Peter Wang and Alan Keating have dueled on countless TV streams together for massive amounts of cash.
In fact, they play together so often that Peter’s incredible $2.2 million hero call on the first day of Hustler Casino Live’s Million Dollar Cash Game III likely came down to the history between the two players.
While Keating gets all the accolades, Peter has actually won the most money in the history of Hustler Casino Live. According to Highroll Poker, Wang won nearly $2.9 million in 241 hours of play at the Los Angeles cardroom.
Conversely, Keating is one of the biggest losers on the program, down nearly $1 million in 140 hours. However, that equates to losing just four big blinds per hour.
Let’s dive into one of the biggest hands in televised poker history.
Action
The table was seven-handed with blinds of $1,000-$1,000 with a $2,000 big blind ante.
Wang raised to $6,000 from under the gun with J
J
and Keating called from the cutoff with Q
T
. “Jack” three-bet to $26,000 from the small blind with QQ. Wang and Keating both called.
The flop was 764. Jack bet $35,000. Peter called and Keating raised to $180,000. Jack and Peter both called.
The turn was the 2. All three players checked.
The river was the A. Jack checked. Peter checked. Alan Keating moved all-in for $663,000. Jack folded. Peter called.
Peter won $1.95 million with a pair of jacks.
Analysis
There’s hardly ever a live cash game where players are playing roughly 1,000 big blinds deep, especially with an ante worth twice the big blind. Since stacks are this deep, using a solver is of little use. Solvers are more effective when stacks are shallower.
Furthermore, most of these players are straying extremely far from an optimal GTO strategy, as they should, since they are playing on stream. Trust me, you wouldn’t want to watch a GTO-heavy cash game.
With pocket jacks, Wang’s open was standard. Given how deep the game is playing, and that there’s already $4,000 in the middle, raising to $6,000 is perfectly fine.
On the other hand, Keating should always fold his Q-10 offsuit, but he’s not one to fold big cards in any position. After all, his career VPIP on stream is reportedly 69%.
Jack should be three-betting quite large out of the small blind with his queens. $26,000 is far too small out of position in a multi-way pot in a super-deep game with a large big blind ante. I would have liked to see a three-bet size of at least $35,000.
Wang had an easy call. There’s no point four-betting jacks when you’re so deep. Even at 100 big blinds deep at a 6-max table, you’d only four-bet about 33% of the time.
Obviously, Keating should be folding, but he’s never throwing a hand away when it’s $20,000 more to play an $81,000 pot in position, even though he only has a 6.5% chance of legitimately winning the hand. He was clearly looking to use his positional advantage and try to win the hand with a bluff post-flop, should the opportunity arise.
The flop was seven-high with two diamonds and Jack bet just under half pot. In theory, I prefer a check from Jack in this spot as his two opponents are more likely to flop a set on this board, and if they raised his bet, he would be in a very awkward spot.
The deeper the stack sizes, and the more opponents are in the hand, make it more likely Jack should be checking on low and middling boards, especially out of position.
Wang had an easy call. Meanwhile, Keating understood the situation entirely and knew he had the range advantage. On top of his range advantage, he had backdoor straight and flush draws. Knowing the type of player he is, this board was music to his ears, and he started applying the pressure immediately.
Jack and Peter had some uncomfortable but standard calls.
The 2 came and put two flush draws on the board. If Keating were to have made a set or two pair on the flop, he would almost certainly jam with a stack-to-pot ratio of about 1:1, as he would want to either force folds from flush draws or charge them heavily to chase. He would also be trying to get calls out of some sticky non-believing overpairs.
The ace of diamonds may be the most dynamic card possible in the deck, completing the original flush draw and putting an overcard to Jack and Peter’s pocket pairs.
Both of them checked over to Keating, which seemed to cap their ranges.
Jack had shown that he’s not necessarily the most astute player and it’s a safe assumption that he’d put his chips into the middle if he made a flush or a set of aces on the river. So when action checked over to Keating, he jammed for a hair over pot, targeting exactly what both Jack and Wang had – an overpair that’s not an overpair anymore.
But there’s a big problem for Keating. What is he attempting to represent?
Most of his flush draw bluffs on the flop would have included the A. What two-pair hands with an ace that he bluffs on the flop get there on the river? It’s hard to think of anything Keating could legitimately have aside from something like the nut flush, which would likely just call on the flop anyway. Any random ace Keating would have bluffed the flop with, would certainly just check the river as well.
So while Jack doesn’t sniff it out, Peter does, and wins a pot of nearly $2 million.
Blaise Bourgeois a WSOP Circuit ring winner, poker journalist, and contributing columnist for Card Player. Find him on Twitter/X @BlaiseBourgeois.
