With the World Series of Poker hitting its stride in Las Vegas, it was only a matter of time before the crazy hands began to pile up.
We've already seen one or two wild ones through the first week of the summer series, but nothing quite like this. On Day 2 of the $10K GGMillion$ event, Viktor Blom gave us our first real taste of the madness.
With 
in the cutoff, the Swede called an early position raise from Rick Mechammil who held 
.
Neither player connected on the 
flop and Mechammil checked to his opponent. Blom seized control of the betting lead, firing out for a third of the pot. Mechammil made the call with just king-high and backdoor possibilities. On the 
turn, the action went check-check and the 
river completed the board.
And here's where it gets bizzare.
With 84,000 chips in the middle, Blom bet 48,000. While viewers at home could see that he had the best of it with just ace-high, Blom had no way to know that and decided that he needed to bluff to win the pot.
After a moment or two of thought, Mechammil flicked a chip across the betting line for a call. Instantly, Blom sent his cards sliding into the muck – clearly thinking that there's no world in which his hand is best after being called down on the river.
Mechammil, with no obligation to show his holding after Blom mucked, dragged in the 180,000 chip pot.
Origins of the bluff-call
This isn't the first time we've seen a river bluff lead to an instant muck from the bettor.
According to Patrick Leonard, who shared the Blom vs. Mechammil hand to social media, followed up with years-old footage of a similar spot in a European Poker Tour event.
As Leonard explains in the post below, Roland De Wolfe had a habit of bluffing on the river and then mucking his cards to avoid giving away information. Tobias Reinkemeier and his German counterparts recognized the pattern and tried to take advantage of De Wolfe's predictability.
And it worked... kind of – check out the video below.
