High Stakes Poker returned last night for the sixth episode of season 13, featuring a new face and some old favorites making their first appearances of the series.
They say never play against someone named after a town, and while ‘Humboldt Mike’ may have been making his HSP debut he certainly didn’t show any signs of being new to this game - or the stakes of $500/$1K/$1K. He even left us with a particularly memorable quote - see below - which came about when two returning characters clashed in the biggest pot of the night.
The hand went down late in proceedings, when the divisive yet exciting Nik Airball clashed head-on with billionaire entrepreneur Stanley Tang. No strangers to big pots, or High Stakes Poker, Airball and Tang were nevertheless making their first appearances of the season, and it would climax with a heads-up pot worth over $431K.
When suited connectors come good
Holding 
, Airball opened to $3K off a stack of over $250K. Brandon Steven called with 
, only for Tang to make it $15K from the button with 
. Airball called and Steven got out of the way. With the pot at $35K, the flop of 
guaranteed we were in for some action.
“This is bad for Stanley,” commentator Nick Schulman confirmed, as DoorDash co-founder Tang - holding pocket aces and the nut-flush draw - made a continuation bet of $10K after Airball checked the flop. Airball, a 68% favorite on the flop with his made flush, tossed in the call.
The 
on the turn changed nothing, and Airball checked again. Tang followed up with a bet of $35K into the $55K pot, which Airball casually called, again, tossing in his calling chips in relaxed fashion.
“Kind of a slick slow-play, the way he did it,” pointed out Shulman from the commentary booth, “the snap, high-toss call.” A club on the river would have been unbeatable for Tang, but the 
did nothing to help him. Nor did the fact that he held the nut-flush-blocking , and when Airball checked for the third time in a row Tang bet $75K with confidence. That visibly ebbed away when Airball came over the top for $153K all-in.
No thanks to the ‘randomizer’
Earlier in the session Tang had been put to a tough river decision by Jennifer Tilly, when the Bride of Chucky actress hit a full house holding the 
on a board of 
. Holding pocket jacks, Tang commented that if it was Airball who’d raised him in that spot, he’d be calling.
On that occasion Tang was able to lay it down, but true to his word he found it a lot tougher to fold to Airball’s aggression. Now, facing Airball’s big river bet into his pocket aces, Tang had plenty to chew on.
“How can you put me all-in when I have this?” said Tang, turning over his .
Airball - as ever - was not lost for words, and came back with “Eshaan [Ballah] said It’s better to bluff in this spot without the ace of clubs, because then your opponent can fold if they have the ace of clubs.”
“But you know, that I know, that you know that,” replied Tang.
“That’s too complicated for me,” said Airball, no doubt echoing the thoughts of many viewers at home.
In the end Tang announced he felt there was a 25% chance his hand was good, and decided to go with the randomizer approach: if the second hand on his watch was between 9 and 12, he was going to call. He looked… it was at 10… Tang made the call.
The $431K pot was pushed Airball’s way. If Tang had taken 11 more seconds to make his decision, things may have been different.
“The only thing better than bluffing a billionaire, is stacking a billionaire!” commented Humboldt Mike, bringing laughs from most, if not all, of the table.
High Stakes Poker airs on Monday nights at 8:00pm ET, exclusively on PokerGO.
