Imagine, for a moment, that you are Alan Keating.
You're in the midst of filming your debut session on High Stakes Poker – Episode 6 has just dropped on PokerGO – with a little more than $450,000 in front of you. After playing for a few hours, you find yourself on the river of a hand with roughly half of your stack in the middle. The board reads 
and you have 
, good for third pair. Your opponent – a man named Peter Wang – bets enough to put the rest of your money on the line.
What do you do?
You might start by asking yourself – as David Byrne has done countless times – how did I get here? Well, let's rewind a few streets to examine Keating's unlikely path to playing a $911,000 pot with third pair.
The Alan Keating play-along
It's a $200/$400 NLH game. At times, the straddle and double straddle come into play. There's a lot of action at this table – the kind you have to see to believe. For this hand, surprisingly, there is no straddle to fight for and only a single raise goes in pre-flop, but that doesn't stop the pot ballooning.
It all kicks off with a splashy, late-position raise to $1,400 from Steve Swedlow with 
. Always looking to gamble in position, Wang matches the raise from the button with 
before the action comes to Keating in the big blind with his – the first, and perhaps simplest, decision point in the hand. It's $1,000 more to see the flop and Keating closes the action. Do you call?
Maybe that's an easy decision.
Peter Wang didn't shy away from the fight as he matched Alan Keating's aggression punch for punch. Keating calls and the three players see the flop. Swedlow continues with a near-pot-sized bet of $4,000 into $4,800.
Wang, having called preflop with his speculative two-gapper, connected with the board in a meaningful way with a flush draw – all the more reason for further speculation. With a draw to the eighth-best flush possible, Wang looks to build a pot and raises to $13,000.
'An enigma of the highest order'
Now, with the action back on Keating, you arrive at the second decision point. You've committed $1,400 to the pot. There's a bet and a raise in front of you. You have bottom pair on a board that, based on the action, has smashed your opponents' holdings. It's $13,000 – at minimum, as Swedlow could re-open the action behind you – to see the turn card.
Do you fold?
Keating doesn't fold. He doesn't call, either. Instead, he raises to $41,000.
Notably, the more interesting aspect of Keating's decision on the flop isn't that he continues with his hand at all, but rather that he commits even more money to the pot with his raise. It's a conscious, predetermined decision to, correctly, go to war with bottom pair and provides insight into how Keating operates in a deep-stacked cash game environment.
Alan Keating went to battle against Peter Wang in a pot that neared the seven-figure mark. Nick Schulman echoes this sentiment from the commentary booth. "Is he tilted? Or is this a nice – actually, a brilliant – identification of what's going on? Look at the equities, AJ [Benza]. He has 62%, he knocked Steve out. He might have the situation read incredibly well, we just kind of can't know, but he is an enigma of the highest order."
'One of the best hands of poker I've ever seen'
While Keating may indeed be an enigma, Wang isn't concerned with solving any puzzles just yet – he just wants to hit his flush and the only way to do so is by calling the $41,000. He doesn't hit it on the turn.
Keating continues to pressure his opponent with a $58,000 bet.
If you thought the turn would play out as a straightforward bet-call scenario, thus saving you from another hypothetical decision point, you'll be disappointed to hear that Wang doesn't make the call despite improving to a pair. Rather, he raises to $175,000 as if he had top set and not fourth pair with a flush draw. Here, we come to the third decision point in the hand. Do you call the raise?
It's a lot of money to call with third pair and there's still a card to come, certainly not a spot you'd want to be in.
If you watch the episode, you can see in real time – 23 seconds, give or take a few – as Keating makes the decision to commit an additional $117,000.
Keating fades the river, but can he call?
With $440,800 in the pot, the dealer deals the on the river and Wang's hand is officially second-best. After his heroic call on the turn, Keating checks the action to his opponent, perhaps steeling himself for what's to come. Despite holding the slimmest sliver of showdown value, Wang knows he has to bluff at the pot to win it and, when given the opportunity, he doesn't shy away from the moment.
After eying up his opponent's chips, Wang verbally announces all-in for Keating's remaining $235,000 and the internal deliberation begins. As Keating thinks through his decision, Schulman showers him with praise, saying, "If Keating calls here, for me, this is one of the best hands of poker I've ever seen... or one of the worst, that's the thing."
At long last, you have arrived at the fourth – and final – decision point in this unbelievable hand of No-Limit Hold'em. Do you call off the rest of your money?
It doesn't take Keating long to get his chips in the middle and rake the near-$1 million pot.
Watch every episode of High Stakes Poker on PokerGO.
