Alan Keating is not shy when comes to putting gigantic sums of money on the line at the poker table, so last week’s Million Dollar Game on Hustler Casino Live (HCL) was right up his alley. And though he was down over a million bucks Friday night, he came through with a $2.4 million score – the second largest in HCL history – to catapult himself to a very profitable Million Dollar Game.
The two key players in the hand, Keating and Rahul, had fairly close chip stacks – over $1.3 million for Rahul and about $1.2 million for Keating.
Rahul raised pre-flop to $15,000 with 8♠-7♠ and Keating, with 9♠-T♠, called along with three other players. The flop of J♠-8♥-4♠ had all sorts of possibilities for the two players. Both picked up a flush draw, Rahul hit middle pair, and Keating also had an open-ended straight draw. Rahul was in the lead, but there were way too many cards that would be good for him that would be better for Keating.
Rahul bet $40,000 and Keating called. Everyone else folded.
With the A♦ on the turn, Rahul bet $140,000, the size of the pot, and Keating once again called.
The river was a nightmare for Rahul, but he didn’t know it: 7h. That gave him two pair, but it gave Keating a straight. A straight that Rahul looked like he wasn’t expecting.
Rahul bet $200,000 and when Keating raised to $1 million, Rahul looked like he now had a bad feeling about what was about to happen. Thinking out loud, he told everyone, “This is going to take some time.”
He went through the hand possibilities, Rahul even called out Keating’s exact hand at one point, saying he thought that he would’ve folded 9-T on the turn, but then added, “…Nine-Ten spades, I don’t think so.”
After about six minutes of agonizing over his decision – he seemed to be debating between Keating having pocket Fours or Q-T – Rahul finally made the call. Keating immediately flipped over the winning hand and Rahul just as quickly showed his cards and mucked them.
The $2.437 million pot put Keating back on the positive side of the ledger and he ended up finishing the 2024 Million Dollar Game with about $2 million profit.
The largest pot in Hustler Casino Live history was $3.1 million, won by Tom Dwan a year ago.
