GGPoker has put together its top five brutal river cards from the 2024 WSOP, showcasing that critical moment in a hand where the wrong card can destroy a dream.
There’s nothing worse than being a head in a hand only for your opponent to snatch the pot when the final community card is flipped over. And when it comes at a crucial time which will define your tournament, it hurts all the more.
Hand #5 – 2024 WSOP Main Event Day 8
Getting down towards the final stages of the WSOP Main Event, Jordan Griff received a dream run out to ensure he got paid. This huge pot was enough to give him the chips to make a deep run all the way to the final table.
The pot is 18.6M and the flop came down as 3♦ 10♠ A♣
Griff is all-in, leaving Jessie Bryant with a trivial call with his 3♠ 3♣ for only 2M
The turn was an innocuous 8♠, changing nothing, but when the Q♥ arrived on the river the rail went wild while the commentators expressed how nasty the river card had been over the previous two days.
Hand #4 – 2024 WSOP Main Event Day 4
Next up we have a slightly different flavour of bad beat. Veteran firefighter Lonny Eisenberg finds himself with 7♠ 7♦ up against Anthony Zinno who has 3♠ 3♥.
The flop came down 3♣ 10♣ 7♣ which is as nasty as it gets, let alone when both players are now staring at sets.
Eisenberg makes his continuation bet of 50K into a pot of 85K and Zinno opts to only call.
The turn is where the hand starts to get interesting. As the commentators point out, Zinno, with his inferior set, is actually needing a fourth club to come to save him some chips.
And when the Q♣ rolls off, it looks like his prayers have been answered. On this board, neither player should be looking to pile more chips into the pot.
The pot is 335K and Eisenberg has Zinno with 457K covered. Both players check.
When the rivered Q♦ hits the table we just know that it’s a potential disaster for Zinno.
Eisenberg ponders for a few seconds before pushing 250K chips into the middle, sending Zinno into the tank.
Zinno clearly looks perplexed at the line that got the players to this point and just doesn’t believe he can be behind. After a minute or so, Zinno jams the remainder of his stack.
Now, rather strangely, Eisenberg is sitting with the best hand and is worried he might be beaten. Eventually he does make the call but we wondered if he might make a horror show fold which would have been immortalised for years to come.
Hand #3 – 2024 WSOP $800 NLH Deepstack
In the middle stages of the $800 Deepstack, Adam Hendrix found himself with pretty much one big blind left and facing a raise from Israel’s Timur Margolin who had A♠ K♣.
The American looked disgusted at his choice of calling of his tournament life with 7♥ 2♦ with 8.5M ready to win in the pot.
After some jokey comments about Hendrix not being scared of ICM, the table watched the board roll out.
4♥ 4♣ 5♣ was safe enough, and so was the 4♦ turn. But the 2♠ river flipped the script and gave Hendrix the chips he needed to make a great recovery and ultimately finish the tournament in fourth place.
Hand #2 – 2024 WSOP Main Event Day 1A
This hand was a tragedy for Shehzad Rehmani. Another example of when you think your luck is in but disaster is about to strike.
We join the hand on the flop of J♥ Q♣ 2♥ and Michael Mizrachi has just checked his 7♠ 7♦ and Yizhak Yerushalmi bets out for 3.5K into a pot of 15.8K with Q♥ Q♦.
Shehzad Rehmani calls with Q♠ J♦ and Daniel Hachem follows along with A♥ 5♥. Mizrachi folds.
The turn is the 8♣ and Yerushalmi fires again for 6K and both Rehmani and Hachem call again.
The river is the J♥giving and easy decision for Hachem but an awful spot for Rehmani.
Yerushalmi bets 11K into the pot of 33.3K and is raised within seconds by Rehmani up to 25K.
Yerushalmi doesn’t hang about before jamming and giving Rehmani a decision for the rest of his chips which he duly does before getting the bad news.
Hand #1 – 2024 WSOP $250K Super High Roller
The final hand sees Phil Ivey up against online PLO legend Ben Tollerene.
Ivey opens to 800K on the button with Q♥ Q♦ and Tollerene defends his big blind with K♦ 10♣.
The flop is 10♠ 5♠ 5♥ and Ivey fires a continuation bet of 600K into the 2.2M pot.
Tollerene then goes for the raise, bumping it up to 1.6M. Ivey barely ponders, showing he knows exactly where he is and jams the rest of his 4.2M stack in the centre. Tollerene quickly makes the call.
The turn is the 3♠ but when the K♣ comes down it’s all over for Ivey, denying him a chance of another bracelet at the 2024 WSOP.
Run It Twice or Three Times on GGPoker
As mentioned above, losing a hand on the river which you were almost certain to win is one of the most painful parts of playing poker.
But what if we told you that there is a solution to avoid some of that pain, making the ride on the variance train that much smoother?
GGPoker has the option to run out the board multiple times in an all-in confrontation — two or three times.
In this situation all players in the hand must agree to Run It Twice or Run It Three Times, or else the hand will only run out once as is usual.
The beauty of this feature in the modern online poker space is that it not only smoothes out the natural variance but it also gives you a chance to pull back some of your losses if your opponent sucks out on you in the first run out.
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