds of $1500, three players – Jamie Gold, Antonio Esfandiari and Guy Laliberte – called the action, leaving David Benyamine to act last. Benyamine made it $21,200 to go with a 7-2 off-suit after sensing that the table was weak. The only call he got was from Jamie Gold, who was holding K-10 off-suit. They saw a flop of 6d-8h-3h and Benyamine came out betting an amount of $38,000. Gold reluctantly called, most likely to try and steal the pot on the later streets.

With the pot up to $122,000, they saw the jack of spades come on the turn. Somehow Benyamine had the courage to make another bet of $80,000. Gold immediately folded the hand to Benyamine, who flipped over his 7-2 to show the bluff. Gold was surprised at Benyamine’s cards, and immediately gave Benyamine praise for the incredibly bold move.

This type of play is common enough in a poker tournament setting. But Benyamine made that move in a cash game, with over $100,000 of his own money on the line. They weren’t tournament chips, and that’s a lot of cash to put out there on a bluff like that. But it’s not like Benyamine can’t afford it; he plays in the biggest games online as well as High Stakes poker and games in Bobby’s Room at the Bellagio.

Not only did he make the move with the 7-2 off-suit, he did it at a table that had Barry Greenstein, Doyle Brunson, Erick Seidel, Sammy Farha, Patrick Antonius and Antonio Esphandiari. The move was breathtakingly bold. But it’s that very unlikelihood that a player would make a big raise in a situation like that one, against those players. That, in a sense, made it a good move because everyone gave him credit for a big hand.

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Patrik Antonius and online high-stakes cash-game player Andrew “Good2cu” Robl played a hand of Pot Limit Omaha that just didn’t seem fair. It started when Antonius raised the pot to $3,500 pre-flop on the button, and Robl re-raised to $12,000 from the big blind. Antonius called, and the flop was Ad7s4d.

Robl bet out $16,000 and then Antonius raised the pot $72,000. Robl then moved all-in for $103,000, which Antonius called. Since it was a cash game, the two players decided to run it out four times.

They turned over their hands and Antonius was holding 9h8d6d5d while Robl had AsQsQdJc. Even though Robl had the lead at that time, Antonius was a 68.45% favorite to win the hand. Despite only having 31.55% to win, Robl picked the right time to get all his chips in the middle of the table because the deck was certainly on his side.

The first run of turn and river cards was Kh, 2h giving Robl one fourth of the pot. He knew he wouldn’t lose any money when the second run was Jd, Ac giving him at least half the pot. The third run was 10h, Ks and Robl had won three times in a row for three-quarters of the $225,000 pot. Then everyone was surprised when the fourth run was 3s, 10s giving him the entire pot and the double through.

The cash games at Pinnacle Sports Poker don’t let you play a hand out four times, but you may not want that option when something like that happens to you. At least Patrik Antonius can afford the beats; he’s up over $2M in online cash games so far in 2009.

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Ivey asked him how much he wanted to bet, and the two decided they would flip their cards over for the $191K Ziigmund had in front of him. Ivey was sitting with over $600K in front of him, including $200K he had just won from Ziigmund.

Both are known to be fearless gamblers, so it’s not that extreme that they would flip a hand for big dollars. But this amount is a bit crazy for any player. It would be nice to have a Pinnacle Sports Poker bankroll that big, but it might be tough to find someone who’s willing to bet it all on one hand. It only happened because Ziigmund was down so much in the session already. He was obviously tilting a bit, and wanted to get back what he had lost to Ivey on the day. The two were playing pot-limit Omaha head to head.

So the pot was a staggering $383,993 before the two ever saw their hand. Once they were dealt their cards they just kept re-raising each other pre-flop until Ziigmund was all-in. The two hands were flipped over and Ivey had 6c-4h-10s-Jh, while Ziigmund held 7d-2c-Qh-4d.

At this point the hands were pretty even, with Ivey holding a slight edge over Ziigmund with a 53% chance to win the hand. The flop cards were good for both players: Qc-7h-Ah. Ziigmund had two pair, while Ivey flopped a flush draw. Ivey lost his edge in the hand at that point, but he still had a 45% chance to win.

