A few days ago, High Stakes Poker Productions announced its expansion past the Hustler Casino Live show we have grown used to.
Two major announcements were made by Ryan Feldman; the introduction of a 24/7 High Stakes Poker Network (HSPN) channel on streaming platform Kick, and the launch of live poker games at the Onyx Club in Cyprus.
The HSPN has now been alive for a few days, running mostly reruns of old HCL poker streams, but the first Cyprus games brought about quite a bit of excitement.
The very first game streamed from the Onyx Club on HCL’s official YouTube channel was a $100/100 PLO game that featured a number of local players, mostly unknown to the viewership.
However, this was just a prelude to what was to come on Tuesday night, as a massive NLH game featuring the likes of Rob Yong, Ryan Feldman, Handz, and Yoh Viral created quite a stir in the poker community.
You can see the entire game in the video below. In the meantime, our focus is on one particular hand that happened at the end of the stream and caused quite a ruckus. Keep reading to find out what happened and why Rob Yong is one of the classiest men in poker!
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Rob Yong and Ryan Feldman Clash in a Massive Pot
The hand in question came at the tail end of a six-hour stream. Entrepreneur and poker savant Rob Yong was winning in excess of $300,000 in the $100/200 cash game when it came up, while Hustler Casino Live owner Ryan Feldman was stuck about $70,000.
To make matters even more interesting, Feldman borrowed $50,000 in chips from Yong earlier in the session after losing a big pot, a common practice among the high-stakes players.
The hand started with Rob opening the action to $1,000 holding Q♣J♥, Ryan calling the raise with A♦9♦ and about $80,000 behind, and an unknown local player by the name of Sinan re-raising to $8,000 with K♠K♣.
Yong decided to get sticky with his offsuit Broadway combo and make the call, which brought along Feldman, who had been losing and was probably looking to gamble.
With just under $25k in the pot, the dealer put out a flop of Q♦9♥4♦, giving everyone a piece. However, Sinan went for a big $20k bet, which should have been a wake-up call to both of his opponents.
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Yet, they both decided to make the call, Ryan only leaving himself with about $50k in his stack and probably not making the best call of his poker career.
Yet, the call turned out to be lucky, as the dealer turned over the A♥, giving Ryan two pair in a pot that had now swollen to over $84,000.
Sinan wisely decided to check, and Rob passed the action to Feldman, who could only put his stack in and hope to get called by one of his opponents.
While the newcomer to the HCL games correctly decided to fold his pocket kings, Yong wanted to keep Feldman honest and called with his pair of Queens only to see the bad news.
A Minute of Poker Insanity and Pure Class
As Yong made the call, Ryan quickly turned his cards over to let him know he had the best hand, as Rob called putting him on a flush draw.
Upon seeing the two pair, Rob mistakenly folded his cards, thinking he was out of outs. A few seconds later, he realized what he had done and turned the cards, which were still in the middle of the table, up.
While everyone else at the table assumed Rob wanted the hand to keep going, and Ryan told the dealer to turn over the river card, Rob was adamant about not wanting the pot even if the Queen does come on the river.
Technically speaking, he had mucked his cards, but Ryan and everyone else involved were of the opinion his hand should be live.
The dealer showed the river card upon Ryan’s request, and to the shock of the entire table, it was the Q♥.
Ryan insisted Rob should not give him the pot, or should at least keep the $50k from the turn bet, but Rob instead insisted he take the entire pot as he was the one who made the mistake.
Yong’s Decision Divides Poker Community
In situations like this, floor personnel is typically brought in to make a decision. However, that was not needed in this case, as the Dusk Till Dawn owner surrendered the pot without any objections.
In fact, it was Yong who insisted the pot go Feldman’s way, even though he could have requested a floor person to at least make a decision.
According to many professionals in the poker industry, including many who work on the floors of poker rooms, Rob’s hand was both retrievable and live.
In the past, we have seen situations like this go both ways, with floor men deciding to kill the hand or not depending on a number of factors.
In this particular case, Rob could have easily won the pot by simply allowing it to happen, as Feldman was the one who insisted the river to be run and the cards to be live.
At the end of the day, it was the extreme class of Rob Yong that saw Feldman scoop a pot worth nearly $200,000, and both players ended the game as winners, despite the final stats on the show being off because of the hand in question.
The hand and the stream are now behind us, but HCL has already announced a series of streams from Cyprus in the coming days, with the likes of Yong, Jungleman, Feldman, and Handz all on the roster.
We hope to see many more huge pots and controversial situations like this one coming to us from the Onyx Club, along with plenty of classy tricks like the one Rob Yong pulled out of the rabbit hat on Tuesday.
