The latest episode of High Stakes Poker on PokerGO saw a poker legend end up on the losing end of some hard run-outs. Doyle Brunson, known as ‘Texas Dolly’ was given some bad beats after the most exciting episode of the season so far saw players such as Xuan Liu and Krish Menon profit on the back of the 1976 and 1977 WSOP Main Event winner’s bad luck.
‘Gman’ Starts as Chip Leader
Garrett Adelstein began the sixth episode of High Stakes Poker season nine in charge of the table, holding a massive stack of $601,500, the biggest amount anyone has sat behind so far in this season of the legendary televised poker show. With players such as Phil Ivey, Daniel Negreanu and James Bord having stepped away from the table for this section of the series, other big names filled their seats.
Hollywood star Jennifer Tilly is no stranger to the high stakes game and started the episode with $245,100 to play with. Xuan Liu had already improved her starting stack to $144,500 after her debut appearance on the show led to plenty of plaudits from established high stakes pros.
Krish Menon got off to a rough start in the previous episode but started the episode with $48,600 – an amount that was about to increase by several hundred thousand after a high-profile clash with Brunson. Texas Dolly – who has won 10 World Series of Poker bracelets in his legendary career – is no stranger to winning or losing big cash pots. He’s been doing most of the former in Bobby’s Room for decades.
Menon Runs Doyle Over Twice
The biggest hand Brunson lost was easily the one to Menon, who had chipped up from his low starting stack to become a major player at the table by the time this hand took place. Menon, a wealthy entrepreneur, won a big three-way all-in against Tom Dwan and Kim Hultman to build his stack when his pocket aces won the pot.
Menon then faced off against Brunson in the episode-defining hand. Brunson sat in the straddle for $800 with pocket aces and Jennifer Tilly raised to $2,500 with pocket deuces. Garrett Adelstein called with pocket sixes and so too did Melon with queen-jack. Brunson re-popped it to $10,800, but got all three players to call.
The flop of K-Q-3 kept Brunson ahead, but Menon paired his queen. Brunson, first to act, bet out $50,000 and that got rid of Tilly and Adelstein, but Menon stuck around and raised all-in for a total of $117,000.
Brunson made the call and agree to run it twice. Hey, it takes out variance, right? Not in this case. The first run out saw Menon hit a queen on the turn to hit trips and win the hand. On the second run-out, the turn was safe, but a jack on the river gave both play outs to Menon and allowed him the complete double up in a pot worth an incredible $279,000.
Brunson Out of Luck
The turn was another ten, which gave Brunson pause for a lot of thought.
It didn’t get any better for ‘Texas Dolly’, with another pot going against the poker Hall of Famer. In a pot against Xuan Liu and Jen Tilly, Brunson held jack-deuce of hearts, but started the hand behind both Liu (ace-queen) and Tilly (ace-king). The flop of J-T-2 gave Brunson two-pair, but it was Tilly who bet her gutshot straight draw. She bet $7,000, getting a call from Liu and a raise to $24,000 from Brunson.
This time, Tilly folded on the flop again. But Liu did no such thing, despite only having the same gutshot draw to three Broadway cards that her female tablemate had been. The turn was another ten, which gave Brunson pause for a lot of thought. Both players checked to the river of a seven, but when Liu bet $50,000 into the pot, which stood at $71,000 before she made that move, Brunson folded the best hand to lose another vital pot.
With lots more High Stakes Poker action to come this season, the Godfather of poker will be looking to tip his hat to fewer pots won by others and more big ones coming his way as the action on PokerGO heats up towards the series finale.
