On Monday evening, the latest episode of PokerGO's High Stakes Poker hit the airwaves to the delight of poker audiences across the globe. The $200/$400 action continued this week as Andrew Robl, Justin Gavri, Marc Kulick, Seth Gottlieb, Brandon Steven, Jared Bleznick, and Markus Gonsalves played out the remainder of their Season 14 session.
While the episode began with seven players around the table, it ended with only five as both Gavri and Gonsalves elected to quit the game.
Gavri takes a stand
After taking two brutal beats on last week's episode, Gavri looked to bounce back in the early goings of the episode. In a double-straddled pot, he looked down at 
on the button and bumped it up to $3,600 off of a stack of just $50K. In the single straddle, Steven peeled 
and three-bet to $11,000. When the action came back around to him, Gavri slid all of his chips across the betting line and Steven made a quick call.
Justin Gavri took beat after beat during his High Stakes Poker Season 14 run. With $103,200 in the middle, the players decided to run two boards and the first offered no improvement to either player as it came down 
to leave Steven's pocket pair best. The second runout wasn't much different as the board came down 
and Gavri took his leave from the table.
Gonsalves outdrawn... twice
In another double-straddled pot, Steven kicked off the action with a raise to $4,000 from the button with 
. Gottlieb, next to act in the small blind, looked down at 
and fired out a three-bet to $15,000. Kulick came along with 
, cold-calling from the big blind, before Gonsalves laid down the hammer with a four-bet to $50,000 holding 
.
Steven tossed his eight-high holding into the muck, but Gottlieb and Kulick both matched the $50,000 to send the three players to the 
flop. While Gottlieb and Gonsalves whiffed, Kulick picked up an open-ended straight draw to take command of the equity distribution despite having just six-high. With $155,200 in the middle, both Gottlieb and Kulick checked the flop to Gonsalves, the preflop aggressor. After considering his options, Gonsalves elected to check back, bringing in the 
turn – an action card as he and Gottlieb both improved to top pair.
Marc Kulick handed out bad beats left and right during his High Stakes Poker debut. Gottlieb, first to act, fired $65,000 into the middle with his top pair, top kicker and Kulick made the call. Gonsalves, however, wanted to push the action and shipped his remaining $196,000. With Kulick still left to act behind, Gottlieb relinquished the best hand while issuing complaints of bullying at the table. Kulick – not one to shy away from a gamble – made the call to bring the pot to a whopping $613,000. As the two players turned over their hands, Gottlieb exclaimed, "F**k, I folded ace-queen."
Gonsalves and Kulick agreed to run out two river cards, with the latter needing to improve on one of them to lay claim to half the pot. The first river card – the 
– turned Kulick's six-high into a straight.
"It feels really good to win the first one," he said.
Now, having locked up half the pot, Kulick was on a freeroll to scoop the entirety. The second river card came down the 
– improving Kulick once again to a straight and downing Gonsalves' top pair. As the card hit the felt, the entire table let out a collective gasp as even the most seasoned players felt the shockwave.
Gonsalves, to his credit, took the beat like a consummate professional and shook each of his competitors' hand before disappearing from the PokerGO Studio into the Las Vegas night.
High Stakes Poker airs Monday evenings at 8:00pm ET on PokerGO.
Images Courtesy of Antonio Abrego/PokerGO
