Getting a royal flush at your table is always a bit of a thrill. So, you can imagine how pleased Vasu Amarapu was when he hit a royal flush during the 2023 World Series of Poker at Horseshoe and Paris Las Vegas.
What you probably can’t imagine is what it felt like when Amarapu hit a second straight flush just three hands later.
Amarapu was playing in Event #87: $2,500 Mixed Omaha/Seven Card Stud Hi-Lo 8 or Better when, during a round of Omaha, he picked up A♦10♦XxXx. His hand couldn’t have hit the board of Q♣J♦K♦2♦Q♦ harder.
What’s Cooler Than One Royal Flush?
That first royal flush did especially well by Amarapu. Because, in an additional stroke of luck, his opponent had two kings in the hole. With the top full-house in their hand, that opponent was willing to put plenty of chips in the middle, paying Amarapu off nicely.
Amarapu had barely finished stacking his chips from that big win when, three hands later, he picked up K♥J♥Qx10x. This being an excellent Omaha hand, he went to the flop of Q♥A♥3x, picking up straight, flush, straight flush, and royal flush draws. Naturally, he stuck with it until everyone folded on a turn of 10♥.
The royal flush’s statistical rarity and hand-strength supremacy — not to mention its many appearances on film — give it a certain mystique. There are just four ways to make a royal flush (one in each suit). So, even with the extra pair of cards in an Omaha hand, the odds of one player getting two such rare hands in so short an order are vast and immense.
Amarapu was sufficiently moved by the statistics to show his hand, which was caught on camera as the table looked on in disbelief.
Lucky Man
Amarapu is no stranger to the occasional run of good luck.
In 2021, he won his way into the WSOP Main Event for just $50 through a GGPoker promotion that he read about on PokerNews. He ran deep that year, making it to within a few places of the final table (13th place).
In the process, he turned his $50 into $470,000.
This year his Main Event run ended in 1,362nd ($15,000), which freed him up to enter Event #87. Perhaps this was its own kind of good luck as he survived Day 1 with 99,300 in chips. That’s enough to put him in 36th place with 247 players remaining in the field.
He’ll be back on Day 2 with an eye on the $221,733 first prize and, of course, the gold bracelet.
You can follow Amarapu’s progress in Event #87: $2,500 Mixed Omaha Hi-Lo 8 or Better; Stud Hi-Lo 8 or Better with PokerNews‘s live reporting of the event.