One of the best hands you may ever see in your lifetime just went down on the latest episode of High Stakes Poker.<\/p>\n
This $911,000 hand pitted Alan Keating against Peter Wang, who has won well over $2.5 million<\/a> on poker live streams, most famously on Hustler Casino Live. These two obviously know how to play Texas Hold’em<\/a> at an extremely high level, so a hand of this magnitude should come as no surprise to anyone.<\/p>\n The table was playing a $200\/$400 NLH game and started with Steve Swedlow opening to $1,400 with a very ambitious 8<\/span>♠<\/span><\/span>6<\/span>♣<\/span><\/span><\/span> from late position. Wang flatted 6<\/span>♠<\/span><\/span>3<\/span>♠<\/span><\/span><\/span> on the button and Keating came along with his 9<\/span>♦<\/span><\/span>7<\/span>♦<\/span><\/span><\/span> from the big blind.<\/p>\n The flop comes A<\/span>♣<\/span><\/span>K<\/span>♠<\/span><\/span>7<\/span>♠<\/span><\/span><\/span>, 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.<\/p>\n In a move that goes far beyond conventional poker strategy<\/a>, Keating decides he wants to put Wang to the test and puts in a raise to $41,000.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n With Keating holding the 7<\/span>♦<\/span><\/span><\/span> and Wang having called preflop, Wang’s pure value range here is pretty capped at A<\/span>♥<\/span><\/span>7<\/span>♥<\/span><\/span><\/span>, K<\/span>♥<\/span><\/span>7<\/span>♥<\/span><\/span><\/span>, K<\/span>♣<\/span><\/span>7<\/span>♣<\/span><\/span><\/span>, and 7<\/span>♣<\/span><\/span>7<\/span>♥<\/span><\/span><\/span>. That’s just four combos.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n In fact, Nick Schulman, on the broadcast, commented: “Is he tilted? Or is this a nice \u2013 actually, a brilliant \u2013 identification of what’s going on? Look at the equities, AJ [Benza]. He has 62% (as far as his poker hand probability<\/a> 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.”<\/p>\n Swedlow, of course, makes the fold and Wang continues.<\/p>\n The turn brings in a rather clean 6<\/span>♥<\/span><\/span><\/span>, 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.<\/p>\n 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<\/span>♠<\/span><\/span>6<\/span>♠<\/span><\/span><\/span> or if Wang picked up a combo draw with something like 8<\/span>♠<\/span><\/span>5<\/span>♠<\/span><\/span><\/span>, 5<\/span>♠<\/span><\/span>4<\/span>♠<\/span><\/span><\/span>, or one of the many spade combos that brought in a gutshot straight draw.<\/p>\n The river brought out another relatively clean 4<\/span>♥<\/span><\/span><\/span> 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.<\/p>\n You can watch the incredible hand play out below.<\/p>\n