Players occasionally make simple mistakes like misreading the board or their hand. Most of the time, it comes back to haunt them, but for Massoud Eskandari, it turned out to be a huge plus, as he has just taken down a huge pot, eliminating Roy Peters in cruel fashion at the same time.
Eskandari started the action by raising to 250,000 on the button, and Peters made it an even million to go from the small blind. Eskandari called, and the flop came down [Qd][3s][Kc]. Here’s where things get interesting.
Peters moved all in for his last 2.5 million, and Eskandari quickly called. Peters said “well you’re good.” Eskandari shook his head and said “no you’re good right now.” Peters sheepishly turned over [6s][6h], but amazingly it was good, as Eskandari only had [10d][9d]. As soon as he turned over his hand, Eskandari gasped and exclaimed, “I swear I thought there were two diamonds on board.”
In fact, there was only one, but Eskandari could still catch a jack, ten, or nine to win. The [As] on the turn changed nothing, but the [9s] on the river changed everything, giving Eskandari a winning pair. Eskandari continued to say that he thought there were two diamonds on the board, and apologized to Carter for the odd, yet still very tough beat. To Carter’s credit, he took the beat extremely well, shaking Eskandari’s hand on his way to the payout desk.
After taking down that hand, Eskandari is our big chip leader, sitting on 8.5 million in chips.