Biggest Pot ever on High Stakes Poker

What a pot! would you really let it run it twice when you are holding top 2 against the nut flush draw? He raised you all in and you made an amazing call! What a nice guy he is. Actually maybe its just too much money in the pot that made them nervous like that.

Las Vegas Trip - December, 2007

I flew to Las Vegas again during the last week of 2007 to play some serious poker for an week. I booked the flight to Las Vegas on the last day of my school. Therefore, when I arrived in Vegas, I was somewhat tired but decided to play some poker and went to Wynn. As always, a very nice poker room and well managed.

I sat down on $2/5 NL table with $500 and started playing. One interesting thing about this poker roon is that there is no buy-in limit in the poker tables at Wynn which means you can even sit down at a table with any amount of cash you desire. I observed how people play for about a half hour and figured out that people are playing tight and timid. I made some nifty moves to steal the bets from the SB/BB with marginal hand. I have had a strong intuition about the players but these consecutive stealing made me to think about my table image on the poker table. I felt that people on the tables are sometimes often too tight/timid that I can steal/bluff the pot from them every time.

Apparently, I also understood that if I keep stealing these bets from them too often, they will get suspicious on my play and try to play back against me. I decided to use reverse psychology and mix up my play by talking to the opponents and making them believe that I have the nutz everytime. I pulled this off by sometime posturing emotion that I got disappointed that people folded when I had a really strong hand or if I steal too often, I tell them what I have but I avoided showing them my hand as much as possible.

I was also often confronted with a player who brings in a lot of cash to the table. One really interesting I realized is that if you show them an image that you are a tight player, these players will try to bully you with cash. I didn't want that to happen and wanted to win a big pot against these players. I decided to loosen myself a bit show them that I gamble and play loose. I often bluffed small pots and showed my card to the table in order to gain further profit when I am holding a big hand.

To make the long story short, I didn't have a single losing day during my 8 day playing session when I was cashing out at the cage. I was convinced that I can play higher limit than $2/5 NL and decided to play some $5/10 NL on the last day. I sat down with a lot of good players and observed how they play. As expected, players in this limit are obviously better players than $2/5 NL. There was a guy who is really good player in the table who often pulled out river check raise all in move. I had this ego on my heart to outplay him. I made $60 to go with AKs in late pos, this guy called. The flop was AQT rainbow, he checks, I lead out with $120 and he check raises me to $300. I thought about it for a while and folded.



I figured out that people will see me playing tight and decided to change my gear a bit. I raised to $80 with 67o after one limper and this same guy from SB called again. The flop was A68, he checks and I made a continuation bet of $140 and he calls very fast, the turn was T, he checks again and I saw how he folds to strong turn bet on certain occastions and decided to bet $300. He folds and I showed everyone that I had 67o to erase my tight image on the table.

The high stakes floor at Wynn poker does something interesting for the rake. They charge $6 per 30 minutes from each player and the dealer rotates every 30 minutes. You also can't change the table and the house assigns you to where to go to balance out the players in the multiple tables. Anyways, after a few hours later, I raised to $80 w AQo because this loose-aggressive player limped in early pos. This dude I was playing with called me late pos. 3 players to the flop. The flop was J96, I made a continuation bet $150 and this guy called me behind and loose player mucks. Turn was T, I get OESD but I maybe well behind and decided to check, this guy bets $260 behind. I thought about it for a while and called. I put him on AJ, KJ, JQ or set. The river was 7, the pot was already over $1,000 and I had about $750 left. I don't even remember what I was thinking at the moment but I just instantly pushed all in without much of a hesitation. It just came right from my heart LOL. He instantly fold and I scoop the pot worth over $1,000! That was the biggest bluff I have ever pulled out in the live cash table :)



That was pretty much end of my run and I walked away home with a sweet amount of cash on my pocket which is more than enough to cover my college tuition bill for the rest of my school career!

P.S. special thanks to my good friend Kevin who helped my stay!