Mariano 2025 Upswing

Mariano Kicks Off 2025 with a $200k Upswing

A couple of weeks ago, Mariano Grandoli published his 2024 results in an episode of his popular poker vlog. Despite only playing 485 hours of poker, Mariano was able to win almost $500k last year, which is quite an impressive feat given his average stakes and buyins.

If early days are anything to go by, Mariano is in for an even more profitable year in 2025, as he started the year off with a bang, winning just over $200,000 in the first three sessions of the New Year.

Despite dropping $50k in his first 2025 session, Mariano bounced back well and was able to book two massive wins to annul that loss and rake in over $200k in profits.

If you haven’t been following the vlogs on a regular basis, here is a quick recap of Mariano’s year so far and his impressive cash game results in the early weeks of 2025.

Mariano Gets Tortured in the First Session of 2025

Mariano released his first vlog of 2025 just 8 days into the year. In it, he played a $50/100 session with a $100 big blind ante and a non-stop stand up game on Hustler Casino Live.

The lineup included quite a few HCL regulars like Peter, Wesley, and Mike X, and this lineup meant there would be plenty of action.

The session started well for Mariano when he made a full house with his pocket fours against Wesley’s AK to win a $40k pot early doors.

Yet, this game was always going to be much bigger than you would expect from a $50/100 table, which meant things could get out of hand at any moment.

Later in the session, Mariano was able to make a very disciplined fold with his 65 on a board of 628610, which saved him $20,000, as Wesley held 97 for a rivered straight.

Mariano was also able to win a substantial pot against Peter, when he correctly deducted he was weak after raising the turn on A697 with a pair of deuces.

Mariano went all-in with just a queen-high flush draw after Peter made it $15k, and was able to take down a substantial pot without a showdown with a hand that would need to improve on the river in order to beat Peter’s pair.

Despite playing well, Mariano would end up getting unlucky in one of the biggest pots of the night. The hand saw Mike X pull of an uncharacteristic 4-bet bluff before the flop with just K10, which Mariano correctly called off with pocket queens.

With over $90,000 in the pot, the two agreed to run the board twice, but Mike X managed to win both runs, with boards running out QAJ43 and KA86K.

All things considered, things could have been a lot worse in this first session of 2025, but a $50k loss was definitely not the start the popular vlogger would have hoped for.

Things Turn Around Quickly in Session #2

Despite starting his year with a substantial loss, Mariano was able to turn things around very quickly. The very next session at HCL saw him win over $140k and start an upswing that will hopefully last well into 2025.

This time around, the stakes were $25/50 with a $50 big blind ante, which made Mariano’s win on the night even more impressive.

The lineup this time around was a bit different, with slightly fewer well-known faces in the field, and perhaps a slightly softer competition for Grandoli.

The first big hand of the session saw Mariano win a $61,000 pot with 98 on a board of 927 when his opponent decided to call his entire stack off with just a pair of sevens.

The turn and river brought no help to Eric on either of the two boards, and Mariano’s night was headed in the right direction.

A number of medium sized pots saw Marino’s stack grow steadily throughout the session, including one where he turned a set of jacks and won $20k off an opponent holding the ace-high flush draw.

To close out the day, Mariano turned yet another full house with his KJ and his opponent Adi made a straight on the river, which ended up with Mariano winning another $40k pot.

In the end, the vlogger walked out of Hustler Casino with more than $140k in profits, enough to turn around his 2025 and start what could be an epic upswing.

The Momentum Keeps Building with Another Huge Session

The third session of Mariano’s January run saw him face off against the likes of Brown Balla, Pipi, Efan, and several other HCL regulars, with the likes of Peter and Britney not a part of the lineup.

The vlogger started out winning a significant pot with just ace-high, when his A10 was good enough to beat May G’s 6-high flush draw on a board of KQ3.

Mariano got unlucky to lose a $45k pot later in the session, when his AK lost to Pipi’s AJ after both players committed their entire stacks preflop.

Yet, this would not discourage the Argentinian from playing his A-game, as he was able to win over $30,000 in a single hand by picking off Brown Balla’s river bluff with Q3 on a board that read Q910AA.

The rest of the stream saw Mariano play a handful of medium-sized pots, but the biggest pot of the night was not captured by the cameras, as the stream broke and only two opponents remained at the table to battle him.

In this hand, Mariano called a preflop 4-bet of $4k with 99 out of position. The board brought A95.

With a flopped set, Mariano check-raised to $15k on the flop, as he would likely to with a number of straight draws and flush draws on this board.

His opponent called and the turn brought the 8, and Mariano continued telling the story that he was potentially bluffing by going all-in for more than $40,000.

After some deliberation, the other player made the call and mucked his cards when he saw Mariano’s pocket nines, sending a pot worth more than $100,000 his way to end the night.

In total this pot contributed to Mariano’s win of $121,965, which combined with the other two sessions puts his overall 2025 tally at just over $210,000 in profits.

Stay tuned for more updates from Mariano’s vlog and make sure to subscribe to his YouTube channel if you want to get all the updates directly from the player’s perspective.