Antonio Esfandiari pulled up a seat for Night 2 of the Super High Roller Cash Game, and Alan Keating got back to his winning ways after a rough first session on Monday night.
Keating lost over $900,000 on Night 1, but he returned for Night 2 with what Brent Hanks called "Hell to pay" on Tuesday and a supersized stack of $2,000,000. The nosebleed PokerGO Studio regular was joined by Andrew Robl, Andrew Pacheco, Darin Feinstein, Kirk Brown, Justin Gavri, and Sam 'Senor Tilt' Kiki, who joined a few minutes late with $250,000.
Kiki would go on to lose his buy-in a short time later, adding another quarter-million to the $600K he lost last night. That was it for Mr. Tilt, who will jump on a plane back to Miami on Wednesday.
Keating and Esfandiari would go on to lead the way, with Esfandiari finishing $676,000 in the black at the end of the evening and Keating pulling a best-in-show $886,500. But it could have been a lot different after the two locked horns in a crazy $2.4 million pot.
A very loud chop
It all started when Robl raised to $20,000 with king-queen before Esfandiari three-bet to $58,000 with 
. Not to be outgambled, Keating went for $125,000 with the inferior 
, which sent Robl running for the hills.
Esfandiari called the extra $67,000, and the flop was 
.
"Uh oh," Ali Nejad said on commentary. "Top set versus second pair and an open-ender. The exits aren't open right now."
Keating followed through with $75,000 and Esfandiari went deep into the tank with the best hand. Suddenly, and without warning, Esfandiari ripped it in for just over $1 million.
"He's gotta throw Keating for a loop," Hanks said. "Why would he ever do this with a set?"
Keating was already in for $200,000, so he took his time in the tank before he eventually called and asked to run it twice – a move that would save Esfandiari.
The first runout went 
, filling out the straight for Keating and sending Esfandiari into an unexpected sweat. Esfandiari would survive when the second runout was 
.
Keating would go on to win a flip at the end of the night to fill out his $886,500 win, bringing him back near even after two sessions of SHRB Cash Games. Robl, who joined Keating as one of the big stacks, worked for a $284,000 profit, and Pacheco was third-best with $551,500. Brown joined Feinstein and Senor Tilt in the red on the day.
Super High Roller Cash Game Day 2 winners
- Alan Keating - $2,977,500 (+$886,500)
- Andrew Robl - $1,776,000 (+$284,000)
- Antonio Esfandiari - $1,151,500 (+$676,000)
- Andrew Pacheco - $926,500 (+$551,500)
- Justin Gavri - $616,500 (+$142,000)
They'll return on Wednesday for one more round at 4pm Vegas time on PokerGO and its YouTube channel. Meanwhile, you can watch all of the action from Day 2 below.
