Sam Farha vs Patrik Antonius – $1 Million Pot on High Stakes Poker
This hand comes from the fourth series of High Stakes Poker. Everyone’s stack is deep, and with the blinds at $300/$400 and a $1200 forced straddle, Sammy Farha opens for $4,200 with K-Q of diamonds from the hijack. Antonius, on the button, reraises with J9 of hearts and Sam calls.
The flop is 6d-3c-9d giving Antonius top pair and Farha the King high flush draw. The pot is now $34,200 and Sammy checks, Patrik bets $20,000 and Farha quickly raises to $100,000 – Antonius thinks for a moment, then declares himself all-in, and immediately Farha calls making a pot of $998,800!!!
Now this looks like crazy poker, but these guys know each other very well, and both know how the other player likes to play. Patrik’s first raise was probably a steal, hoping that Farha’s initial bet was a bluff and he could take the pot right there, but he didn’t! Then after the flop, Patrik knows that Farha will probably raise here even if he missed the flop, to give himself a chance to still win the hand, so again he goes for the steal… but gets called for all his chips!
From Farha’s point of view, he knows that Antonius will try for the steal, so he doesn’t put him on a stong hand and decides that his Flush draw is worth a gamble since he has two high cards (which as it turns out are over cards).
Well, since the hands are so close (it’s about 50/50 who will win) they decide to run the cards 4 times – so they see a turn and river card 4 times, taking a quarter of the pot for each win, and as it turns out Antonius ended up taking three quarters of the pot – still a huge sum of money!
