Twitter Reacts to the $1.2 Million Bad Beat at this Year’s WSOP

This week’s Twittertainment will have you covering your eyes and wincing in pain. Why? Because you’re about to see one of the most brutal hands played at this year’s World Series of Poker (WSOP). 

The action took place last night and, within hours, it was the talk of Twitter. The hand involves two relative upstarts in poker, Pavel Plesuv and Andreas Kniep. They’d battled their way to the final table of the $1,500 WSOP Millionaire Maker event on Wednesday. 

More than 10,000 entrants had fallen by the wayside in the record-breaking tournament, so each player was guaranteed an insane return on their investment. However, when you’ve made it that far in a large-scale tournament, winning becomes the main focus. That’s particularly true in WSOP events where the end goal is a bracelet and a place in history. 

Plesuv started the final day as chip leader, but Kniep had a workable stack at the start of play. The problem, however, is that the stack-to-blind ratio on the final table was quickly decreasing. Put another way, the stacks were becoming increasingly shallow compared to the size of the blinds. That’s an important point to make before we show you the hand because, in some regards, it can justify one player’s thought process. 

Putting the Hand in Context

The final pieces of information you need to know at this point are that there were four players left. Fourth place got $501,182 (a fantastic score), while first place won the bracelet $1,201,564 (an even better score). That’s the context, so here’s the hand and a video showing how it went down in real-time:

• Florian Ribouchon raised with Q♣ J♣
• Andreas Kniep called with A♠ A♥
• Pavel Plesuv moved all-in with A♦ 2♦
• Florian Ribouchon folded
• Andreas Kniep called

Plesuv had Kniep covered going to board. However, with an 87% pre-flop advantage, Kniep was confident with his pocket aces as he played to the crowd. That confidence quickly faded as the board ran out: 3♠ 5♠ 10♥ 4♠ 7♦. 

A stunned crowd stood silent while Plesuv’s fans let out a cheer on the river. Kniep was visibly deflated, but he still managed to finish fourth in one of the biggest-ever live events. Not only that, he won more than $500,000. 

Plesuv was more relieved than elated and, as the saying goes, he didn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Although he would have survived the hand if the poker gods weren’t on his side, Plesuv got a huge boost from the win. 

He parlayed the chips (and good fortune) into his first WSOP bracelet. Plesuv did that by taking out Paul Gunness with Q♦ 8♠ before making relative light work of Ribouchon heads-up (see video below).

With that, Plesuv was crowned WSOP Millionaire Maker champion. For his efforts and ability to crack aces, Plesuv picked up his biggest payday in poker. 

WSOP Millionaire Maker Result

1. Pavel Plesuv - $1,201,564
2. Florian Ribouchon - $1,003,554
3. Paul Gunness - $650,058
4. Andreas Kniep - $501,182
5. Anton Smirnov - $373,524
6. Myles Mullaly - $287,522
7. Vitor De Souza Coutinho - $222,749
8. Andras Matrai - $173,683
9. Charles Benoit - $136,302

Speaking after the fact, Plesuv told members of the media in Las Vegas that he had a “feeling” he’d win. His parting message for anyone looking to follow in his footsteps was to “keep studying” poker strategy and “believe in your dreams.”

The reaction to Plesuv’s win was, as you’d expect, a mixture of shock and awe. Turning $1,500 into more than $1.2 million is impressive, but the hand against Kniep got the most attention on Twitter. 

The Curse of Celebrating Too Early with Aces

TNA Kirsh warned everyone: “don’t slow roll the aces.” Echoing a similar sentiment, @losedillo said people shouldn’t “celebrate before all the cards are out.” WPT broadcaster Tony Dunst agreed with this sentiment, as did most people in the comments. 

“The second I saw the premature celebration, I was like, oh s**t I know this story ends,” @dajerseyboy tweeted.

Bert McGert simply posted the following image on Twitter:

Andreas Kniep hadn’t posted about the hand at the time of writing. But, based on his personality and previous posts, we’re pretty sure he’s taken it in his stride. A number of pros have said he’s one of the most likable people in poker and always has fun at the table, as you can see from the tweet below. 

So, while we’re sure Kniep is hurting right now, he’ll be back. Indeed, when he takes stock of his achievement and banks his $501,182, the aces hand will soon be forgotten.