Poker Writer
Record-setting pots have dominated the headlines of High Stakes Poker (HSP), presented by CoinPoker, on PokerGO recently. Some of the massive pots being played on the show far outstripped the largest ones from the show’s glory days.
The seven-day livestreamed HSP produced the two largest pots in the show’s 20-year history. Both took place in the span of three days.
The Aug. 25-31 “High Stakes Poker Live Week” included some of the biggest cash players in all of poker, such as Andrew Robl, ‘Texas’ Mike Moncek, and rising star Eric Wasserson, along with CoinPoker ambassador Alejandro ‘Papo MC’ Lococo.
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Three Record-Setting Poker Hands
Three of the top four largest hands ever played on HSP occurred during this week of streaming.
The action started on Aug. 30 when Wasserson and Robl played a $2.478 million pot. That one beat the previous record of $2.421 million in a pot won by Santhosh Suvarna in June. Wasserson won the pot after Robl missed his draw as Wasserson’s top pair held.
But that hand was just the appetizer for the main course. Wasserson would get involved in another big hand the very next day against Moncek. It ended up shattering the record for the largest televised pot ever at $4.26 million, close to double the second-largest pot played the day before.
The hand saw Moncek attempt to bluff Wasserson. Moncek triple-barreled to try and get Wasserson off of his medium flush. Texas Mike has been known to make some wild and aggressive plays in the past, and eventually Wasserson decided to call on the river all in. The call sent him the gargantuan pot as Moncek lost more than two million.
Thanks in large part to the record-setting hand, Wasserson finished the week as the big winner. His profits made him the second-biggest winner in the show’s televised history.
In Moncek’s case, a huge loss of the hand barely had any time to sting as he won the fourth-largest pot in the show’s history on the very next hand against Robl. A $2.337 million pot went the way of the action player.
Larger Pots Than the HSP Glory Days
The large pots on HSP since the reboot of the show in 2021 have started to leave the legendary pots of the glory days in the dust. The original version of the show ran from 2006 to 2011 and included some of the biggest names in poker.
Many of the largest pots in those days were in the $500,000 to $1 million range. Even accounting for inflation, those pots still come up short compared to the large pots of $1.5 million and higher that are now almost commonplace.
In Season 4, Guy Laliberte and David Benyamine played a $1.227 million pot, the largest in the show’s early days. When that hand happened in 2007, it would have been equivalent to about $1.975 million today. However, that one comes with a bit of an asterisk, as the players opted to make a deal to settle the pot rather than play it out. Laliberte accepted a (comparatively) modest $238K.
Return of the Glory Days?
CoinPoker posed the question if these large pots indicate a return to the “glory days” of poker. The suggestion is that more money in the poker landscape is better for the game.
But it could also mean that there is just more money at the very top of the game, with the top players being richer than ever. Many players who participate in the high-stakes live games don’t play poker full-time, a contrast to the pros of yesteryear. These rich recreationals make for good TV, but they don’t necessarily produce the highest quality of strategic play.
Still, as long as players on High Stakes Poker keep producing $4 million pots, viewers will surely remain glued to their screens.
