If anyone was wondering if Ethan ‘Rampage’ Yau would shoot his shot during Hustler Casino Live’s Million Dollar Game, you got your answer on Sunday night.
In the middle of Day 3’s 10-hour stream, Yau, the popular poker vlogger and WPT Global ambassador unloaded in a major spot and pulled off a $600,000 bluff en route to a $592,000 win for himself and some of his fans who backed him.
Through three days of nosebleed action, this is arguably the biggest hand of the event. Check it out right here:
With the blinds at $500/$1k ($1k bb ante), the action folded to Yau in the small blind. He kicked it up to $9,000 holding 
. High-stakes reg ‘Handz’ looked down at the 
in the big blind and opted to simply call the raise. A newer face, ‘Pav’, was straddling under the gun to $2,000 and tossed in the extra $7k to make the call with his 
.
The flop came 
giving ‘Handz’ top set, ‘Pav’ an open-ended straight draw, and Yau a gutshot straight draw and backdoor club flush possibilities. Yau and ‘Handz’ checked it over to ‘Pav’ who fired $15k at the pot. Yau took a moment and check-raised to $50,000 even. ‘Handz’ took a look at the bet, spent a moment to consider, and eventually just called. ‘Pav’ laid down his hand and the pot was sitting at $144,000.
The turn was the 
changing nothing for ‘Handz’ but keeping Yau’s backdoor nut flush possibility intact. Yau continued to apply the pressure and overbet the pot with a $175,000 lead. ‘Handz’ took nearly 30 seconds before making the call.
The river came the 
, missing everything for Yau. With the pot now $494,000, Yau, who had ‘Handz’ covered at this point, applied max pressure and moved all-in for $618,000 effective. ‘Handz’ took a quick peek at his cards, made a wry smile, and let his hand go.
Yau was going to fold face down and ‘Handz’ asked him to show and when he did the whole table exploded.
Yau’s tablemates weren’t the only ones to explode, poker Twitter did too.
In the aftermath, Yau, speaking with one of the hosts of the game Veronica Brill, talked about what was going through his mind right after.
“Just thank God he folded,” Yau said. “It would have been really bad. Like, he was tanking and I’m like it’s going to be pretty rough to be buried a million like three hours into the stream…we have a whole night. But luckily he folded and I got really lucky.”
“I tried to punt,” he joked. But he didn’t. He went on to win big and those who bought a piece of his action were rewarded with not just the sweat of a $600k bluff but a little profit at the end of the night.