Faded a bunch of outs
Tony G went from professional poker play to politician, but now he’s back to poker and methinks he is not regretting it one bit. On Friday, Antanas “Tony G” Guoga won the largest pot in online poker history: $7.75 million.
He accomplished the feat on CoinPoker, a site for which he is an advisor and high stakes regular. CoinPoker is a cryptocurrency-based online poker room and in this day and age with the crypto/poker pro overlap, that can often mean attracting some people who are willing to risk lots and lots of money.
The game was $5,000/$10,000 Pot-Limit Omaha. There were three players at the table: Tony G, “Chattahoochee,” and “HannibalGetya.” Each player anted $2,000 and immediately started raising to grow the pot to $448,000 pre-flop.
The flop was a juicy Q♣-A♥-T♣. That is bound to create action in Hold’em game, but in Omaha, watch out. Chattahoochee checked, HannibalGetya bet about $225,000, Tony G called, and then Chattahoochee folded when the action returned to him.
The turn was the 8♥, putting two flush draws on the board and an additional straight draw. HannibalGetya came out firing with a $903,000 bet, Tony G raised just about all-in to $3.42 million (I’m getting the sweats at just the thought of doing this), and HannibalGetya called.
The river was the 4♦, likely inconsequential, and the cards were revealed. Tony G had J♦-K♠-3♠-Q♥, for a flopped nut straight. HannibalGetya had Q♦-4♣-A♣-3♦, good for just two pair. He had flopped a monster: top two pair, a nut flush draw, and a backdoor wheel draw, but couldn’t hit any of it (he obviously didn’t know Tony G had one of his Queen outs). Tony G won a pot of $7,750,650.
High rollers loving crypto sites
And while this pot was above and beyond anything anyone had ever seen before, crypto poker has been generating crazy cash game pots in the last few months. Just a few days ago, CoinPoker saw multiple $2 million-plus pots, some involving Tony G.
The one that really caught the attention of the online poker community was in January, when Tony G and King’s Resort (home of the World Series of Poker Europe) owner Leon Tsoukernik chopped a $1.8 million pot on CoinPoker.
It wasn’t quite as exciting as one person winning it all, but it was still the largest online cash game pot since 2009. It was over a decade ago when poker fans flocked to Full Tilt Poker (remember Full Tilt?) to rail the nosebleed stakes games and marvel at the then-mysterious “Isildur1,” who later revealed himself to be Viktor Blom. Blom and Patrik Antonius tangled in what was then the most insane pot ever witnessed, with Antonius winning $1,356,947 in a game of $500/$1,000 Pot-Limit Omaha.
