What are the highest stakes poker pros have ever played?

Epic high stakes cash games & tournaments

We’ve all seen the videos of Dwan, Ivey and Brunson playing high stakes poker, and heard tales of Macau nosebleed stakes that boast big blinds equal to ordinary folks’ salaries.

What are the highest stakes poker pros have ever played?

But what about all the other pros we follow on social media and poker news reports week in and week out? How big have they played? Let’s take a look…

First out of the trap was Joey Ingram, the PLO fanatic and poker podcaster-turned-investigative journalist.

Joey recalls a Bobby’s Room waiting list to join back-to-back WSOP Main Event winner and all-round legend Johnny Chan among others. The stakes? $200/$300.

Joey Ingram poker

Johnny Chan poker

Matt Berkey, who along with Ingram was one of the main detectives in the recent Mike Postle cheating saga, took a half buy-in to a $200/$400 Short Deck game and ran it up more than 30-fold in an impressive two-day hit-and-run.

Partypoker pro Ludovic Geilich didn’t state his stakes, but it certainly wasn’t a nickel and dime home game as he managed to punt $100,000 (or possibly worse, £ or €) while blind drunk – a strange cross-mixing of two stereotypes by the Scotsman.

Ludovic Geilich poker

English pro Max Silver recalled a few highstakes punts that went awry, and as with many it may not have been the biggest they’ve ever played, but was certainly the scariest…

In case you’re thinking it’s only testosterone-fuelled males who have the gamble to go big, two of poker’s most successful female players chimed in with highstakes tales.

What are the highest stakes poker pros have ever played?

Macau – the next level

We mentioned Macau in the intro as being beyond most players’ level, but Greg Merson took a shot – presumably after his 2012 WSOP Main Event victory worth $ 8,531,853.

What are the highest stakes poker pros have ever played?
 

That would have been about US$200/$500/$1000 at the time, and Merson sat down with US$½million, eventually walking off with US$50k or so having been down half his buy-in.

It wasn’t only the cash game players who were inspired to share their biggest games and highest stakes. Popular pro and well-respected poker writer Jonathan Little turned the talk to tournament buy-ins…

Elio Fox had a similar tale to tell of tournament woe at the highest level, this time a US$175k buy-in, where the 1st prize was US$1.44million!

We’ve all dreamed of playing highstakes poker of course, that one-time ‘bucket list’ $10k World Series of Poker buy-in, or a seat next to ‘Texas Dolly’ and the other greats of the game in Bobby’s Room. Who knows, it may just come true one day!

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