Antonio Esfandiari and Alan Keating played one of the biggest televised cash game pots in poker history during Day 2 of the three-day Super High Roller Cash Game. The hand lasted nearly ten minutes and was the talking point of the entire episode.
Hand of the night
After Alan Keating lost a $1M pot on Day 1 of the Super High Roller Cash Game, he was back for more, looking to play some massive pots. The action was playing much bigger on the second day, with the addition of poker legend Antonio Esfandiari. Players were also adding straddles and double straddles to reduce the number of effective big blinds and inflate the pots towards the end of the night.
The hand started toward the end of the stream, with players adding a $2,000 straddle and a $4,000 double straddle on top of their usual $500/$1,000 blinds with a $2,000 big blind ante.
Andrew Robl opened the action by raising to $20,000 with king-queen offsuit from the small blind. Esfandiari, who was the original straddler, three-bet to $58,000 with pocket nines. Keating, who provided the double straddle, cold four-bet to $125,000 with eight-seven offsuit. Robl made the fold, and Esfandiari called, not knowing he was an 85% preflop favorite.
Massive jam on the flop
With $273,000 already in the middle, the board was an extremely saucy 9-8-6 rainbow, giving Esfandiari top set while Keating flopped second pair and an open-ended straight draw. Keating followed through for $75,000, and Esfandiari went deep into the tank, plotting his next move.
As the announcers pointed out during the stream, Esfandiari was covering the left side of his face with his hoodie and his hand, which shielded Keating from getting a read on him. This was due to Esfandiari believing he was made in a previous encounter with the young entrepreneur.
Esfandiari took an unusual amount of time to make a flop decision, two minutes and 20 seconds, before putting in an extremely large check-jam to the tune of $1,084,000 – 14 times Keating’s c-bet and over three times the size of the pot.
Commentator Brent Hanks pointed out that this was quite an unusual play that undoubtedly threw Keating for a loop. “Why would you do this with a set?” Ali Nejad was quick to point out that Keating had only invested $200,000 into the pot and was by no means committed to play such a large pot with his holdings.
Nearly four minutes later, Keating made the call to create a massive pot of $2,441,000. The two players decided to run it twice, with Esfandiari a massive 73% favorite to win.
The sweatiest runout in poker history?
Accounting for missing cards, Esfandiari had just over a 50% chance to scoop, while Keating only had about a 5% chance of winning both runouts. Esfandiari would be thrilled with his decision to run it twice, however.
The first turn card was the jack of diamonds, with a five of spades coming in on the river to give Keating the straight and the first half of the pot.
The second runout was much cleaner, with a three of spades and the two of clubs providing Esfandiari and the rest of the table some relief as the two players chopped the pot, each profiting a meager $11,500.
One more day of action
We’ve enjoyed a thrilling 2026 Super High Roller Cash Game, but like all good things, it must come to an end. Day 3, the final day of the super-high stakes session, will kick off at 6 p.m. ET on Wednesday, January 28. Poker fans can watch the action unfold on PokerGO and on the PokerGO YouTube channel.
