Natural8 recorded what might be the largest no-limit hold’em pot on record. Natural8 is part of the GGNetwork that advertises heavily in the Asian market. As a result, they have been having a good time of it in the high stakes games while the WSOP plays out on their network.
This particular $500/$1,000/$200 hand, mostly between Micheal Addamo and Wiktor Malinowski reached the showdown with $842,438.62 in the middle.
The hand is the largest pot played on the GGNetwork’s software and is the largest no-limit hold’em hand in the server banks of High Stakes Data Base.
The largest online no-limit hold’em pot previously was a $723,938 Aces versus Kings spot between Tom Dwan and “Urindanger”. Natural8’s contender beats this out in size but is strikingly similar in the roll-out of the cards.
The biggest game in town
The five-handed game kicked off with $500/$1000 blinds and $200 antes from each player. Malinowkso raised with two black Aces from the cut-off. The button folded J-7. The short stack folded from the small blind and Addamo woke up with the two black Kings in the Big Blind.
Unsurprisingly he re-raised, was raised again, put in the fourth raise, and was called. The pot going to the flop was $217,500.
The flop of 2-5-7 rainbow did nothing to improve either’s hand. Play moved cautiously from there with a bet-call on every street getting the rest of Addamo’s stack in. $71,775 on the flop bet and called.
The turn was a rag. $100,146.50 went in from each player. The pot was now over half a million dollars.
The river paired the five, confirming Malinowski’s supremacy. Still, Addamo shipped his last $140,547.80. Malinowski called and dragged in the pot. He had played it in a style very similar to the climactic hand of Rounders.
Cue your John Malkovich impression: "All night, this son of b****. He check, check, check. He trapped me."
Without fanfare, the software dealt the next hand.
Pot-limit Omaha rules
The records do show larger pots played online — many of them seven figures in size — but all of these have all been pot-limit Omaha hands.
Until short deck came along, PLO was the biggest game in town. The high variance masks the gradual movement of money from the worst to the best and keeps everyone hoping for a big score.
Fewer players pored over PLO in the 2+2 forums and fewer authors spilled ink writing strategy books for it. Therefore it was also a less competitive game. Most high-stakes big bet games were a mix of PLO and NLH.
No doubt it's only a matter of time before some group of deep-pocketed degens set a new record. But until then, this remains a historic hand in online poker.
