16:49
10 Oct
(Photo: Poker-king.com)
Televised tournament poker has always been an enjoyable part of my poker ‘fanaticism’, a steady diet of EPT’s and the WSOP schedule every summer keeping me well-fed. But somehow the memories of huge TV cash games have stuck with me much longer, and here I want to share with you three of the most exciting and biggest-ever pots to have made it to our screens.
♥ ♣ ♦ ♠
Boneta’s bluff comes unstuck
Nov 20, 2016 This was the golden age of high stakes poker online, where the biggest games of all time took place. The $500/$1,000 were often referred to as Rail Heaven, and were aptly named.
When you wake up with pocket aces, what you really want to see is a straddle followed by two calls in front of you. At an active table, Johnny Chan decided just to flat-call, in the hope that someone would decide to steal the pot somewhere after him.
That someone was Negreanu, who decided to kick it up from his $1600 straddle to over $9k. Erik Boneta decided to come along, as did Phil Laak - and Chan must have been smiling inwardly! Re-raising to $30k got rid of Negreanu, but with the other pair calling he now had aces and a $101,800 pot! No ‘win small, lose big’ with these pocket rockets.
And things got even better. The 2, 5, 6 rainbow flop had missed Boneta completely, while Laak’s pair of 3’s may just have called Chan’s $45k lead out bet, if Boneta hadn’t decided to shove with his complete bluff of KQ spades!
Chan wasted no time in calling – his aces good against almost all of Boneta’s range here – and the amateur was left red-faced and on the wrong end of a $516,400 cash pot, even though they ran it three times - probably the easiest money Johnny Chan has ever won!
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Durrrr’s aces cracked!
Just like in Chan’s hand above, Tom ‘durrrr’ Dwan must have been licking his lips when he peeked at his cards and saw aces, then witnessed a raise and a re-raise before him. A timely 4-bet saw initial raiser Eastgate get out of the way, but fellow poker legend Barry Greenstein decided his J♥ 9♥ was worth a look at the flop, the pot sitting at a comfortable $68,500.
When the flop came…
3♥ J♦ 10♣
…Dwan was unperturbed. Although a better flop for Greenstein’s range than Boneta’s was above, it still wouldn’t prevent Dwan from continuing with a 2/3rds pot bet. Greenstein, however, decided that Dwan could be doing this with almost anything – and essentially committed himself by raising $146k, ‘durrrr’ taking little time in shoving, which Greenstein had to call.
$548,700 in cold hard cash was sitting in the middle, Dwan’s aces ahead of Greenstein’s top pair with Jacks – and then the turn came the 9♠!! Greenstein had just hit two pair and Dwan was left reeling, although he managed a joke about ‘running it three times’ – a reference to Greenstein’s slightly unusual habit of only ever running it once.
When the river missed Dwan, he had that sickly look on his face that only comes from half-a-million bucks going astray!
♥ ♣ ♦ ♠
Dwan takes Ivey for $1.1million
It would be unfair on poor Tom Dwan if I didn’t include the biggest televised pot in history in this compilation, and not least because it seems Dwan recoup the $1/2 million he just lost to Greenstein and then some! But it’s not the $900k plus pot that Dwan won when cracking Greenstein’s aces – oh no, it’s bigger and even better!
It came from modest beginnings, Ivey’s A♣ 2♦ and Dwan’s 6♥ 7♥ seeing a flop, the pot only $49,500 at the time. The flop, however, made for interesting reading…
Biggest Poker Pot Ever
J♣ 3♦ 5♣
and Dwan called Ivey’s $35k bet. Now what card might the turn bring which could see these two mighty players getting it all in? That’s right…
4♥
And for Ivey, there was no getting away from his turned wheel – Dwan’s re-raise of his $90k bet leading to an all-in from Phil and instacall with the nuts from Dwan! $1,108,500 all in greenbacks!
Completely sick – just what you would expect for the biggest televised pot of all-time – and featuring the two biggest names in high-stakes TV poker!
For the last eight years, the largest tournament in the world has been the World Series of Poker Main Event. With the exception of 1992, the US$10,000 buy-in tournament increased in prize pool year-over-year from its start in 1970 until 2007 (the latter a result of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006, which reduced the number of players winning their seats via online play).
The first tournament to reach a million dollar prize pool was the 1983 WSOP Main Event. The WSOP Main Event of 2004 had the first prize pool of above $10,000,000.
The largest non Hold'em Tournament has been the 2008 WSOP $50K HORSE with a prize pool of $7,104,000 and the first prize of $1,989,120 going to Scotty Nguyen.[1]
Largest Pot In Online Poker History
Below are the 30 largest poker tournaments with respect to the prize pool in United States dollars and not number of entrants. This list includes live and online poker.
Biggest Online Pot Poker History
Currently, 14 of the 15 largest prize pools in history have been WSOP Main Events. The second largest prize pool outside of the Main Event is the 2012 WSOP event known as The Big One for One Drop, held from July 1–3. It featured a buy-in of US$1 million, the largest in poker history. Of the buy-in, $111,111 was a charitable donation to the One Drop Foundation, and the WSOP took no rake. All 48 seats available for that event were filled, resulting in a prize pool of $42,666,672, with over 5 million dollars donated.[2] The second largest pool for any event outside of the WSOP was the 2012 Macau High Stakes Challenge, with a HK$2 million (US$260,000) buy-in plus a rebuy option. The event drew a field of 73, of which 21 made a rebuy, resulting in a prize pool of HK$182,360,000 (slightly over US$23.5 million).[3]
All of the 30 richest tournaments to date were played in No Limit Hold'em.
