As we learned in his recent contentious heads-up match against Phil Hellmuth, Eric Persson sure does love to talk and isn’t a fan of sleeves. Both seemed to work in his favor during Monday’s High Stakes Poker episode much like it did versus the “Poker Brat” last month.
Episode 11 of the ninth season, which is available on the PokerGO app, didn’t present many big pots, but there were some entertaining hands and table talk worth mentioning.
The newest episode featured the same players from last week’s show: Persson, Tom Dwan, Bryn Kenney, Patrik Antonius, Krish Menon, Garrett Adelstein, Phil Ivey, and DoorDash founder Stanley Tang.
Ivey, as has been the case during the current High Stakes Poker season, wasn’t very active at the table. He’ll return next week with the same lineup, and perhaps we’ll get to see him mix it up a bit more.
Persson, locked in a heated battle, extended his middle finger to Hellmuth after winning a pot last month in the $25,000 buy-in PokerGO Tour Heads-Up Showdown. For those who weren’t familiar with his style of play, that sort of goofiness was on display during his first couple of High Stakes Poker sessions, albeit far less vulgar.
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In the first hand, with the blinds throughout the night at $500/$1,000, Dwan opened to $3,000 from early position with the 
. Tang called with the 
in middle position, as did late position players Menon, holding the 
and Persson’s 
. Kenney, who was recently accused of running an online poker cheating scheme, also came along in the big blind with the 
.
The flop came out 
, which hit a couple of players, including Menon, who flopped top pair, but surprisingly folded to Dwan’s $6,000 bet. Persson, sitting on trips, raised it to $16,000 and it scared everyone away except “durrrr,” who had nothing but queen-high. He made the call and then hit a horrible card for him — 
.
“I’m going to give you this to look at and I want you to blink twice if you think I should continue on.”
Both players checked and then action picked up on the 
river. Dwan fired out a wager of $31,000 and then Persson busted out some speech play.
“31? Oh, I thought it was 36. If it was 36, I was going to fold,” a posturing Persson joked.
“I’m going to give you this to look at and I want you to blink twice if you think I should continue on,” Persson told Menon before handing him his cards to look at.
After a giggling Menon returned the two cards to Persson, the owner of Maverick Gaming casino brand, then announced an all-in bet of $164,000.
“I could have deuce-seven,” he told Dwan, who was in a tough spot facing a large bet. “He didn’t snap-call, Patrik (Antonius). It’s a good sign.”
Dwan eventually made the correct fold and surrendered the $243,500 pot. Persson later used speech play to his advantage on multiple occasions, including in a flopped king-high flush hand against the flopped set of Kenney.
Krish Doesn’t Believe DoorDash Founder
Two wealthy investors — Krish Menon and Stanley Tang — played a wild pot that might leave some curious as to what one of the players was thinking on the river.
Menon raised to $3,000 from an early position with the 
and received calls behind him from Person’s 
, Antonius’s 
, and Kenney’s 
. Tang then came along from the big blind with the .
The flop was 
and everyone checked before the 
showed up on the river. Tang again checked his set to Menon, who bet out $9,000 with his sixes.
Action folded to Tang, and he went for a big check-raise to $31,000. Menon wasn’t a believer and made the loose call. The river was a meaningless , and this time the DoorDash founder went for an over-bet of $120,000.
You’re probably thinking that was the end of the hand and Menon quickly folded with so many potential superior hands out there, but you’d be wrong.
“That smells fishy,” Menon said before making one of the loosest calls of the entire season. He lost the $326,500 pot and saw his stack drop well below $400,000.
There are three remaining episodes of High Stakes Poker Season 9 on PokerGO.
Past High Stakes Poker Recaps
Check out our past recaps from Season 9 of High Stakes Poker on PokerGO:
Episode 12 will air at 5 p.m. PT next Monday on PokerGO. Fans can watch every episode, past and present, on-demand by purchasing a PokerGO subscription. We’ll get to see next week if Adelstein was being too hard on himself or if his play wasn’t up to the quality his fans are accustomed to seeing.
*Images courtesy of PokerGO.