A tweet by poker media member Remko Rinkema has got poker fans excited about a potential high stakes cash game that will take place at the EPT Grand Final in Monte Carlo in late April. Rimkema’s tweet said, ‘Spoke briefly with Winfred Yu and he said he’s taking five VIPs from Macau to Monte Carlo for the EPT and a possible €500k buy in cash game.’ Winfred Yu is a well-known businessman who is a regular in the Macau cash games that are among the biggest on the planet. He’s also played in many Super High Roller tournaments and appeared in the 2012 $1m Big One for One Drop.
At last year’s EPT Grand Final a similar high stakes game broke out and the vast majority of it was televised by EPT Live. The blinds were €1k/€2k with a minimum €500k buy-in, the same as this year’s proposed game. The lineup was a mix of international superstars – Sam Trickett, Isaac Haxton (pictured) and Viktor Blom – alongside businessmen such as Talal Shakerchi and Paul Newey.
Haxton caught all the headlines when he won a €1m pot against UK hedge fund manager Shakerchi with a flush in a 4-bet pot. In an exclusive interview with PokerPlayer.co.uk – READ IT HERE – Haxton talked us through the hand:
It folds to Shakerchi in the cutoff and he opens to €7k. I make it €22k from the button with Q-T suited, which is a fairly aggressive three-bet. It’s a hand I’d normally call with but he’d been playing fairly aggressively and wasn’t folding to many three-bets, so it was a hand I thought I could three-bet him slightly lighter for value. It folds back to him and he four-bets pretty small to €52k. I call as I think for that price, there’s really no other option.
I flop a flush on J♠-8♠-5♠! He c-bets for half-pot. I call. The turn is an offsuit Ace and he checks to me. There was a bit over €200k in there with €400k to play. I feel like I can get stacks in there with betting half pot, half pot and that’s what I did. I flopped the ‘nuts’ in a four-bet pot and took the standard line to get the stacks in.
The hand is more interesting from his side; I can only guess what he had. I think it’s very likely he turned a set of Aces, and probably had the A♠ to go with it. He didn’t seem to seriously consider folding the river, and I think he played it well. There’s not a lot else he can do. It is very possible I would bluff with something like K-Q with the K♠ in this spot. It’s even plausible that I could be value-betting a set of Jacks here. It’s really just a big cooler [but] the fact that it’s by far the biggest pot I’ve played makes it pretty special.
You can watch last year’s €500k buy-in cash game right here and rest assured that we will have all the details on the latest rumours rumbling from Macau as the anticipation for this year’s EPT Grand Final continues to grow.
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