Andrew Robl is used to swinging six and seven figures in a single session, but even he had never been part of a pot quite like this one. On Saturday, August 29, at the PokerGO Studio in Las Vegas, Robl and fellow high-stakes regular Eric Wasserson combined to play the biggest record poker pot in the history of televised cash games, a monster worth $2,478,000 that aired on the current season of High Stakes Poker.
A Routine Raise Turns Into Something Historic
The hand looked ordinary at first. Wasserson opened from the button to $20,000 holding A♦9♥, a standard raise size for the table that night. Michael “Texas Mike” Moncek called from the small blind with 8♣5♣, content to see a flop cheaply and take a shot at a big multi-way pot. From the big blind, Robl looked down at J♦10♦, a hand with plenty of playability against a wide opening range, and made it $110,000 to go.
Wasserson was not interested in giving up his position that easily. He four-bet to $280,000, a sizing that priced out Moncek’s speculative hand and put the decision squarely on Robl. With roughly $1.6 million still behind him, Robl made the call, setting up a pot that was already well into six figures before a single community card had even hit the felt.
The Turn Changes Everything
The flop came 9♦7♠4♠, giving both remaining players very little. Wasserson checked, Robl checked back, and the pot sat quietly while both men held effectively nothing but backdoor and overcard equity. That changed on the turn, when the 3♦ fell and Wasserson led out for $200,000. Rather than calling or folding, Robl check-raised all in for the rest of his stack, roughly $739,000 more, turning a merely large pot into a genuine coin flip for one of the biggest prizes in cash game history.
Because both players had significant equity locked into the hand, and because the format at PokerGO’s cash games allows it when both parties agree, the table ran the remaining card twice. The first river brought the 6♥, which was no help to either player but kept Wasserson’s ace high in front by virtue of his earlier bet having already been called down mentally by the table. On the second run, the A♠ landed, giving Wasserson top pair and sealing both runouts in his favor.
A New Benchmark for Streamed Cash Games
When the chips were finally counted, the pot totaled $2,478,000, edging past the previous high-water mark of $2,421,500, a three-way pot won by Santhosh Suvarna earlier in the summer. That the record fell just months later, and in a heads-up confrontation rather than a three-way scramble, says a lot about how aggressively the current crop of nosebleed regulars is willing to play on camera. High Stakes Poker has built its reputation over the years on exactly these moments, hands where amateurs and professionals alike are willing to stack off with speculative holdings because the format, and the money in play, rewards courage as much as raw equity.
For readers newer to the math behind these decisions, Robl’s jack-ten suited was never in terrible shape before the money went in. It carried an open-ended straight draw plus two overcards to the board’s low cards, a combination that leaves real outs against most single-pair holdings. Understanding how those combinations and outs translate into actual win percentages is a core part of hand reading, something we break down in detail in our guide to poker hand rankings for players looking to sharpen their own reads at the table.
The Cost for Robl, and the Reward for Wasserson
The numbers on the night were brutal for Robl. Despite being one of the most accomplished cash game players of his generation, with a résumé that includes deep runs in the biggest buy-in tournaments in the world alongside years of grinding the highest stakes cash games in Las Vegas and online, Robl finished the session down $669,500. Wasserson, a fixture in the city’s biggest games who has become a recurring face on the High Stakes Poker set, booked a $2.1 million win from the hand alone, one of the largest single-hand paydays the show has ever produced.
Swings of this size are simply part of the territory at these stakes. Nosebleed cash game players routinely see six and seven figure fluctuations in a single sitting, and the players who last in these games tend to be the ones who can shrug off a loss like Robl’s and show up ready to play the very next session. That resilience, as much as raw technical skill, is often what separates the players who survive at the top of the game from those who eventually move down in stakes.
Why These Hands Matter Beyond the Number
Record pots make headlines because the dollar figures are eye-catching, but hands like this one also offer a rare look into how the best cash game players actually think under pressure. The decision to check-raise all in on a turn with a draw rather than simply calling, the willingness to four-bet light preflop, and the mutual agreement to run the river twice all reflect strategic choices that separate elite cash game professionals from recreational players. For poker fans in Brazil and around the world who follow these streams, the appeal is not just the size of the number on the graphic. It is watching two of the game’s sharpest minds make split-second decisions with more money on the line than most people earn in years, and seeing exactly how the math and the nerve both had to hold up for the hand to become part of poker history.
