Poker vlogger Ethan “Rampage” Yau’s downswing continued on Hustler Casino Live Wednesday night when he lost $150,000 thanks to a brutal bad beat against his friend.
The WPT Global ambassador entered the $25/$50 ($50 big blind ante) no-limit hold’em game against some familiar foes such as Eshaan “Brown Balla” Bhalla and fellow vlogger Mariano Grandoli.
Rampage and Mariano played the largest pot of the night, and it shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who has followed these two players the past year as to who won the hand.
Poker Vloggers Go at it in a Monster Pot
Both vloggers began the five-hour stream with $30,000 in chips, and neither started off particularly strong. Mariano was already down more than $40,000 an hour into the game and had added on chips. Things weren’t going much better for Yau, whose 2024 downswing was heavily publicized.
Rampage had an opportunity to turn his night around a few hours into the game against Mariano, who was stuck over $100,000 at the time. But he’d instead run into a hand that sums up his luck over the past year.
The hand began with Mariano blind-calling for $400 in a straddled pot with K♠J♦. Dylan Flashner, holding “The Robbie” (aka Jx4x) on the button, called, as did Song in the first straddle with 5♣3♦. Rampage then checked his option in the big straddle with 10♥7♠.
The flop came out K♠10♣7♦. Song checked, an action that was followed by a $3,000 wager from Rampage, who flopped bottom two pair. Mariano, with top pair, min-raised to $6,000, which forced Song and Flashner to fold. But the best hand wasn’t going anywhere. In fact, he went for a small-sized three-bet to $15,000.
That didn’t sound the alarm bells inside Mariano’s head as he came back over the top with an all-in bet for $94,775, the size of Rampage’s stack. Yau went into the tank for a few minutes trying to figure out if the blind hand was strong enough to beat his two pair. He told his opponent “we’re still friends even if you beat me” and tossed his chips into the pot.
Both players agreed to run the turn and river twice, and the first one, which came out 4♠J♠, went to Mariano. The second run-out of K♦Q♠ also went his way for a double bad beat.
Mariano scooped the entire $191,175 pot, but was still down big on the session. Rampage chose to quit the game instead of rebuying, and left Hustler Casino in Los Angeles with a $150,000 loss.
The poker vlogging friends ended up as the two biggest losers in the game. Mariano, who reported nearly $500,000 in profits at the poker table last year, finished the game down over $80,000.
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