One of the best hands you may ever see in your lifetime just went down on the latest episode of High Stakes Poker.
This $911,000 hand pitted Alan Keating against Peter Wang, who has won well over $2.5 million on poker live streams, most famously on Hustler Casino Live. These two obviously know how to play Texas Hold’em at an extremely high level, so a hand of this magnitude should come as no surprise to anyone.
The table was playing a $200/$400 NLH game and started with Steve Swedlow opening to $1,400 with a very ambitious 8♠6♣ from late position. Wang flatted 6♠3♠ on the button and Keating came along with his 9♦7♦ from the big blind.
The flop comes A♣K♠7♠, giving Wang a flush draw, Keating third pair, and Swedlow nothing but a couple of weak backdoors. Nevertheless, Swedlow used his range advantage and fired $4,000 into the $4,800 pot. Wang, to build a pot with his equity, put in a raise of $13,000.
In a move that goes far beyond conventional poker strategy, Keating decides he wants to put Wang to the test and puts in a raise to $41,000.
From a poker pro’s point of view, Keating does this to fold out Swedlow’s potential pairs like aces and kings and he knows that Wang will act in a certain manner if he’s on just a flush draw.
With Keating holding the 7♦ and Wang having called preflop, Wang’s pure value range here is pretty capped at A♥7♥, K♥7♥, K♣7♣, and 7♣7♥. That’s just four combos.
Of course, it’s possible that Wang also has an ace-high flush draw and top pair but on clean runouts, Keating could still apply massive river pressure and likely get Wang off his theoretical weak pair of aces.
In fact, Nick Schulman, on the broadcast, commented: “Is he tilted? Or is this a nice – actually, a brilliant – identification of what’s going on? Look at the equities, AJ [Benza]. He has 62% (as far as his poker hand probability to win), he knocked Steve out. He might have the situation read incredibly well, we just kind of can’t know, but he is an enigma of the highest order.”
Swedlow, of course, makes the fold and Wang continues.
The turn brings in a rather clean 6♥, giving Peter a pair to go along with his flush draw. Keating continued going for it with a bet of $58,000. Wang decided that he wants to take back control of the hand and raises it to $175,000. After just over 20 seconds, Keating made the call once more.
If Keating’s read was correct on the flop, nothing should really change on the turn, other than perhaps Wang turning two pair with the odd combo of A♠6♠ or if Wang picked up a combo draw with something like 8♠5♠, 5♠4♠, or one of the many spade combos that brought in a gutshot straight draw.
The river brought out another relatively clean 4♥ and Wang jammed for $235,000 effective into the pot of $440,800. Keating didn’t take too long before calling off and winning with just a pair of sevens.
You can watch the incredible hand play out below.
