Two monster hands stole the spotlight during Saturday’s special High Stakes Poker livestream — and, predictably, both featured Alan Keating at the center of the action.
One happened at the start, but let’s fast-forward to the one that happened near the end of the stream, which was playing at $200/$400 with an $800 straddle.
Keating was down around $370K before the hand when Doug Polk kicked off the action with a raise to $4K with 
. Justin Gavri three-bet to $20K with 
and Keating made the call from the big blind with 
. Jennifer Tilly folded twos on the straddle.
Polk four-bet to $75K, which saw Gavri snap-fold, but Keating wasn't deterred.
"One time, Alan," said Nick Schulman on comms. "Let's take a flop, baby." Keating obliged.
The dealer fanned a flop of 
, giving Keating the lead with bottom pair. Keating checked, Polk bet $35K into the pot of $172,800, and Keating made the call.
Keating checked the 
turn, and Polk kept his foot down, betting $70K. Keating made the call, and the dealer flipped the 
on the river.
Keating checked, and Polk moved all-in for his remaining $137K.
Blez: Keating is the number one player to watch
"He's going for the bluff of the night against the guy who just doesn't fold," said Brent Hanks on commentary duty.
"There's no one in the world I'd be more scared to be all-in on the river against than Alan Keating," Jared Bleznick said. "I'm telling you now, if Keating makes this call, this hand is about to go viral."
"I think I overplayed this," Keating said, before eyeballing Polk and finally making the call.
"Oh my God!" Hanks exclaimed.
"Wow, you really are a f*****g whale," said Andrew Robl, seated three spots down.
"That was sick," said Schulman, as Polk topped up with another $500K.
"He is fuming," said Hanks.
"You are watching, without question, the number one man in poker to watch in televised poker history because of plays like that," Bleznick said.
"The Blez isn't wrong," Schulman replied. "That was unbelievable. And you're right — that's the scariest man to bluff on the river."
Hand #2: Keating makes an instant impact
‘Give action to get action.’ It's an adage that's often said in poker, but there's rarely been a better example than what happened on High Stakes Poker near the beginning of Saturday's livestream special.
Alan Keating joined late with a $500K stack. The first hand he played, he posted a $5K straddle and then shoved over the top of a raise from Cary Katz. Katz folded 
and Keating flipped the 
.
Two hands later, Keating picked up aces and open-shoved his $515K stack from the big blind – just 1,287 big blinds – and got an instant call from Santhosh Suvarna, one seat to his left, who had put the straddle on.
“Oh my god!” exclaimed Brent Hanks on comms.
“It’s actually kinda genius in a way because he knows Santhosh is the sort of person who will call with king high,” Nick Schulman said.
Schulman: Poker isn't like chess for this reason
The last thing he would have expected to see was aces. Suvarna had pocket eights and opted for it to be run once. Unfortunately, both eights were already dead, leaving him drawing extremely thin through the 
runout.
“It’s interesting,” said Schulman. “Poker isn’t a game like chess. In a game like chess, if you make a bad move like the 10-3 suited, then you just lose, and it doesn’t help you for the future. Of course, in poker, you give a little and you get a little, and it worked out so quickly for him to bang it in with the 10-3 and then just aces all-in — crazy.”
Santhosh bought back in for $600K. Keating had played two hands and was up $244K. And, as we predicted, the money on the table was getting big early on. After 90 minutes there was more than $4 million on the table.
You can watch the full Day 1 livestream below. The timestamps for the hands above are as follows:
- Polk vs. Keating: 5:28:00
- Keating vs. Suvarna: 38:40
And don’t miss the next episode of High Stakes Poker LIVE, streaming Sunday, November 9, on PokerGO's YouTube channel at 4pm PT. The exact same lineup returns, but Hanks has promised they're going to "kick it up."
