It’s only January but we have already had the “sickest hand of 2025” according to English pro Patrick Leonard, a brutal run out on GGPoker’s highstakes cash game tables catching his eye.
Played on GGPoker at a 4-handed table of $50/$100 NLH, the hand saw a clash between Dutch pro Kevin “KevinPaque” Paque and Russian pro Sergey “MunEZStaRR” Nikiforov. Both are online crushers well used to playing the highest stakes. Let’s take a look at the tweeted hand…
The Sickest hand of 2025?
“KevinPaque”: 7♥ 6♥
“MunEZStaRR”: A♠ A♥
Paque and Nikiforov were both sitting with $10k when the Russian raised just over 2 BBs from UTG. This was met by an $1150 3-bet from Paque in the SB, a 4-bet to $2400 and finally a call from Paque.
Flop: A♣ K♠ 6♦
With $4900 in the pot, play went check from Paque, an extremely small $485 bet from Nikiforov with his set of aces, and a call from Paque with bottom pair.
Turn: 6♣
The pot now at $5878, the turn filled Nikiforov’s house and also gave Paque trips, so the scene was set for some action. Paque led out $1469, Nikiforov just flatting.
River: 6♠
With $8816 in the middle, Paque shoved $5715 effective, Nikiforov snapping it off only to get the terrible news – Paque had hit quads on the river, taking down the $20,244 pot!
Sick? Absolutely! Nikiforov was >99% on the flop and still 98% to win on the turn, but Paque hit his one-outer on the river.
Patrick Leonard Explains…
You might be asking yourself (as I did!) wasn’t Nikiforov’s 10% bet on the flop just setting himself up for a bad beat? As mentioned in the comments, it prices in Paque’s actual holding and many others to call.
Leonard explained: “The SPR is very small because so much money went in pre-flop [sic], there’s no real protection issues when you have a value hand (if board is 985 then TT-KK have protection issues. Here your value is the toppest of pocket pairs).”
Last week’s big winner at the PGT KickOff series in Las Vegas added: “There is also no concern about not getting the money in value vs value (200bbs deep maybe you’d wants to bet larger to allow yourself to get all the money in comfortably and naturally by the river).”
Sickest hand of 2025 is wrapped up in January pic.twitter.com/Y99dI7b6Kn
— Patrick Leonard 🫡 (@padspoker) January 26, 2025
Fellow pro Joey Ingram, aka “papigto” on Instagram, described it as “the Chad bet – GTO in a few spots,” hinting at its modernity and popularity among poker “Alpha” pros.
Brutal bad beats and the sickest of sick hands are subjective in a way, but we can all agree on a “ballpark figure” for at least making it into the category. The following definitely gets a top 10 spot considering what was at stake…
The @WSOP Online Main Event Final Table.
Over $29M in the prizepool, with over $4M for 1st place.
Then this.
Wild. pic.twitter.com/uNO7giUrSV
— GGPoker (@GGPoker) September 24, 2024
Or how about this pre-pandemic brute of a hand from the WSOP, which saw Bryce Yockey lose a hand where he was 99.843% to win. At stake? A real shot at the coveted Poker Player’s Championship title and a $1million+ payday. What happened? One of the sickest live poker hands to ever occur…
Can you think of sicker hands? Let us know in the comments on our social media channels!
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