Dwan Wins Largest Pot In Televised Poker History

The sixth episode of High Stakes Poker’s fifth season aired this past Sunday and it was one of the most action-packed shows to date. The game was $500/$1,000 No-Limit Hold’em with a $200 ante that featured a $2,000 live straddle every hand — and even a $4,000 double straddle thrown in here and there.

The most interesting hand occured about midway through the show when Tom Dwan and Barry Greenstein got involved in a pot to be remembered for years to come. It all started with a raise to $3,500 from Peter Eastgate (2008 WSOP Main Event Champion) who sat in the cutoff seat with [As Kh]. Looking down at [Ad Ac], Greenstein made it $15,000 to go on the button and had Dwan pondering his move in the small blind. After some thought, Dwan decided to call with [Ks Qs] and in turn, Eastgate would also call the extra $11,500.

The flop was sure to create a stir when it came down [4s 2s Qh]. With the already $47,400 sitting in the pot, Dwan decided to lead out with a $28,700 bet after flopping top pair and a flush draw. Eastgate would fold after completely missing, and Greenstein quickly made it an even $100K to go with his bullets. Not going anywhere with his hand, Dwan pushed out a $50K brick of cash with plenty a large denomination chips sitting neatly on top. Greenstein let out a small sigh after watching the $244,600 bet and unenthusiasticly put Dwan all-in for a total of $436,100. Dwan quickly said, “I call,” and nonchalantly threw in some extra chips to indicate his call.

After Dwan revealed his hand, Greenstein seemed to rethink his decision to get it all in on the flop. “That’s what I figured. That’s what I figured you had. I guess I could’ve taken a card off.” is what Greenstein mumbled to himself after realizing he was gambling in a $919,600 pot in as close to a coin-flip situation as you can get.

When asked if the remainder of the hand was to be run out more than once, Dwan assumed it would be just once as Greenstein strictly prefers to do. He then turned Greenstein and gave him the option as Dwan was impartial to either way. Greenstein then muttered on: “Uhh… yeah, well I wanna. Wait. I wanna run it once. If you wanted to take a couple hundred back, that’s okay.” Dwan quickly turned down the offer and made it very clear that it wasn’t an option as he shook his head and stated “No… sorry.”

And so they were off to the races with Greenstein taking his Aces up against Dwan’s 15 outs. Dwan sprinted out to an enourmous lead when the [Qc] fell on the turn giving him trip Queens. Greenstein was now technically left with two outs. With the hand’s hole cards being revealed, however, it was known that the [As] that Eastgate once held was already in the muck. The miracle case Ace was nowhere to be found as Dwan went on to rake in a buttload of chips after taking down the largest pot in High Stakes Poker history.