Jason Koon Crushes Round 2 of "High Stakes Hybrid"

The second night of the “High Stakes Hybrid” week on Poker After Dark featured a return of the same lineup from Tuesday night sans Lauren Roberts. The stakes remained the same, with a $100,000 buy-in from each player, along with four levels of gradually escalating blinds up to the $600/$1,200 finale. The session aired exclusively on PokerGO and was full of action. 

According to the Poker Central Podcast team, the expectation was for there to be multiple eliminations during the session, only Mike Baxter exited play during the “High Stakes Hybrid” opener. The tables turned slightly on Wednesday, with an early elimination.

Dan Shak finished on top on Tuesday night, but did not make out of the first level of Wednesday’s game. Thanks to a blind raise made by Brandon Steven, an inflated four-way pot ensued that culminated with Shak losing his entire stack to Doug Polk.

With Shak holding king-queen and Polk holding a wired pair of threes, the king-seven-three flop brought both players something but it mostly held disaster for Shak. By the river, Polk had a full house and Shak shoved for $45,600. Polk called right away and scooped the pot to hit the $200,000 mark in the opening 90-minute stanza.

Last night, @daniel_shak was #PokerAfterDark‘s big winner. Tonight, he ran into @DougPolkPoker‘s set. Watch LIVE: https://t.co/TeDeb5Xmhx pic.twitter.com/NrC7DtTJAg

— PokerGO (@PokerGO) October 12, 2017

Play continued from there with some table talk filling in the blanks on a variety of topics. The always popular buzzword “Bitcoin” came up on numerous occasions along with each player discussing their various business interests outside of poker.

Polk was the big winner through the early stages of the session, until the second-to-last level when he doubled up Steven in a cooler gone wrong.

From the moment Polk was dealt aces and Steven kings, you didn’t even need to hear Ali Nejad’s patented “Oh boy.” to know the action was going to heat up in a hurry.

AA vs. KK for the week’s biggest pot and #PokerAfterDark may not be as fun for @DougPolkPoker after this… https://t.co/TeDeb5Xmhx pic.twitter.com/R1wCQoavrv

— PokerGO (@PokerGO) October 12, 2017

Steven picked up the $158,000 pot and used the momentum to boost himself toward the front of the pack for most of the night.

The last level hit and Mike Baxter lost his remaining chips in the first few minutes and the hedge fund manager likely felt some deja vu after the he was hit with the same fate on Tuesday night. As he did before, Baxter hung around the table and enjoyed the conversation among the players for the rest of the evening.

Play was steady until Koon and Polk tangled in the last hand of the night, resulting in a $371,000 pot that felted the three-time bracelet winner. Like his hand against Steven, a cold deck hit Polk hard to send him away from the table with nothing to show for his “High Stakes Hybrid” efforts.

??”High Stakes Hybrid” Cooler Alert??@DougPolkPoker crashes into @JasonKoon‘s aces for a $350K pot #PokerAfterDark https://t.co/UBG1exUTF6 pic.twitter.com/LIZmwFXQeX

— PokerGO (@PokerGO) October 12, 2017

Koon wound up as the leader of the final three, as Steven booked a win and Rast ended with a small loss.

There is one night left to catch the live “High Stakes Hybrid” action before a new week of Poker After Dark kicks off on October 17. Don’t miss the mixture of cash game and tournament action, with the same lineup scheduled to appear on Thursday night at the new Poker After Dark start time of 6 PM ET.

All episodes are available in their entirety shortly after they air within the PokerGO on-demand library.