Nik Airball completed his one-year ban from Hustler Casino Live, played his first game back on Friday night, and won the biggest pot of the year. It was like he'd never been away.
Last night's game always threatened to get big. It started with $200/400 stakes, $100K minimum buy-ins and an action lineup including Alan Keating, Peter and Airball.
At the end of the night, Airball left the casino that banned him with the biggest win (around $300,000) and the biggest smile. And it was all thanks to a huge pot with Keating right at the end of the stream.
By this point in the game, the stakes had been upped to $500/1,000 with a $1,000 BB ante.
Alan Keating and Nik Airball collide in a huge flip.Fade or die
Airball found 
under the gun and raised to $3,000. Keating woke up with 
and three-bet to $25,000. Airball quickly bumped it up to $65,000.
"We've seen this story play out before," said David Tuchman from the commentary booth. He was referring to a confrontation that had seen Keating lose a $476,000 pot earlier in the session, with AK against Peter's jacks.
Keating responded with a five-bet to $165,000. Airball tanked for a minute, looked at Keating, and then made the call, creating a pot of $337,500 and leaving himself just $175,800 back.
Flop: 
Kearting moved all-in and Airball almost beat him into the pot, which was now $689,100.
"I'm behind," Airball said. "I'm behind, right?" he asked again. Keating just shook his head. "Welcome back to the show, the king," said Tuchman.
"At least I can say this," Airball said. "I came back and played the biggest pot of the night with my buddy Alan Keating."
They agreed to run the pot twice and Airball scooped both of them with the lowest of low runouts.
Board 1: 
Board 2: 
You can watch the full hand play out at the top of the article.
To the victor, the spoils.
Airball: 'The king is back, baby'
Airball finished the game up $282,000 and was asked how he felt after a year away from the HCL felt.
"It feels good," he said. "My goal was to play a big pot with Alan and I was on the right side of it, so I'm really happy."
When it was confirmed that the pot was the biggest of the year on Hustler Casino Live, Airball ripped a grin and said, "The king is back, baby, the king is back!"
Talking about Keating's five-bet, Airball said, "When I saw him cutting out raising chips, I was no longer happy. But Alan is so capable. I thought through all my options preflop, almost folded, thought about jamming and in the end I thought I can't live with myself if I fold nines here and it's the best hand, so I decided to call and fade an ace or king or die. I faded an ace or king and got it in. 100% the king is back. Have some beers, winning a $700K pot, life is good."
You can watch the full stream from last night's game on the Hustler Casino Live YouTube channel.
