button in SafariMariano Has a 4% Shot to Win a $390k Pot; Guess What Happens?
A 4% chance to win a pot that ballooned to nearly $400,000 might as well have been a lock for poker vlogger Mariano Grandoli.
Friday night's Hustler Casino Live stream ended in a heads-up match after the game broke. But before that happened, Grandoli, who runs as pure as anyone on livestreams, played a massive pot against a familiar opponent, Phuoc "Turbo" Nguyen.
Poker Vlogger Never Seems to Miss
The $100/$200 no-limit hold'em cash game at Hustler Casino in Los Angeles had plenty of action, although it only lasted a few hours. There were no bigger hands, however, than a pot involving Mariano, a vlogger who went from grinding low-stakes cash games a few years back to replacing Garrett Adelstein as the headliner in the highest-stakes games on Hustler Casino Live.
With multiple straddles on, Jasper called for $1,000 from the cutoff/straddle with 6♣2♠. Turbo, on the button straddle, made it $8,000 to go with A♥8♠. Mariano, the big straddle, bumped it up to $24,000 with K♠5♠, receiving a call only from Turbo.
The flop came out 8♣A♦3♠, hitting Turbo in a big way, while leaving Mariano needing to catch a runner-runner draw to scoop the pot. Mariano continued with a $9,000 wager, to which his opponent called to see the 9♠ on the turn. That gave the vlogger a flush draw, but two of the spades in the deck would be of no use to him.
Mariano continued with a small-ish sized bet of $18,000. Turbo, sitting on two pair, went for a raise to $49,000. Both players had just over $180,000 left before the turn was dealt. That raise didn't seem to concern Grandoli, as he came back over the top with an all-in bet, and Turbo snap-called and announced "one time."
[TWIT
Only a spade that didn't pair the board could bail Mariano out on the river, and that is precisely what happened, as the dealer revealed the 6♠. Grandoli turned over his cards, leaving Turbo in stunned silence knowing he'd just lost a $392,400 pot to a runner-runner flush.
"How does he do it?" Hustler Casino Live commentator Charlie Wilmoth asked.
The answer to the question is a mix of luck and skill. Grandoli, while running hot in massive pots such as the one above numerous times on livestreams, has also made his fair share of brilliant plays that often get overlooked because of the lucky hands.
Mariano, according to HighRollPoker.com, was up over $3.4 million lifetime on HCL entering Friday's game. You can add another $170,000 to that tally, which includes the $30,000 he lost against "Big Mike" in a heads-up match to close out the stream. Turbo went home down $127,000.
