In the wake of last week's nosebleed stakes, heads-up match between Dan 'Jungleman' Cates and Ossi Ketola, there's only one hand worthy of the PokerOrg Hand of the Week title. If you watched any of the streamed matches between Cates and Ketola, you can probably guess the hand we've chosen – spoiler alert: it's one of the biggest-ever televised cash game pots.
If you missed the action, Cates and Ketola played a series of heads-up matches, starting with a $1M buy-in apiece and escalating from there. The Hand of the Week – and possibly the year if we're being honest – came during the $3M match, and it all started with an unorthodox raise sizing from Ketola. With the blinds at $15K/$30K, he opted for a raise to $100,000 with . Cates had a decision to make with
– raise or call – but went with the latter.
Quads vs. full house
As it turns out, Ketola picked the right time to bloat the pot preflop as the dealer spread the flop. With $200,000 in the middle and all of the sixes accounted for, Ketola fired $75,000 when checked to. Cates made the call with his ace-high to bring in the disastrous
on the turn, improving him to a no-good full house. Ketola doubled his bet on the turn, sending $150,000 across the betting line, and Cates responded with a raise to $400,000. Ketola played it smoothly with just a call.
It went from bad to worse for Cates as the river improved him to a stronger, but still no-good full house. With $1.2M in the pot and only $830,000 remaining in Ketola's stack, Cates bet $825,000. After clarification from the dealer about the bet size and Ketola's remaining stack, the money went in.
'This is so dumb'
When he saw Ketola's hand, Cates wasn't pleased.
"This is so dumb," he complained. "It's stupid."
"Scripted as f**k," Ketola agreed.
While Cates lost the battle for one of the biggest-ever televised cash game pots, he won the overall war, as he walked away from the confrontation with more than $15M in profit.