Tom Dwan is no stranger to playing seven-figure pots, but so far, we’ve had to settle for secondhand stories from closely guarded private games in Macau, with characters who prefer to stay away from the camera.
But on Tuesday night, the high-stakes legend found himself bogged down in a record-breaking $3.1 million bet while playing at Hustler Casino Live in Los Angeles.
The event started with starting coins between $500 and $1,000 with big blinds of $3,000 and $2,000. player on behalf of LSG Raise Hank to $7,000, and three bet Hustler Casino regular Wesley Fei to $30,000 from the button.
Duane then looked at the chick’s pocket queens, and he bet four on $100,000. Hank got out of the way, and Fay picked a five bet for $275,000.
Duan called after a minute’s thought, and the two players received a flop of 3
8
8. Dwan checked, and Fei bet $125,000. Duane called, it was turn 5
.
Dwan checks again, and this time Fei shoots a $350,000 bet. Dwan took about 90 seconds to connect this time, leaving about $790,000 behind.
The river was 6
Duan checked for the last time. Fei wasted no time before moving inside, putting Duan to the test.
“He said it all?” Duan asked, getting confirmation. “are you sure?” he asked again, before getting up from the table for a drink.
Fei responded by burying his head in his arms on the table, unwilling to give Dwan any information to work with. Making the situation even more difficult is the fact that fellow high-stakes professional Doug Polk had seen Fay’s cards before the flop, confusing Duane about the strength of his potential holdings.
Duane went into the tank for nearly four minutes before finding a call, bringing the pot to $3,081,000. A shocked Fei handed over a shell K Nothing but a high ace, and Duan queens were good.
“Tom Dwan just won the biggest bet in televised poker history!” said commentator David Tuchman.
You can watch the full hand below.
The previous record for the largest pot in televised poker history belonged to Kane Kalas, who won a $2.18 million hand against Jason Koon in 2018. Triton Montenegro cash gaming series. Then in February of this year, Patrik Antonius set the US record $1,978,000 against Eric Persson on PokerGO’s “No Gamble, No Future” promotion.
“You have more heart than anyone here,” said Nikhil “Erpol” Arcot, before asking Fay if he was okay.
Fei may have been motivated to do the trick after a day of criticism on social media, where he was slammed for his conservative play despite being bought into the game for $3 million.
Luckily for him, he was able to win the second biggest pot of the night and pretty much put an end to his losses when he played an almost identical situation against Hank, only this time Fei had the goods for a $2.2 million pot. The two would exchange heated words when Fei left the game later that evening, rebounding to lose $753,000.
Polk and Duane may have been the only full-time pros on the table, but they haven’t gone far from each other, with Polk swindling over half a million dollars in a straight tie when Duane had a full house.
Polk had the chance to win it all back plus some more a short while later when Hank pocketed his aces on a scare board. Hank was pulling a brave con with a withdrawal breakdown, and if Polk had called him he would have pulled out a pot worth more than $2 million.
Instead, Polk folded his aces, and Hank turned his bluff with enthusiasm to rub salt into his wounds. Polk will end the session lower at $928,000.
It was actually the second multimillion-dollar con of the four-day live broadcast series. On the third day, popular YouTube poker blogger Ethan ‘Rampage’ Yau managed to get a player known as Handz to take him out on top by a wide margin.
The game was part of a four-day series called “The Million Dollar Cash Game”. Although it got off to a slow start and was criticized when players only bought $500,000 on the second day, the movement picked up dramatically in the last two days of play as Duane and Polk acted as catalysts for bigger pioneers.
Dwan would eventually lose some coming back from his high point, but he left the game with a $1,600,000 win. However, the biggest winner overall was Australian Hassan ‘Haas’ Onay, who played the first two days of the broadcast and earned $1,751,000.
Other big winners include casino owner Rob Young ($820,000), Ethan Yau ($588,000), and poker player and politician Tony G ($424,000).
While Polk and Faye were the second and third biggest losers of the week, the biggest loss came from Door Dash founder Stanley Tang, who finished with $958,000 overall.
