Year-Saving Poker Session for 'Rampage' Ruined by $600k Cooler on Final Hand
Ethan "Rampage" Yau was moments away from turning his entire year around for the better during a recent poker game in New York City. But one hand at 10 a.m. — the final hand of a 14-hour session — destroyed those plans.
The hand in question, played inside an unidentified NYC club, was filmed by the poker vlogger in a recent YouTube video. He'd been up a significant amount — around $400,000 — on the session before running into a cooler against a player whose face and name also wasn't identified.
Poker Vlogger's Brutal Ending
Rampage's struggles at the poker table has been highly publicized the past couple of years. He's gone on multiple six-figure downswings while appearing on livestreams such as Hustler Casino Live, and didn't have much success at the 2025 World Series of Poker (WSOP).
It has been an up-and-down 2025 for the popular vlogger with 350,000 YouTube subscribers. He's posted some massive wins this year, but also many big losses. With the year coming to a close, Rampage was quite literally a hand away from erasing a large chunk of his lengthy downswing.
The game shown in the 40-minute video at the NYC club was $25/$50 no-limit hold'em, but clearly played bigger than the blinds would indicate. Yau, a ClubWPT Gold ambassador, bought in for $50,000, a significantly larger amount than the buy-in for a traditional game at that blind level, but not so much with the action in this game.
Rampage would spin it up, winning some monster pots during the session, including a $65,000 hand when his pocket pair hit a full house on the river to crack his opponent's superior pocket pair. He lost a bad beat for a sizable pot along the way, but it was mostly uphil, as he hit numerous huge hands, including twice spiking quads.
By 6 a.m., Yau was up around $200,000 and the blinds had increased to $200/$400. Four hours later, just before he was set to call it a session, with just two players remaining in the game, he found himself in difficult situation.
Both players were over $300,000 deep and the blinds had risen to $500/$1,000. The opponent, who had J♥J♣, started the hand off by raising to $3,000 from the button. Rampage, holding A♥Q♥, three-bet to $14,000 only to then face a four-bet to $40,000, which he called.
The flop came A♠J♠2♠, to which Rampage checked with top pair, but called a $16,000 continuation bet. He again checked the 9♣ turn, and called a $56,000 bet not realizing he was drawing dead to a set.
Rampage, following the A♦ on the river, hit trips. But he checked a third time before hearing "the two most painful that I never wanted to hear."
"All in."
The all in wager was for $199,000, and it left the vlogger in a spot where he had to consider what hands he could and couldn't beat. There were three spades on the flop and the board was paired, so a flush or full house would beat his trips.
If he were to call and win, which he acknowledged in the video, he would have walked away from the 14-hour session with $700,000 in profits. But, of course, we know he had the losing hand, and he was unable to find a fold. The button won a $622,000 pot to close out the game.
Rampage still left the game with an $84,000 profit. But it could have been significantly higher, and he was clearly dejected following the monster pot loss.
"I don't know if I want to sleep and I'm numb to it, or I want to cry," Rampage said immediatly after leaving the club.
"That would have meant a lot to me considering how bad of a month I've hand. and years I've had, and I lost it all in one go because I couldn't fold trips heads-up," Yau continued.
He closed out the video calling the end to his session in New York a "really big blow."
