On Wednesday, two of the summer's main characters – Martin Kabrhel and Michael 'The Grinder' Mizrachi – took their seats in the Venetian Poker Live $100/$200 no-limit hold'em cash game. While Mizrachi arrived fashionably late, Kabrhel was in the mix from the start.
If you haven't watched the Venetian Live games, they generally play with $20,000-$25,000 starting stacks before gambling heavily and then addding chips if the need arises. For Kabrhel, the need arose on several occasions as he fired bullet after bullet. Within about an hour and a half, he was down roughly $75,000 and had developed a somewhat adversarial relationship with another player at the table, Royski.
In the early goings, both parties appeared to enjoy the verbal joust, but as the losses piled up and Royski's needles grew steadily sharper, a remarkable thing occurred: Kabrhel went silent. With his sweatshirt hood drawn tight and a sour look on his face, he was a completely different Martin Kabrhel – no schtick, no catchphrases. For a little while, it looked as though Royski had scored a verbal knockout, but Kabrhel wasn't done – far from it.
'Can I steal something from you?'
With multiple straddles in play at times and the squid game (the last player to win a pot pays a penalty) running nearly every orbit, the cash on the table increased quickly. In this particular hand, the $1,600 triple straddle sat in front of Kabrhel and Royski wanted to fight for it. From the button, he raised 
to $5,000 off a stack of $30,300. When the action folded around to Kabrhel, he looked down at 
and made the call with a covering stack.
While the dealer spread the 
flop, Kabrhel had his eyes fixed on his opponent. "Check blind," he said.
Royski tried to buy the pot with another $5,000, but Kabrhel's a tough customer, and as he reached for his chips, an idea struck. Kabrhel leaned in towards Mizrachi, seated directly on his left, tapped him on the arm and whispered, "Can I steal something from you?"
Then, he reached around and, using both hands to control Mizrachi's arms like the Czech Republic's finest puppeteer, began to pump Mizrachi's arms up and down. Mizrachi caught on after a moment and it was all laughs – for everyone except Royski, who watched on as Kabrhel then raised to $15,000 and broke into song.
As Kabrhel chattered away, Royski took his time to think. "What do you have? Seven-nine?" he asked before somewhat impulsively grabbing a stack of chips and moving them across the betting line. "All-in."
"Now we have decision. Grinder, can you help me?" Kabrhel joked. It was only $10,300 more to call for Kabrhel and he did so in short order. With $62,300 in the pot, Kabrhel insisted on running it once and neither the 
turn nor the 
river improved Royski sufficiently.
"Was that the hand of the year, Donnie?" Remko Rimkema asked Donnie Peters in the commentary booth.
Mizrachi vs. Kabrhel
It was bound to happen at some point. The Main Event Champion versus the Mini Main Event Champion. Mizrachi versus Kabrhel.
While Kabrhel approached the game with seemingly reckless abandon, Mizrachi took a much tighter approach – picking his spots carefully and profiting from his selections. Sometimes, though, the deck intercedes and two big hands collide.
It all started with Kabrhel's over-sized raise to $13,000 from the button with a mystery hand. In the small blind, Mizrachi looked down at a mystery hand of his own – a card reader or graphics error on both accounts – and moved all-in over the top for $63,800. Kabrhel took a moment but eventually slid a stack of chips forward for a call. With $128,100 in the middle, they ran it once.
Kabrhel: 
Mizrachi: 
Board: 
Kabrhel picked up a flush draw on the turn to go with his gutshot, but he couldn't find salvation on the river and MIzrachi dragged the huge pot.
You can watch Martin Kabrhel on Hustler Casino Live on Thursday night, with $100/$200 stakes and a minimum $50K buy-in.