The turn wasn’t so good for Ivey because he was dead in the hand after the Qs hit the board. The river card, the 3c, was meaningless and Ziigmund took down the massive pot. After winning the hand Ziigmund promptly told Ivey he was going to bed and the game broke up. He must have slept a little better after winning that one.

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Antonius played one hand that made a big difference in the profits he was able to pull down. The three players were sitting in a $500/$1000 hold’em game when Antonius was dealt K-7 of hearts. Hansen had $78K in front of him, Antonius had $280K, and “durrrr” had $428K. “durrrr” posted the small blind and Hansen posted the $1000 big blind. Antonius raised the action to $3,500 on the button and “durrrr” re-raised it up to $11,500 from his bad position, all pre-flop.

That was enough to get Hansen out of the hand. “durrrr” and Antonius had been going pretty hard at each other, and Hansen knew that the hand was likely going to get very expensive in a hurry. Antonius called the raise and the two saw a flop of Qh-5c-Kc with a $24,000 pot in front of them. “durrrr” came out betting $17,200 from his weak position and Antonius quickly called.

The turn card was the 6s, and “durrrr” went for the bold move of check-raising Antonius’ bet of $39,000 to $156,500 after first checking to him. Antonius made the big call with his top pair/weak kicker, and the two saw a river card of 5h.

That card paired the board, but missed the flush draw. “durrrr” had only one option at that point; to make a final bet at the pot and hope that Antonius was on a draw. “durrrr” bet the rest of his stack, which easily covered the remainder of what Antonius had in front of him.

Antonius ended up making the call for his remaining $95K, and two showed their hands. “durrrr” showed the 9-8 of clubs for a busted flush/straight draw, making Antonius’ king good enough to take down the $562,719 pot.

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Antonius raised the $1,000 blind to $3,500 to go from under the gun, and “world1969” promptly re-raised it to $12,000. That was enough to get Phil Ivey and “MR B 2 U SON” out of the hand, and after some thought, Antonius made the out of position call. With a pot that was already $25,500, they saw a flop of 8h-Js-Ad.

Antonius checked the action to “world1969” who quickly bet out an amount that was around half the pot; $12,750. Antonius must have figured he had the best hand because he raised it to $63,750, an over bet that easily put “world1969” all-in for the rest of his chips.

Subsequently “world1969” didn’t hesitate to call Antonius’s bet, and put in the rest of his $13,498 in chips. The pot was $78,494 once “world1969” was all-in, and the two players’ cards were revealed.

Patrick Antonius showed As-Qh, while “world1969” had the better hand of Ac-Ks. Antonius was dominated and needed a huge suck out to recover his chips. Accordingly “world1969” was an 85% favorite to win the hand, but fate had a different plan for the two high-stakes players.

The turn card was a meaningless 7d, reducing Patrick’s odds down to 6.82% to win. He needed one of only three possible cards to take the hand away from “world1969”, and that’s if none of the other players mucked a queen pre-flop.

As you’ve probably already figured out, the river card was the queen of clubs, giving Patrick Antonius two pair and the big pot. The hand busted “world1969”, while Patrick Antonius added another $78,494 to the $200,000 + he already had at the table.

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After that card hit the board Minh Lee backed off and checked the action to Negreanu, who was sitting with top pair and a straight draw. He wanted to find out here he stood, so he made a bet of $8,000 which Booth quickly called. Minh Lee saw that his small pair wasn’t any good and mucked out of the hand. The river card was the 8h, improving Negreanu’s hand to a straight. Once again he came out betting, this time throwing out $16,000 in chips into Booth’s straight flush.

Booth raised Negreanu back another $30,000, causing Negreanu to immediately say, “I knew you had the flush, I have a straight.” Yukon Brad then said. “I have a straight flush,” even though Negreanu hadn’t folded out yet. Negreanu didn’t seem to believe that Booth had the straight flush, and thought that perhaps his statement was meant to throw him off a bit. Negreanu pondered over the decision for a little while before eventually mucking his straight, and giving the pot of $66,300 to Booth.

You may not play too many straight flushes at Pinnacle Sports Poker for $66,000, but you could certainly hit one of your own if you play enough hands. The odds of hitting one are 1-in-64,974 hands; much more difficult to hit than the 1-in-4,165 hands it takes to hit four of a kind. But you will hit one eventually, and hopefully it pays off for you like it did for “Yukon” Brad Booth.

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