We have all won a few big pots in our time; those special 3 way-all in moments where we treble our stack to give that great warm feeling of success. Sometimes, we might even dabble in the odd cash game that is above where we would normally play and get lucky, which also gives us a great feeling of satisfaction. Now imagine sitting down at the table and picking up a $465,451 pot, do you think that might feel quite good?
For one lucky player there was no need to imagine, as he picked up the biggest pot in online poker history. The hand was played between “Fast_Freddie” and “bad_ip” on the $200/$400 no limit Texas Holdem tables on the Microgaming network. The network is well known for hosting some seriously big cash games that compete with the likes of the big cap-limit games over on Full Tilt. However, little did the players and onlookers (players logged on watching) know that the biggest pot in online history was going to be played out that night.
Both of the players had been playing for some time, as the maximum buy in for the table was $40,000. The extended play meant that both of the players had doubled up on numerous occasions creating a huge amount of money on the table in total. The hand started out with “bad_ip” raising it to $1200 on the button, making it 3 times the big blind to go. “Fast_Freddie” then re-raised it to $4000, meaning “bad_ip” had to call another $2800 to see a flop. “bad_ip” did indeed make the call and so both of the players went to a flop.
The flop came: 7c Ah Ac
“Fast_Freddie” was first to act and led out with a pot bet of $8000. “bad_ip minimum raised to $16,000, to which “Fast_Freddie” reraised once more to a total of $32,000. “bad_ip” made the call, making the pot stand at a staggering $72,000 at the flop.
The turn came: 5s
“Fast_Freddie bet $74,000, roughly the size of the pot again. “bad_ip” came over the top pushing all in for $188,326 and “Fast_Freddie” made the call.
The river was a Kc, and “Fast_Freddie” turned over As Js for trip aces. “bad_ip” mucked his hand and so “Fast_Freddie” took down the killer $465,451 pot.
We do not know what “bad_ip” held but from the way the hand played out we can infer that he was trying to represent trip aces with a good kicker, but little did he know that “Fast_Freddie” already had them and wasn’t moving off the hand. “bad_ip” may have also had an ace but with a worse kicker, but it is hard to tell because these players are thinking on such a high level. This is not exactly a recent occurrence, but it is one that we believe deserves to be mentioned here on flopwire. So next time you suffer a bad beat, just think it could have been a hell of a lot worse!
