The high-stakes poker streams are back at The Lodge! Starting this week, Doug Polk has announced the return of high-stakes games to the popular live poker stream, and the first big game of 2025 was quite a wild one.
Streamed on February 1, the high-stakes poker game featured the likes of Mariano, Taras, T1000, and Crypto Max, along with Polk himself.
The group played $50/100 Texas Hold’em, but the stakes got bumped up fast as $200 and $400 straddles made every pot bigger from the get-go, leading to some big confrontations.
Doug, Mariano, and Taras in particular played some huge hands, including one insane call down by the popular Argentinian vlogger and several six-figure pots with unorthodox holdings.
The game reminded us what poker in Texas is all about and announced the long anticipated return of high-stakes poker games to one of the most popular poker live streaming programs in the world.
Taras Demonstrates a Complete Lack of Fear
Ever since the first episodes of Poker at the Lodge, Taras has been known as one of the most fearless players appearing on the show.
He entered this weekend’s stream as one of the big stack and clearly ready to play huge pots, as he continued playing his recognizable brand of relentlessly aggressive poker.
One of the biggest pots of the day started with Taras opening his J♦J♣ to $400 from middle position. Doug mistook Taras’ raise for a straddle and made it $1,000 on the button holding 7♠5♠, which he would likely not have done otherwise.
Regardless, Doug’s re-raise now stood, and Elliot decided to join the action with his pocket 4s from the $200 straddle. Taras bumped it up to $4k, Doug called, and Elliot decided to get out of the way and let the two Texas poker legends battle it out.
The flop brought a lot of help to Polk, as 6♠8♦5♥ rolled off, giving him a pair and an open-ended straight draw.
Having made the 4-bet before the flop, Taras’ range did not seem like it connected with this board, and Doug had a lot of reason to apply pressure with his hand.
After Taras made a small $1k c-bet, Doug pounced and raised it up to $6k. The heads-up poker master could reasonably represent all the sets, straights, and two pair combos, none of which were in Taras’ range.
Yet, the tech guru decided Doug was more likely to be bluffing and put in another raise to $18k, committing himself against Doug’s stack.
It didn’t take too long before the stacks were in, and the two were playing a $110k pot out of the blue. When asked if he wants to run it once or twice, Taras announced “the usual,” which meant only one turn and river would be dealt.
The turn card was the 9♣, immediately making Doug’s straight and killing Taras’ hand. Yet, to everyone’s great surprise, the 7♦ on the river was Taras’ lifeline, as he was able to chop the pot with a straight on the board.
Even the player himself took a few seconds to realize what had just happened, as he was sure he was drawing dead the moment the turn hit.
Mariano Makes an Insane $60,000 Call
The most bizarre hand of the day once again involved Doug Polk, along with one of the world’s most popular poker vloggers, Mariano Grandoli.
Mariano, who was sitting on more than $105k in chips, opened the pot to $500 with 10♦7♦ from the button, a reasonable play by any standard.
Polk woke up with [invalid notations].
Mariano was caught in a sandwich between the two players and had a seemingly trivial fold to make. Yet, he decided to gamble and make the call, hoping Polk would not get out of line when action came around.
Doug didn’t take too long before moving all-in himself. This time around, the total was in excess of $56k, and Mariano was facing a bet that he could not call using any logic or math.
Yet, riding one of the biggest upswings of his poker career, Mariano decided that he simply felt like gambling and made the call for more than $46k more.
Everyone at the table laughed once Mariano announced his hand and turned the cards over, including Polk and the vlogger himself.
They decided to run it just once, and Polk’s laugh turned quite sour when the dealer put out 8♦8♣9♦, giving Mariano an open-ended straight flush draw and Josh trip eights for the side pot.
The turn brought the 6♣, which meant Mariano could no longer lose the main pot, and would have to sweat the river for more than $27k that Josh was eligible for.
The 10♠ on the river sealed the deal and meant Mariano would walk away with all of the $121k in the pot, while his opponents would have to suffer the loss despite making no mistakes.
What’s Next for Poker at Lodge?
The first high-stakes game at The Lodge this year saw Mariano continue his incredible winning streak, as he added another $69,400 to his 2025 winnings.
Doug Polk, who remains the biggest winner on The Lodge live streams, dropped $71k in the game, mostly thanks to the huge pot he played against Mariano.
T-1000 and Elliot were also among the winners, while Taras, Crypto Max, and Josh all lost money on the day.
With high-stakes streams now back on air once a week, stay tuned for plenty more huge action from Austin, Texas, in the coming weeks.
We expect we will see plenty more of the likes of Polk, Mariano, and Taras, along with appearances of the likes of Bill Perkins, Tesla, and other notable Texas players who have been made famous by Poker at the Lodge live streams.
