7 Famous Poker Hands won at Showdown

A concept that every new player to the game struggles with - just because you start with the best hand, doesn't mean you will have the best hand at showdown - check out this guide on the do's and don'ts at showdown. As frustrating as it can be to see your premium pre flop hand get crushed by trashy pre flop junk, this is a big part of the appeal that poker has with so many - the emotional journey that you are taken as hands are made and crushed, sometimes all in the same hand.

Over time, as you can imagine, big tournaments of cash pots have certainly not always been won by the best hand. Some winning hands have become famously linked to the players who won with them - here we will take a look at the most famous 7 hands to win at showdown and the players who won with them.

Doyle Brunson - 10-2

This obscure and trashy hand became arguably one of the most famous hands in poker. How? This was the winning hand that Doyle Brunson had to finally win both the 1976 and 1977 World Series of Poker main events beating Jesse Alto and Bones Berland to the biggest prize in poker. To this day, the hand 10-2 is known as the 'Doyle Brunson'. Doyle arguably likes to play a wider range of trashy hands having also won a WSOP bracelet holding 10-3. Doyle certainly has a love 10-trash hand - which sees weird given big pre flop hands like A-Q, Doyle won't even entertain.

Joyn Cynn - K-J

John Cynn outlasted a total field of 7,874 as part of the 2018 WSOP main event to take down the title on the 442nd hand of the final table. This propelled John into stardom and with it, an impressive $8.8m. K-J is a fairly strong pre flop hand (suited adds a couple of %), especially heads up - made easier when the flop comes K-K-5. Tony Miles, with the losing hand of Q-8 attempting a steal with a fairly innocuous hand, still took home $5.5M. Not a bad weeks work.

Tom Dwan - 7-6 (hearts)

This speculative hand proved special for Tom Dwan who took down the largest cash game pot on television with it as part of the Full Tilt Million Dollar Cash Game. Dwan opened with the 7-6 and was 3-bet by Phil Ivey with A-2. Dwan called and the flop came J-3-5. The 4 on the flop gave both players a straight, but Dwan the nuts. All chips went in and Dwan took down a pot of $1,108,500.

Patrick Antonious - A-3-K-K

Patrick Antonious is synonymous with high stakes poker and has claimed some of the biggest pots in poker history, both online and live. Back in 2009 playing a $500/$1,000 heads-up pot-limit Omaha game, Patrick went on to win what was to be the biggest online poker pot in history, taking down over $1.3M. Patricks A-3-K-K went on to beat Victor Blom's (Isildur1) straight chasing hand of 6-7-8-9.

Chris (Jesus) Ferguson - A-9

Chris 'Jesus' Ferguson rose to fame and was nicknamed 'Jesus' largely due to his appearance and the fact that he took so long to ponder the right way to play a hand. Back in the 2000 World Series of Poker, Ferguson went to heads up against poker icon T.J Cloutier. Cloutier, who was on a roll at the time, decided to push pre flop with his A-Q. Ferguson pondered for a while before saying he would gamble and called - a 3-1 dog. The flop came 2-K-4. The turn changed little with Cloutier one card away from a monster pot. The river came 9 propelling Ferguson to new heights and the 2000 main event title and a tasty $1.5M haul, adding further weight to his Jesus nickname.

Mike Matusow - K-K

Mike 'The Mouth' Matusow is no stranger to deep runs in the WSOP and no stranger to the behaviour that earned him his nickname. Back in the 2005 WSOP main event, Mike made it down to the final table. On getting dealt K-K, Mike would be seing dollar signs, however he ends up all in pre flop up against Scott Lazar who looks down at A-A. The flop comes Q-6-K (two hearts) with Mike cracking the two outer. No one would have guessed what was to happen next. A 2-hearts on the turn and a J-hearts on the river gave Lazar runner runner to make the flush and pretty much end Mikes participation in the event. I am sure this wasn't an easy one to take, especially for such an emotional character such as Mike. It might have been made easier by the 9th place finish and $1M that Mike picked up for his efforts.

Chris Moneymaker - A-Q

Chris Moneymaker shot to fame when in the 2003 WSOP he went on to win the main event and $2.5M through an $40 online poker satellite. This was known as the 'Money-maker effect' and helped propel the poker boom which followed. Moneymaker entered the hand with an impressive A-Q and pushed all in... called by Phil Ivey and his 9-9. A dream flop for Moneymaker was dealt showing Q-6-Q. Ivey must have thought Christmas had come early when a 9 was dealt on the turn, giving Ivey a full house however and Ace on the river gave Moneymaker the better full house, aces full, and sent Ivey to the rails, earning $82,700 for his troubles. This gave Moneymaker a massive stack and one he used to take down the m,ain event, beating Sam Farha to second place and $1.3M .