Yesterday, an Argentinian online poker player did the unthinkable. At the final table of a World Series of Poker online event, Nicolas Giacomino folded pocket aces preflop.
Giacomino was at the final table of the $215 no-limit hold’em mystery millions bounty. It was the seventh event of the 2025 WSOP online schedule on GGPoker, and there were seven players remaining.
Blinds were 2,000,000-4,000,000 with a 500,000 ante and Giacomino was third in chips with slightly more than 220 million.
Fabian ‘F Bernhauser’ Bernhauser was the short stack and moved all in for just over one big blind with K♥10♠. Giacomino, under the screen name ‘Liverian’ made it a hair over 10.8 million next to act.
After a fold, Toni ‘Holkan’ Bosch moved all in for a tad more than 19 million from the cutoff with A♠K♣.
Adrovan ‘Gboro21’ Rodrigues was in the small blind and the chip leader. He had everyone covered by a wide margin with his 615.8 million-chip stack. He moved all in as well with 9♠9♥.
The big blind folded and Giacomino went into the tank. He started using the laughing emoji function from his avatar and eventually folded.
The board ran out 9♣5♥3♥6♦5♦ and Rodrigues eliminated two players. However, the shocking part came after the hand when Giacomino showed his folded cards were A♦A♥.
You can watch the hand below:
Yes, it really happened… Pocket Aces folded preflop at the WSOP Online Event #7: $215 Mystery Millions — $1M Top Bounty [Day 2] final table 😲
With $576K up top, a WSOP bracelet on the line, plus a $30,000 Super Pass… sometimes even Pocket Aces hits the muck preflop.
Payout… pic.twitter.com/LKu3EMWMwK
— GGPoker (@GGPoker) August 27, 2025
Climbing The Ladder
Before you go showing the video to your friends and roasting Giacomino, let’s look at how impactful laddering up a few spots was for Giacomino.
Giacomino was third in chips by a comfortable margin. He could easily wait out a few more players hitting the rail. Seventh place paid $120,919 and if Rodrigues knocked out both all in players, Giacomino would be guaranteed at least fifth-place money worth $203,358.
Coming into the final table, Giacomino’s lifetime earnings was $11,206. It’s safe to say he’s not a high-stakes pro and locking up an extra $82,349 probably meant a lot to him.
There were two bounties up for grabs, but all of the big ones were already awarded, making that less of a factor when deciding whether or not he wanted to risk busting in that spot. If he happened to lose the hand to Rodrigues, but the other two players survived, he would’ve busted in seventh.
Is it the right play? Probably not.
But is it understandable given his situation? Sure.
Giacomino finished in fourth place for $263,723. He also scored $6,810 in bounties along the way, bringing the total to $270,533. If he called with pocket aces, he would’ve busted in fifth for $203,358.
Rodrigues ended up winning the tournament for $576,252 and another $8,902 in bounties.
Giacomino Joins A Very Small Group
The poker world saw a similar situation during the pre-Black Friday era of the game. In 2010, PokerStars’ The Big Game was in its first season and David Fishman was the “Loose Cannon” for the 10th episode.
For those unfamiliar with the format, PokerStars gave Fishman $100,000 to play in a cash game with four poker pros. If he finished 150 hands with more than the $100,000, he could keep the profit. But if he finished with less than $100,000, he’d go home with nothing.
Fishman, a math teacher from Arizona, won a pot worth about $240,000. Then, he told the table that he was folding for the rest of the episode so that he could lock up a meaningful profit.
Phil Laak raised and Jason Mercier called before Fishman looked down at pocket aces. He wasn’t lying. The cards hit the muck.
Photo courtesy of Shutterstock
