Did this hand really play out just over five years ago? That's the question many viewers will ask when checking out this week’s Poker Video of the Week.
In the middle of it are two heroes of the poker boom, Patrik Antonius and Tom Dwan. By the end there’s about $286,000 in the middle and just a pair of nines is enough to win.
We dive into the sixth season of the legendary TV show Poker After Dark.
Players are meeting for the penultimate time at the legendary Golden Nugget Las Vegas. The lineup consisted of a few of the most famous players in the world in Phil Ivey, Phil Galfond, Doyle Brunson and the protagonists in our hand, Patrik Antonius, Eli Elezra and Dwan.
At the time Full Tilt Poker was ensconced beside PokerStars as a market leader and with three of its huge contract players in the game it’s no surprise starting stacks were $150,000.
Before the flop, the little private duel between Antonius and Dwan is nothing special, except perhaps that the Finn loosely reraises here with Q9s and then calls the 4-bet from Dwan.
But Antonius knows that Dwan is very loose. And he has both good pot odds and the most important asset in poker - position - on his side.
Nine in the Window
The 9♥ 5♠ 3♣ flop is one of the most innocent boards that you can imagine but the 9 in the window gives Antonius the best hand with $51,000 already in the pot.
Dwan brings out the classic continuation bet - although a relatively small one - and Antonius considers whether he wants to go all the way with his passable, but not sparkling, hand.
He opts to put Dwan all-in, which we could certainly discuss because it's questionable. But Dwan calls more than $100,000 here with ace-high, to the disbelief of the commentators, so Antonius clearly had a plan.
Despite running it twice, Dwan can't catch up and Antonius collects the whole $286,000 pot. As we all know: Even the gods can be wrong once!
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