No, Ethan “Rampage” Yau isn’t headed back to the low-stakes grind. The headline is just a play on a tweet the popular vlogger posted following Friday night’s Hustler Casino Live stream, in which he ended with the biggest loss of his poker career.
Prior to the $100/$200/$400 session at Hustler Casino in Los Angeles, Yau joked about how he’d “either be rich” or following the high-stakes game or be forced to return to playing $1/$3, which his original YouTube followers will recall it wasn’t long ago he was playing at those stakes.
Poker Vlogger Posts Biggest Career Loss
Rampage has played on Hustler Casino Live nearly 30 times over the past two years and his previous biggest loss of $304,000 came in his last appearance on the show back in November. On Friday, when the cameras stopped rolling six hours into the stream, he was down $483,000, a career worst.
One hand that did him in as much as any occurred late in the session with four straddles on all the way up to $6,400. Action folded around to Rampage, seated in the $3,200 straddle. With only one player to his left, Anthony, who had just over 20 big blinds ($153,900), Yau figured he’d try to scoop all the straddles, so he moved all in with Q♥10♥.
Anthony had a tough decision to make with A♦7♣ as his hand beats a random heads-up hand, but the bet was for a significant amount of money. On the other hand, he was down quite a bit on the session and winning the hand would put him in the black.
After tanking for a couple minutes, Anthony made the call and the players agreed to run the board twice. On the first run-out, the un-suited ace hand held up by hitting two pair. And on the second board, Yau flopped an open-ended straight flush draw, but bricked the turn and river. Anthony scooped the entire $309,700 pot.
Bad River Card for Rampage
Rampage, who has 277,000 YouTube subscribers, had originally bought into the game for $250,000, while his opponents all started with $100,000. Yau also lost a monster pot to Brandon Steven, a car dealership owner from Kansas who routinely plays in some of the highest-stakes games.
Action folded around to Steven in the big blind, who raised it to $2,200 with 4♦2♦. Rampage, in the straddle with A♥J♦, made it $7,000 and received a call. The flop came out 9♦10♦K♠, giving both players a draw.
Steven checked and then called a $6,000 continuation bet to see the 6♥ on the turn, no improvement to either hand. Both players checked the turn, and then the Q♦ on the river completed both draws, which was awful news for Yau.
The big blind, with a flush, bet out $23,000. That put Rampage in a tough spot as he had the nut straight, but had to consider the possibility his opponent rivered a flush. He opted to put Steven all in for $128,900, and it took a bit of thought before Steven put his chips in the pot as he was concerned Rampage had a better flush.
In the end, he made the call and took down a pot of just under $285,000, one of the largest during the six-hour stream. For Rampage, it was his biggest loss, but he’s still up nearly $1 million lifetime on Hustler Casino Live. Yau’s best score on the show went for $588,000 during the historic $1 million buy-in game in May.
Steven didn’t run too hot the rest of the night following the cooler hand against Rampage, but he did book a $70,500 profit. Nikhil “Nik Airball” Arcot, who had been struggling on the show in recent months, won nearly $50,000 and has been trending upwards again lately.