The second installment in this adrenalin-filled high stakes cash game Season 9 of High Stakes Poker saw the always welcome appearance of the cheery, chatty John-Robert Bellande who immediately started working the table with his relaxed banter and ended up taking a huge pot away from Patrik Antonius.
With a straddle of $800 in play and a cheeky early position open from Phil Ivey to $2,500 with the old 5♦7♦, John-Robert Bellande smooth called behind with T♥T♦, only to find Patrik Antonius waking up with A♠K♠ in the straddle, putting the squeeze on to a hefty $10,800. Ivey quickly got out of the way, only for Bellande to make it an epic $81,500 to go. This covered Antonius, who quickly called off. The pair decided to run it twice, with the tease of a K♣9♥8♥ flop bricking the turn with 3s but delivering a set for Bellande on the river with the T♠. The second board ran out a harmless 7♣6♥4♥ 8♦ Q♣ to give the whole pot to Bellande, good for $166k.
Durrr’s bad run continued into episode 2 in another big straddled pot. With an open from Koray Aldemir, WSOP Main Event winner of 2021, Negreanu upped it to $12,700 with his 8♠8♦, only to face a mammoth all-in 4bet from Tom Dwan to a startling $168k with the A♠K♥. DNegs, to his credit, did not look a bit bothered, and quickly made the call. Running it twice you’d expect this to split up pretty often, but in this particular case Daniel scooped the lot, as the boards ran out a first a fiery K♠9♣3♣ then a hot 8♥ on the turn for Negreanu’s set, and a K♣ on the river to house him up, followed by an all-too tame 7♣5♦5♥ 5c 6♥ second board runout to deliver him the scoop.
The last hand of the show was pretty literally a show-stopper! Ivey opened the pot (now back to no straddle, blinds $200/$400) up to $1,200 with a sexy Q♦T♦, Doyle Brunson peeling in middle position with A♦7♦, and Negreanu also just calling in the big blind with 6♠6♣. The flop came off K♦5♦5♥ and Negreanu checked. Ivey continued for $2,500 and saw a call from Brunson and a raise to $7,500 from DNegs. Ivey made the call but Brunson somehow found the fold here with the nut flush draw. The turn brought the J♠, and Daniel put out another $12,500 which Ivey quickly called. The river came out a powerhouse card for Ivey, the 8♦ giving him the flush, and Daniel fired right on into it, another barrel of $36,000. Ivey made a smooth call with just the Queen-high flush, and it was good for $118,000.
A spicy little episode this one, and well worth a watch if you missed it go out live on PokerGO. Pop on into the PokerDeals Discord too, if you’d like to talk over any hands that went down!
Image courtesy of PokerGO.com