High Stakes Player Tanks for 11 Minutes During Livestream; Was it Excessive?

Hustler Casino Live returned to YouTube Monday night following a one-week suspension for the first night of High Stakes Week. The stream will likely be remembered for some big pots and one player going into the tank in a hand for about half the five-hour session.

That comment was hyperbolic and a bit excessive, perhaps even more so than the 11 minutes and 20 seconds it took Linglin Zeng to make her decision in a $180,000 pot with pocket jacks.

It Takes Time to Make the Right Decision

It’s never easy to make a call for thousands of dollars with an over-card on the board. Linglin, a regular on Hustler Casino Live, faced an interesting decision against Dylan Flashner in a six-figure pot.

The hand began with Linglin raising from the cutoff with J♠J♥ to $2,000. Mario, on the button with 10♥10♣, three-bet it to $7,000 before Dylan made it $22,000 from the big blind with A♥K♣. Mario folded while Linglin five-bet it to $45,000 and received a call.

The flop came out Q♥9♥4♥, and Dylan decided to lead with an all-in bet of $85,600, Linglin’s stack size. That put her in the tank with an over-card on the board and a jack-high flush draw. But this wasn’t just a normal deep tank that lasts a minute or two. She pondered her decision for 11 minutes and 20 seconds (the above video has been condensed).

Dylan had just ace-high with the nut flush draw. His odds of winning the hand were nearly even at 47%, trailing only by a small amount. If Linglin knew exactly what he had, she would have been getting the correct pot odds (2-1 as a 53% favorite). But she didn’t have the benefit of seeing her opponent’s cards.

After a lengthy tank and the clock being called about 10 minutes in, she opted to fold the best but vulnerable hand. A decision that certainly shouldn’t be criticized given the size of the bet and the board texture. But many viewers were critical of how long it took her to make a decision during a livestreamed poker game.

The tank wasn’t near as long as Nik Airball, formerly an HCL regular, took to think about his move in a brutal spot during a March livestream at The Lodge Poker Club in Texas. Airball tanked for 20 minutes and received heavy criticism from the YouTube commenters and poker fans on social media.

Linglin may have saved herself $85,000 by folding her hand. We’ll never know how the hand would have played out had she called. But she ended the session up $26,800, so she had a successful night. Dylan, on the other hand, was the biggest winner in the game as he turned a $188,200 profit.