Tom Dwan won the largest poker pot ever seen in a televised or livestreamed game this week. The 36-year-old, who worked for McDonald’s prior to becoming a professional poker player, raked in $3.1 million during Hustler Casino Live’s Million Dollar Game early Wednesday morning.
Dwan scored the record pot with pocket queens against self-proclaimed cryptocurrency millionaire Wesley Fei, 31, who was bluffing.
The hand occurred in a No-Limit Texas Hold ’em cash game with a $1 million minimum buy-in, so the pot size wasn’t a shocker. But the record-breaking hand generated lots of head-scratching at the table.
Fei was sitting with $2.8 million when the hand began compared to Dwan’s $1.5 million. They were playing with $500 and $1,000 blinds plus an escalating big-blind ante that had grown to $3,000. Dwan also contributed a voluntary $2,000 third blind called a straddle. So $6,500 was in the pot before any of the eight players saw their hands.
Dwan scored the record pot with pocket queens against self-proclaimed cryptocurrency millionaire Wesley Fei, 31, who was bluffing.
The hand occurred in a No-Limit Texas Hold ’em cash game with a $1 million minimum buy-in, so the pot size wasn’t a shocker. But the record-breaking hand generated lots of head-scratching at the table.
Fei was sitting with $2.8 million when the hand began compared to Dwan’s $1.5 million. They were playing with $500 and $1,000 blinds plus an escalating big-blind ante that had grown to $3,000. Dwan also contributed a voluntary $2,000 third blind called a straddle. So $6,500 was in the pot before any of the eight players saw their hands.