Tom Dwan spent much of the recent episode of High Stakes Poker stacking chips, which shouldn’t surprise anyone, while Phil Hellmuth ran into a few tough situations.
Last week on the show, which is available on-demand on the PokerGO app (paid subscription required), the “Poker Brat” made a wild over-bet raise with the nut straight against Doug Polk. Polk, a kind-of-sort-of-but-not-really retired pro, who had a lesser straight, ended up making one of the best laydowns in High Stakes Poker history.
This week, Hellmuth again made some interesting plays and decisions. In one hand against James Bord, who bluffed him off pocket kings with 7-2 last week, he called a $26,000 raise on the river with middle-pair (jacks) and lost to the nut straight. In another hand, against Jake Daniels, he bet $14,000 into a pot of $30,000 on the river with a seven-high flush (7♠ 4♠ and the board of 8-9-7-Q-2 had three spades).
Daniels, with nothing but king high (K-J with a spade blocker) raised to $57,000. It took Hellmuth six minutes to finally make the call. Polk and others at the table were amazed it took so long to make a seemingly easy call.
Dwan is Unstoppable
Tom Dwan could probably play once a year on High Stakes Poker and live comfortably for the rest of his life. “Durrrr” has an uncanny knack for crushing the competition on the popular poker show, and it’s been that way since he first appeared in 2008 when the show aired on the Game Show Network.
On the newest episode, he simply couldn’t miss. He ran so hot that even when he chopped a big pot against Bord, it almost felt like he took a horrible bad beat.
On a board of A-5-4-9 with two diamonds, Brandon Steven tried bluffing into Dwan’s two-pair with a flush draw (9♦ 5♦ of diamonds) with nothing but a pair of 4’s (K-4). After Dwan led for $33,000, the Kansas car dealership owner raised it to $87,000 before Dwan shoved for $194,000 total.
A frustrated Steven folded and then mumbled about how difficult it is to get any bluffs through at the table. Dwan would go on to win multiple additional large pots, including rivering a bigger flush in one hand against Rick Salomon to take down a $330,000 pot.
There’s just something about High Stakes Poker that makes it seemingly impossible for anyone to beat Dwan. Some things never change.
