Jason Koon's Epic Seven-Figure Pot: A Tale from the Philippines

Jason Koon, a legend in the live tournament poker scene, shared a thrilling tale from his early days in the high-stakes poker world. Koon played in a high-stakes game in a casino in the Philippines against a VIP Chinese gambler. The stakes of the game were $2,500/$5,000 with a minimum buy-in of half a million dollars.

Koon arrived at the casino and was told to wait for a call around midnight for the game to kick off. Having been told this would be a super-soft game, you can imagine his reaction when he walks into the private room to find just one player ready at the table — Phil Ivey!

Eventually, all the players arrived and the stakes were declared as now much higher than Koon expected. The stakes were raised to four times the starting amount during the game. Jason Koon and the Chinese VIP ended up all-in for well into seven figures with Koon holding kings on a T78 board and his opponent sitting with T8.