Macau Cash Game - Sam Trickett

The game was being played at Starword Casino. The game’s changing all the time, but at the moment they’re allowing pros in – Patrik Antonius got to play, I got to play, Tom Dwan and Phil Ivey have been playing and a few of the other Chinese pros too. It’s not really a good game at the moment, but the stakes are so high that it appeals to people. It’s currently $10k-$20 (HKD) blinds, which is about $1,300-$2,600 USD. 

This was the biggest bluff I’ve ever made in my career. I raised pre-flop to $100,000 on the button and the small blind re-raised me to $320,000. I called – I had close to $15,000,0000 in front of me, and the flop came down 10-7-3 rainbow. The SB was an aggressive player who C-bets loads of flops – probably too many – but he just really quickly checked, without thinking about his decision at all. I had a gutshot with the 8h6h, so I just thought I’d go ahead and bet, expecting him to check-fold, but he check-called.

I think he had, like, a seven or pockets eights, even some ace-highs – something like that. The turn was a three, which was a good card for me because in my head I was already like, “I’m going to give him two more barrels.” I bet $1.1m and he raised me to $3.8m.

I think he’s trying to rep pocket sevens or tens here, but I didn’t think he would ever play them like that; he would have just bet on the flop. He would try to build the pot because he has no showdown value because he’s out of position. So I’m pretty sure he’s bluffing and I just call, which is how I would play it if I had a full house.

I had it in my head that he would never bluff again on the river. Sure enough, he checked the jack on the river and I moved all in for about $8m into a pot of a similar amount. He folded after a 30-second tank. I still don’t know what he had and why he was thinking about calling. Maybe he caught a jack but he can never call there unless he makes a boat with Jacks full but that hands seems so unlikely given how it played out.