EDITORS NOTE: The statistics gathered for this article are from High Stakes (http://www.highstakesdb.com) and are only for action on FullTilt Poker.
Though it seems that Texas Hold'em is the game of choice in poker these days, in the high stakes world at least, Pot-limit Omaha seems to be taking the poker world by storm. Not only did the biggest verified online bad beat occur in Pot-limit Omaha, the biggest online pots in history have all been in Pot-limit Omaha.
The largest Pot-limit Omaha bad beat occurred when David Benyamine (starting with $81,368) took down a $143,183 pot against Luigi66369 (starting with $71,392) on March 21, 2007 in a $200/400 game. Luigi had all four Aces, though he could only use two from his hand and one on the board, while David was able to use two nines in his hand and two on the board. The hands were King of Diamonds, 9 of Diamonds, 9 of Hearts and 6 of Hearts for David and Ace of Hearts, Ace of Diamonds, Jack of Clubs and Ace of Clubs for Luigi. The board came out Ace of Spades – Seven of Hearts – Nine of Spades at which point all of the money went to the middle of the table. The following Nine of Clubs on the turn ended Luigi's shot at the pot and a meaningless Six of Clubs fell on the river.
When it came to the largest single pots in online history, PLO leads the way. It should also be of no surprise that Isildur1 was involved in every one and that they occurred in a single week in November 2009. It all started on November 17th, when Patrik Antonius took Isildur1 (purportedly, but unconfirmed, 19 year old Swedish player Viktor Blom – AKA Blom90 on the Poker Network sites) for a $878.959 pot, when his 6 of Hearts – Ace of Hearts – Queen of Clubs – 9 of Spades stood up to Isildur1's Queen of Diamonds – 10 of Hearts – King of Spades – Ace of Spades with a board of 5 of Hearts – 7 of Hearts – Queen of Spades – Ace of Diamonds – 8 of Diamonds.
November 22nd saw nosebleed action reach new heights, leading up to the Internet's first million dollar pot. At 3:04 in the morning, Isildur1 took Patrick Antonius for $815,975. At 3:29 AM Antonius took down the record breaker when his wheel took down Isildur1's straight draw for $1,356,947. At 3:29 AM the record-breaking hand occurred, and less than ten minutes later, at 3:37, Isildur1 took Phil Ivey for $827,960. Half an hour later, at 4:08, Antonius took Isildur1 for another pot of $810.984 and at 4:15 he took the then record $878,959 pot. It took only 45 minutes for another monster pot to hit, when Isildur1 lost $832,940 to Ivey.
In a little more than 24 hours, at 7:26 AM on the 23rd, Isildur1 took back most of the record-breaking loss with a million dollar win of his own. Against Phil Ivey. Isildur1 took $1,127,955 when his King of Diamonds – 4 of Diamonds – 5 of Hearts – King of Hearts flopped the nut Full House with Jack of Spades – King of Spades – Jack of Diamonds, followed by a 10 of Diamonds and 5 of Diamonds. Ivey mucked his hand, never revealing what cards cost him over half a million dollars.
Since he was in so many of the largest pots in poker history, it is no wonder that Isildur1 was Pot-limit Omaha's 'Biggest Loser' this year. He earned the honor (?) in only six weeks of play on FullTilt. Isildur1 stated that he had only been playing Pot-limit Omaha for eight months and it is his weakest game. It seems he was right, losing $4,620,058 in 92 thousand hands, six-tabling it much of the time. To be fair, it was the one session of 2,800+ hands with Brian Hastings that cost him $4.2 million. Actually, it may not be his inexperience in the game, as much as his ego and his inability to know when to quit, that cost him his FullTilt bankroll.
Gamblers tend to enjoy Omaha more than Texas Hold'em. The game has greater variance and has more excitement than most other games. It also has a greater number of cards that can turn into winners as the hand unfolds, making for larger pots. If you are planning to play in the biggest games online, brush up on your aggressiveness, check those four hole cards and be willing to bet the mansion on a single hand.
