Nikhil “Nik Airball” Arcot ran into some coolers during Saturday’s high-stakes live-stream at The Lodge Card Club near Austin, Texas. One of those hands, a pot of over $350,000, put him in the tank for more than 20 minutes.
The Lodge, hosting the first of two big game streams this weekend, provided viewers with some intense action during the first session. Airball came out firing and was up around $40,000 four hands into the game. Before long, he was down $120,000, which led him to add on another $500,000 to his stack.
In one hand, he put his friend Eshaan “Brown Balla” Bhalla all in with Q♥J♦ on a flop of 10♥J♥7♦ for a $53,700 pot. Bhalla, holding K♠9♥, was on a draw, and both players agreed to run the turn and river twice. Both run-outs would give Bhalla a winning straight to scoop the entire pot.
Poker Unking to Airball at The Lodge
Nik Airball, a regular and polarizing figure on Hustler Casino Live, lost many pots on Saturday (and won some too). But his session will be remembered for one hand that is reportedly the longest hand in The Lodge live-stream poker history.
Action began with Airball raising the $100 big blind to $500 with 4♥2♥ from the hijack. “Tesla,” one of the more colorful personalities on The Lodge stream, called in the cutoff with 9♥8♣. as did Brown Balla on the button with K♦9♣. “Stache,” in the big blind holding 4♣3♣, went for a three-bet to $2,500, which only induced a fold from Balla.
The flop came out 5♥7♠K♠, not much beyond a gutshot straight draw for any player. As such, they all checked to the 6♥ on the turn, quite the action card.
Stache, who turned a straight but was drawing dead, bet out $5,000 before Airball, on a straight and flush draw, raised it up to $16,500. Tesla, sitting on the nuts, three-bet it to $31,625. Both players made the call to see the cooler 3♦ on the river give two players the low end of the straight.
Stache checked his straight, as did Airball. But Tesla, still with the nuts, fired out a bet of $125,000. After Stache called, Airball was left in a tough spot with the same losing straight.
He immediately went into the tank, and at one point it seemed like he wasn’t ever going to come out of it. The high-stakes cash game regular tanked for so long that the co-owner of The Lodge, Doug Polk, who was in the booth commentating, entered the live-stream room to speed things up.
“So, we’re being dangerously close to being caught up to live, so I’m not trying to pressure, I just, at some point the entire world will know what everyone has in this hand. So, we got to make a decision in the next two-ish minutes,” Polk announced to the table.
No player in the game had called the clock up to that point. But the tank of nearly 20 minutes forced Polk to take action. A few minutes later, Polk began the countdown. As the clock reached zero seconds, Airball made the wise decision to throw his cards in the muck. Tesla scooped the $353,225 pot, and Nik Airball saved $125,000 or his day would have been even worse.
Last month, Airball cracked on poker vlogger Mariano Grandoli for tanking with pocket kings during a Hustler Casino Live show.
Airball added on additional chips following the tank hand, and his stack would surpass $1.1 million. A bit later, he’d win a six-figure pot with a straight against “T1000’s” over pair, but was still down about $110,000 at the time, six hours into the stream.
At the time of publishing, Tesla was the big winner in the game, up more than $340,000. On Sunday at 1 p.m. CT, The Lodge will return for an even bigger game, with Polk, Airball, and other entertaining players in action.