Event 17: The Royal Treatment
If enough hands are dealt out over the course of a long tournament series, strange sights will inevitably be seen.
Ari Engel has likely played more than a million hands in his long poker career - between his countless online sessions while earning over $2 million on the virtual tournament felt, and a seven-year live career spent travelling the global circuit - but his latest hand here today ranks as one of the best.
Literally.
Engel just doubled up in Event 17 ($100,000 Guaranteed Big Stack NLHE Re-Entry), turning his last 16,000 into nearly double the starting stack while making the prettiest sight in all of poker.
After the dealer fanned a flop of neatly across the felt, Sonny Chau decided to set the short-stacked Engel all-in holding . Chau figured to be in decent enough spot with top-top, but when Engel snapped and showed down the , even Chau had to pay his respect in the presence of royalty.
"Did you see that?," he asked as we hovered around the coronation. "The royal flush..."
We sure did see that Sonny, and it was something to see no doubt. Judging by the awe in your voice as you ran down the hand, we suspect that despite the dent to your chip stack, there's a small part of you that's glad you saw it too.