| Event | Prize Pool (US$) | Winner | 1st Prize | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2006 WSOP Main Event | $82,512,162 | Jamie Gold | $12,000,000 | [4][5] |
| 2019 WSOP Main Event | $80,548,600 | Hossein Ensan | $10,000,000 | [6] |
| 2018 WSOP Main Event | $74,015,600 | John Cynn | $8,800,000 | [7] |
| 2010 WSOP Main Event | $68,799,059 | Jonathan Duhamel | $8,944,310 | [8] |
| 2017 WSOP Main Event | $67,877,400 | Scott Blumstein | $8,150,000 | [9] |
| 2019 Triton Super High Roller Series - Triton Million | $65,660,000 (£54,000,000) | Aaron Zang | $23,100,000 (£19,000,000) | [10] |
| 2011 WSOP Main Event | $64,531,000 | Pius Heinz | $8,711,956 | [11] |
| 2008 WSOP Main Event | $64,333,600 | Peter Eastgate | $9,152,416 | [12] |
| 2016 WSOP Main Event | $63,327,800 | Qui Nguyen | $8,005,310 | [13] |
| 2014 WSOP Main Event | $62,820,200 | Martin Jacobson | $10,000,000 | [14] |
| 2012 WSOP Main Event | $62,021,200 | Greg Merson | $8,527,982 | [15] |
| 2009 WSOP Main Event | $61,043,600 | Joe Cada | $8,547,042 | [16] |
| 2015 WSOP Main Event | $60,348,000 | Joe McKeehen | $7,680,021 | [17] |
| 2007 WSOP Main Event | $59,784,954 | Jerry Yang | $8,250,000 | [18] |
| 2013 WSOP Main Event | $59,708,800 | Ryan Riess | $8,359,531 | [19] |
| 2005 WSOP Main Event | $52,818,610 | Joe Hachem | $7,500,000 | [20] |
| 2012 WSOP Event 55 – The Big One for One Drop | $42,666,672 | Antonio Esfandiari | $18,346,673 | [21] |
| 2014 WSOP Event 57 – The Big One for One Drop | $37,333,338 | Dan Colman | $15,306,668 | [22] |
| 2016 Monte-Carlo One Drop Extravaganza | $27,437,564 | Elton Tsang | $12,248,912 | [23] |
| 2019 PokerStars NL Hold'em Players Championship | $26,455,500 | Ramon Colillas | $5,100,000 | [24] |
| 2018 WSOP Event 78 – The Big One for One Drop | $24,840,000 | Justin Bonomo | $10,000,000 | [25] |
| 2004 WSOP Main Event | $24,224,400 | Greg Raymer | $5,000,000 | [26] |
| 2012 Macau High Stakes Challenge Super High Roller | $23,511,128 | Stanley Choi | $6,465,560 | [27] |
| Super High Roller Bowl 2015 | $21,500,000 | Brian Rast | $7,525,000 | [28] |
| 2016 WSOP Event 67 – High Roller for One Drop | $19,316,565 | Fedor Holz | $4,981,775 | [29] |
| 2013 WSOP Event 47 – One Drop High Roller | $17,891,148 | Anthony Gregg | $4,830,619 | [30] |
| Super High Roller Bowl 2017 | $16,800,000 | Christoph Vogelsang | $6,000,000 | [31] |
| 2007 WPT Championship | $15,495,750 | Carlos Mortensen | $3,970,415 | [32] |
| 2013 GuangDong Ltd Asia Millions Main Event | $15,376,897 | Niklas Heinecker | $4,456,885 | [33] |
| 2011 Pokerstars Caribbean Adventure | $15,132,000 | Galen Hall | $2,300,000 | [34] |
Notes[edit]
- ^Hendon Mob
- ^Dalla, Nolan (June 30, 2012). 'The Biggest One—World's Most Spectacular Poker Extravaganza Starts Sunday'. World Series of Poker. Retrieved July 3, 2012.
- ^Peters, Donnie (August 31, 2012). 'Stanley Choi Wins Macau High Stakes Challenge for US$6,465,746'. PokerNews.com. Retrieved October 21, 2012.
- ^'2006 WSOP Main Event payouts'. WSOP. Retrieved 4 September 2017.
- ^Hendon Mob
- ^https://pokerdb.thehendonmob.com/event.php?a=r&n=541550
- ^[1]
- ^wsop.com
- ^http://www.wsop.com/tournaments/payouts.asp?grid=1352&tid=15673
- ^https://triton-series.com/triton-super-high-roller-series-london-2019/
- ^'PIUS HEINZ WINS 2011 WSOP MAIN EVENT CHAMPIONSHIP'. WSOP. 8 November 2011. Retrieved 9 November 2011.
- ^Hendon Mob
- ^'Level 4 concludes: officially the largest main event in the last five years'. WSOP. Retrieved 4 September 2017.
- ^Poker News Daily
- ^pokernews.com
- ^'2009 WSOP main event prize pool'. WSOP. Retrieved 4 September 2017.
- ^'Event #68: No-Limit Hold'em MAIN EVENT'. 2015 World Series op Poker Chip Counts. World Series of Poker. Retrieved July 15, 2015.
- ^Hendon Mob
- ^'2013 44th Annual World Series of Poker, Event #62: No-Limit Hold'em Main Event'. WSOP.com. Retrieved July 20, 2013. Click on the 'Prizepool' tab for the first prize.
- ^Hendon Mob
- ^Dalla, Nolan (July 3, 2012). 'Antonio Esfandiari Pulls Off Amazing Trick by Winning One Drop'. WSOP.com. Retrieved July 4, 2012.
- ^Hendon Mob
- ^[2]
- ^[3]
- ^[4]
- ^Hendon Mob
- ^Hendon Mob
- ^Hendon Mob
- ^Hendon Mob
- ^Hendon Mob
- ^[5]
- ^Hendon Mob
- ^Hendon Mob
- ^pokerstarsblog.com