This week’s biggest cash game was hosted by Triton Poker and if you have any doubts about where the largest pots are won and lost, those doubts can be forgotten now. No-one does it bigger or better than Triton in cash game terms right now and this week’s $1,86 million is further evidence of that. Coming out on top was Indian player Santosh Survana as not one but two players lost big money with the same hand.
Nagy In For the Max
Before the hand in question, its worth noting that all three of the players involved in it wouldn’t have gone broke had they lost their entire stacks in the action. Phil Nagy is the CEO of Americas Cardroom, Rob Yong is the owner of Dusk Till Dawn, the second-largest poker room in Europe and Santosh Survana is an Indian professional player of huge repute, having won the best part of $4 million in tournaments alone. All three crush at cash games, so this might have been a big one to take part in, but no single hand would stop this trip ending the night as big dogs on the scene.
Pre-flop, almost all of the money went into the middle, and it wasn’t hard to see why. Nagy woke up with 
under the gun and bet $6,000 at blinds of $1,000/$2,000. This bet was called by Tony G, Paul Phua and Mr. Long, but as there was a $4,000 ante at the Triton Poker table, Survana was never slow-playing 
. He made it $36,000 to go from middle position.
The biggest Hurdle to the hand ending at this moment was the fact that Rob Yong woke up with 
in the big blind. He simply had to defend and to do so, put in a raise. That he did, spinning $85,000 into the middle. Nagy could have made the call, but instead he raised, making it $250,000. It might have put off some, but not Survana, who called, and Yong, feeling that he had at least two live cards and that was priced in, called too. The best part of a million dollars was on the table, and the hand was just beginning.
An All-In… and a Crying Call
On a flop of 
, Suvarna checked the action, as did Yong. Nagy had position and wanted to make the very most of it. He led for $300,000. Survana was going nowhere, however, and raised all-in to $545,000. That gave Yong the chance to get away from losing another half a million dollars, and he took the getaway car, folding almost immediately. Nagy was getting an incredible price on his money, with over $1.5 million in the pot already and only $245,000 needed to call.
Could Survana have worse than pocket kings? Absolutely. If Nagy had folded and looked at the footage later, seeing pocket jacks or 
in the Indian’s hand, he would have not only regretted it forever, but become an overnight viral poker sensation. How could someone getting an astronomical price on an overpair ever find the fold in his position?
Nagy couldn’t let it go, and upon turning over his hand, saw bad news. He was behind Santosh Survana’s kings. The news, however, was about to get worse. A lot worse.
The Unintentional Needle of a Lifetime
With Nagy and Survana’s cards on their backs, the ACR CEO was hoping that he had two outs to winning the hand to the turn and river. Then came the five words from Rob Yong that crushed Nagy’s feint hopes.
“You’re winning; I had queens.”
The reaction from Nagy was priceless. Crestfallen would be an understatement. But the Triton commentator, James Dempsey was not quite right when he said that: “That’s not what Nagy wants to hear, he knows he’s drawing dead.”
Running it twice, that wasn’t true. Sure, Nagy was drawing dead to winning the hand, but at least one chopped pot was still possible. This became even more likely than running cards on the first play-out, as an
landed on the turn. Any six and the pot would be half-shared. A 
put paid to that four-outer hope for Nagy, but there was still another run at it. It wasn’t to be; a 
turn and 
river ended any lingering hopes he had of taking any of the $1.86 million pot. Survana had it all.
Nagy’s loss and Survana’s gain wasn’t the most expensive pot that has taken place in televised cash games. In fact, that record is held by Tom Dwan, who won $3.1 million with a heroic call after he faced a seven-figure bluff on Hustler Casino Live earlier in 2023.
You can watch exactly how Nagy and Survana went at it in this huge pot courtesy of Triton Poker right here:
$1.86mil pot action! ? pic.twitter.com/zq8IjcXu37
— Triton Poker (@tritonpoker) August 28, 2023
