Record Breaking
The largest pot in online poker history was taken down the other day by none other than one Patrick Antonius, a well known nosebleed stakes poker online player at Full Tilt and a participant in the “Durrr” challenge.
Playing against a relative newcomer from Sweden, Isildur1, Antonius ended up pulling in 1,356,946 USD in a game of pot limit Omaha. This record was broken after Isildur1 and Antonius set the same record the previous week at 878,000 USD.
The hand was as spectacular as the pot. Antonius held Ah-3s-Ks-Kh and Isildur1 held 6d-7d-8h-9s. The flop came 4s-5c-2h. At this point Antonius was in the lead with a straight, but Isildur1 could catch up as he was open ended to a straight, with any 3 or 8 giving him a higher straight than Antonius. A raising and reraising war began after the flop with both players eventually getting all their money in the middle. The turn came 5h, not helping Isildur1’s draw at all.
Finally the river came 9c, which did improve Isildur1’s hand to two pair, but it just wasn’t enough to overcome the flopped wheel by Antonius. So after all was said and done, Antonius raked in a cool 1.3 million from the pot, taking 750,000 USD from the Swedish prodigy.
Isildur1 is a relative newcomer to the poker online scene on Full Tilt, but he has been actively participating in the “Durrr” challenge, taking 3 million from Tom “Durrr” Dwan over the course of November 2009, and showing a 5 million net profit. However, he is now back down to only being up 750,000 USD. It will be interesting to see whether Isildur1 will be up to the challenge of rebuilding and becoming a serious contender in the challenge or if he’ll simply fade into the mist as a flash in the pan.
