Anytime the seven-deuce bounty is in play during a cash game, every player at the table has the opportunity to earn themselves a dose of glory – or embarrassment, depending on which way the cards fall. During the recent Onyx Club High Roller Series, a $200/$400 (with a $1,000 ante) cash game materialized and the players agreed to a $1,000 payout (from each player) for anyone who managed to win a pot with the worst starting hand in poker.
Rob Yong, owner of Dusk Till Dawn Poker Club in Nottingham, England and high stakes regular, seized his chance when it came.
What did Yong find at the end of the seven-deuce rainbow? Glory? Or embarrassment? Watch the clip above to find out.
'A man of your word'
During the livestream, a technical error around the 2:12:00 timestamp resulted in a splice – ending Hand 42 prematurely and jumping right into the midst of the action in Hand 43.
Interestingly enough, Mehdi started Hand 42 with about $52,000 in his stack as he picked up pocket aces. The stream cut the entirety of the action, but in Hand 43 he had more than $100,000 in front of him with over $40,000 already in the pot.
Thankfully, the Onyx Club social media account posted the entirety of Hand 43 for us to examine.
After the action folded around to him in the big blind, Mehdi limped in with 
before Yong bumped it up to $6,000 from the straddle with 
. On the 
flop, Yong continued for a near-pot-sized bet of $12,000 and Mehdi came along with his top pair. The 
turn saw Mehdi lead into his opponent with a bet of $8,000, but Yong had devious intentions in mind and raised to $35,000.
After thinking through the spot for a while, Mehdi made the call to bring in the 
river. Despite picking up a smidge of showdown value with his bottom pair, Yong knew he couldn't check back on the river and he slid forward a stack of $5,000 chips to put his opponent all in for the remaining $75,000.
And this is where things got really interesting. Mehdi went into the tank – deep into the tank. As he mulled over his decision, he looked Yong up and down, trying his best to get a live read. While Patrik Antonius and Yohan Guilbert discussed the relative differences between padel and tennis, Mehdi was in the torture chamber.
Mehdi, sipping on his drink, asked Yong to help him make his decision.
"What do you have?" Yong asked.
"What do you think I have?" came Mehdi's reply.
The two players continued to exchange words until Mehdi raised the possibility of a revealed card.
"Which one do you want to see?" Yong asked his opponent.
Mehdi made his decision and Yong flipped over the .
"I'm a man of my word, right?" Yong asked the table, rhetorically.
"You are a man of your word," Guilbert replied as he watched on. "Only Rob do those things, I love it."
The information didn't make Mehdi's decision any easier – in fact, it might have made it all the more difficult. Eventually, he sent his cards back to the dealer and Yong rolled over the to send the table into hysterics as Mehdi shrank into his chair.
