GGPoker hosted the WSOP Online Main Event, which made waves in the poker world in late September 2024 with one of the largest online poker events in history, with over $29 million in the prize pool. The final table was held on September 24th with record prize money up top for an online poker tournament.
If that was not enough to grab the attention of the poker world alone, the final table went viral on social media thanks to one of the craziest bad beats you will ever see, in a hand that ended up having massive money implications.
World-famous poker coach Benjamin Rolle, who finished 8th and is known as bencb, estimated that over $2 million in equity shifted in this hand alone. This hand was played on a live stream with commentators Jeff Gross and Phil Laak.
Setting the Stage
Let’s set the stage for this insane bad beat so you can understand exactly what makes it so brutal.
The final table was down to just four players with a whopping grand prize of $4,021,012 up top for the winner. The four players had already sewn up a nice chunk of change with fourth place dishing out $1,843,337. So while each of the remaining players had done well beyond their dreams to win a huge seven-figure score, there was still a lot more money left to play for.
The blinds were at 2,000/4,000 and the four players left were;
- Chip leader “Evgenii Akimov” with 164 million (41 big blinds)
- “Moritz Dietrich with 98 million (24 big blinds)
- “Isaac Baron” with 79 million (20 big blinds)
- “Rui Ferreira” with 23 million (6 big blinds)
The Hand
Chip leader Evgenii Akimov jammed all in from the button for about 41 big blinds. On the video stream which the hand is replayed on, it is revealed that Akimov jammed with the 6 ♣️ 4 ♠️. That is a fairly light holding to be jamming with but he did so in order to apply ICM pressure on the shorter stacks in the blind with a six big blind stack having folded in the cutoff and a $500,000 pay jump in play.
Also there may have been some table dynamics and history in play as well as Phil Laak said “He didn’t like getting jammed on last time so he jams here.”
With the six big blind stack sitting there, the blinds are going to be folding nearly everything to this jam, making the 64o shove very profitable. It just so happened that the small blind, Isaac Baron, had pocket kings with the K ♣ ️K ️♦️ which is, of course, a call.
The Bad Beat
At this point, the pocket kings of Isaac Baron were of course dominating the six-four off suit of Evnegii Akimov but, nevertheless, it was Baron who was at risk. Before the flop, Baron had an 82% chance to win the hand and get a big double up in a key spot.
“Is there a sweat?” asked Jeff Gross on the commentary as the flop came 7 ♣ ️J ♣ ️K ♠ ️ which answered his question with a “not really”. Baron made top set with the kings as he improved to 97% to win the hand.
But the turn did not want to make things quite that easy as the 5 ♣ ️ came off to give the slightest possibility of a backdoor straight and improve Akimov’s chances to 13%.
As you can probably guess the social media uproar and this entire article would not have happened if the river card was a boring blank card. Therefore in the most dramatic way possible with the GGpoker slow reveal, the river was revealed as the 8 ♦️ . The commentators reacted in astonishment and could not truly believe what they had just witnessed.
The Repercussions
The crazy unlikely bad beat was not only brutal because of six-four beating kings or because of the backdoor nature after kings flopped top set, but also because of the mammoth stakes at play.
The jump from 4th to 3rd place was just under $500,000 which Isaac Baron lost out on. The fact that there was such a short stack in play meant that he almost assuredly would have finished at least in 3rd place.
But beyond that, if the kings had held like they would have 97% of the time after that flop, Baron would have been the chip leader and been in pole position for the over $4 million grand prize.
So you can understand all the reaction to this hand once you realize the virtual river card could have quite literally been worth $2.2 million of real money.
Akimov would later deliver a similar bad beat to Rui Ferreira with, you guessed it, 64o. Ferreira’s AKo would make top two pair on the flop but get beaten by runner-runner spades to give Akimov an unlikely flush and a 6:1 chip lead going into heads-up play against Moritz Dietrich.
However, despite the massive advantage, Dietrich would come from behind to win the Main Event and an online poker record $4,021,012 top prize.