WPH #501: The $456,000 Hand!!!! [Game of Gold]

It is Dan ‘Jungleman’ Cates facing off against Maria Ho in a battle for $456,000 and to be crowned as the first ever Game of Gold winner! With the runner-up getting nothing, the stakes couldn’t be any higher. This pot balloons up quickly as Maria Ho tries to use her position to outplay the heads-up specialist in Jungleman!

Betting is often a good strategy when you have a strong but vulnerable pair. Low pairs always have the danger of becoming the second best hand at showdown if your opponent has overcards and hits one of them on the turn or river. If you decide to bet you will often get folds from your opponents that have overcards to the board which helps protect your hand from being outdrawn.

Maria Ho is a professional poker player from America. She has over $5,000,000 in live tournament earnings, putting her in the top 350 on the all-time money list. She is well known for commentating on a wide variety of poker shows including US Poker Open, Super High Roller Bowl, Poker Masters, and the World Series of Poker.

Dan Cates also known as Jungleman is a 33 year old from the USA and is regarded by many as one of the best poker players in the world both online where he is known as w00ki3z and on the live poker circuit. He has played in all the high stakes poker cash games around the world for many years. He has over $12,000,000 in live tournament earnings, putting him in the top 80 on the all time money list. He famously won the World Series Of Poker (WSOP) $50,000 Players Championships, regarded as one of the hardest poker tournaments to win, in 2021 and again in 2022.

Filmed in Seoul, South Korea and hosted by experienced poker broadcaster Ali Nejad, Game of Gold combines high stakes poker with survival reality TV. Over the course of the 12 episodes, the sixteen participants competed across various poker formats, including Sit & Go’s, Heads-Up games, Indian Poker and a standard tournament poker game.

The poker players on the show included Daniel Negreanu “KidPoker”, Jason Koon, Fedor Holz “CrownUpGuy”, Kevin Martin, Kyna England, Josh Arieh, Daniel Cates “Jungleman”, Lukas Robinson “RobinPoker”, Nikita Luther, Charlie Carrel “Epiphany77”, Johan Guilbert “YoH ViraL”, Olga Iermolcheva, David Williams, Andy Tsai “Andy Stacks”, Michael Soyza, and Maria Ho.

The final six players competed in a winner-take-all format Sit & Go (SNG). This was unique as it meant there was no Independent Chip Model (ICM) pressure on any of the poker players.

Game of Gold Results

1st: Maria Ho – U.S.A – $456,000 2nd: Daniel Cates ‘Jungleman’ – U.S.A – $0 3rd: Johan Guilbert ‘Yoh Viral’ – France – $0 4th: Fedor Holz ‘CrownUpGuy’ – Germany – $0 5th: Kyna England – U.S.A – $0 6th: Josh Arieh – U.S.A – $0

Pre-Flop Action:

With the blinds at 80,000/160,000, Mario Ho opens the action with a minimum-raise to 320,000 from the button, holding K8o. Dan Cates decides to 3-bet from the big blind to 1,150,000 with Q7 of diamonds. Maria calls and they head to the flop, with Ho having slightly more chips than Cates to start the hand.

Flop – 9d 7c 2c

Cates takes the lead by flopping middle pair and keeps up with his preflop aggression by firing out a bet of 800,000. Ho, who has backdoor flush & straight possibilities decides to float and makes the call.

Turn – 4c

When a third club falls on the turn, bringing in a potential flush, Cates decides to relinquish the aggression by checking. Ho, holding just one overcard and the king-high flush draw, now takes the betting lead with a big bet of 2,700,000. However, Cates isn’t going to forfeit this considerable pot that easily and calls to see the river.

River – 3c

The river 3 of clubs completes the four flush board. Now it is up to one of the poker world’s heads-up end bosses, Dan ‘Jungleman’ Cates. But what will he do? How will Maria respond, and who will become the Game of Gold champion? All will be answered if you watch this poker video!

Jonathan Little analyzes live poker hands from TV poker shows such as Poker After Dark, Hustler Casino Live, The Lodge Poker Club & PokerGO. He also analyzes popular poker vloggers such as Rampage Poker, Brad Owen, Jaman Burton, Ashley Sleeth, Wolfgang Poker and others!

You will also find many poker hands on this channel that contain some of the biggest names in the poker world such as; Daniel Negreanu, Phil Hellmuth, Phil Ivey, Doug Polk, Garrett Adelstein, Tom ‘Durrrr’ Dwan, Dan ‘Jungleman’ Cates, Fedor Holz & many more!

#pokerstrategy #gameofgold #ggpoker

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