Yesterday saw the start of the richest poker tournament in history; The Big One for One Drop. The cost to enter the tournament was a cool one million dollars. A few got in cheaper than that - both Gus Hansen and Phil Hellmuth won their seats in tournaments run a day earlier. As you might expect, the field of forty eight players features a mix of both famous and not-quite famous poker pros along with a handful of rich business men. The winner will take home over $18,000,000 dollars - the largest prize in poker tournament history. By far.
It is not surprising that in such an incredible tournament, one of the most amazing hands in WSOP history went down. Here is what happened: It was halfway though the first day. Tom Dwan had made a opening bet of 32K and Russian poker pro Mikhail Smirnov called with the red eights in the small blind. American businessman John Morgan also called from the big blind.
The flop came Js 8c 7s. Flopping a set of eights, Smirnov led out with a 50K bet - about half the pot. Morgan called quickly and Dwan folded. The turn brought an 8s - giving Smirnov the nearly unbeatable quad eights. Smirinov made a pot-sized 200k bet and Morgan called almost instantly.
The river was the Ks, making the board Js 8c 7s 8s Ks. The only hand Morgan could possibly have that could beat Smirnov was 9s 10s - giving him a straight flush. Smirnov bet 600k - again a roughly pot-sized bet, and Morgan thought it over quickly and pushed all-in for a total of 3.4 million - just slightly less than Smirnov's entire stack.
Smirnov pondered his decision for about five minutes, then folded his quad eights face up for everyone to see. Immediately the poker-world was abuzz - had Mikhail Smirnov just made the greatest fold in the history of the WSOP, or had he made one of the worst fold ever? How could anybody fold quad eights?!
Smirnov explained that he didn't think Morgan had KK or he would have re-raised Dwan pre-flop. He also felt JJ was unlikely. "A bluff is impossible because he is not a professional and he likes to play in the tournament," said Smirnov later. That pretty much left 10s 9s as the only hand Morgan could have that he would shove with. "For me it was an easy fold," said Smirnov.
So what did Morgan have? We will never know for sure because he didn't show and so far he has refused to say. "I will never tell," said Morgan, "out of respect for my opponent."
At first I thought Smirnov made a terrible fold, but the more I think about it the more plausible 10s 9s seems. With those pocket cards, Morgan was ahead of Smirnov after the flop with the nut-straight over Smirnov's set of eights. The turn would have given Morgan the straight-flush while giving Smirnov the quads.
We will never know for sure.
Meanwhile day two of the tournament has begun with thirty seven of the original forty eight still competing. Just twenty six are left as I write this, including Mikhail Smirnov in 16th place. Smirnov won a brilliant hand today in which he knocked out both Tom Dwan and Daniel Negreanu.
John Morgan has been knocked out.
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