PokerStars Big Game Week 7

After a brief hiatus, the PokerStars Big Game returned for it’s seventh week of televised cash game excitement. A quintet of the game’s best players arrived with hundreds of thousands of dollars in their wallets to play against a Loose Cannon who pitched up with nothing at all. The PokerStars Download qualifier has $100,000 of PokerStars’ money to play with. If he ends the week in the black he has the choice of taking his winnings home or coming back to play again.

The amateur player making his bow this week was Russell Harlow from Connecticut. He works as a night time bakery delivery driver, ferrying crusty loafs and springy muffins around the state. He also plays a lot of PC and Mac Poker online. Clearly a big win on the Big Game would make a huge difference to his circumstances. He had three kids and a wife cheering him on. Going into the contest, Mr. Harlow seemed upbeat. He also revealed that he had a secret target profit. If he were to finish above $100k without hitting that mysterious target, he would come back again and have another shot at reaching it, rather than retreating back to the cash games at top texas holdem sites.

It wouldn’t be an easy quest to complete. His top class opponents would be aching to take his stack from him. Representatives from the best US poker sites were out in force. Isaac Haxton, Jason Mercier, and Antonio Esfandiari were all present, as were old sparring partners Phil Hellmuth and Tony G. And so it proved, going into the final episode, with the Loose Cannon still down $7,000. He had just 30 hands to turn his fortunes around. Anything he’d learnt watching PokerStars poker videos was going to come in handy now.

2009 Bluff Player of the Year, Jason Mercier had been running over the table. He was by far the biggest winner from the session. With Russell struggling to get into the black, Jason took a back seat and waited for his chance to pick off some loose play. Jason is a member of the PokerStars Marketing Code sponsored team. Hogging centre stage was, unsurprisingly, Phil Hellmuth. He took some more cash of the Loose Cannon, easily picking off a bluff by rivering a full house. That left Harlow down over $40k, with only 15 hands left.

With only 5 hands to go, a big hand gave the Loose Cannon a glimmer of hope. With KQ, Harlow put in a raise only to be re-raised by Phil Hellmuth. The duo saw a flop of K-5-K fell. Just a few moments before, the table had been in an uproar as Phil took over 10 minutes to make his mind up about calling the Loose Cannon’s all-in. Phil wasted no time in this hand, unwisely shoving all-in with only Ace high. It was a snap call for Russell, who dodged Phil’s few outs and racked in a big pot. Phil would have been dying for some PokerStars Rakeback after that hand.

That win left Russell with just over $100k. Enough for him leave with money or come back next week. The brave delivery man opted to take his chances and come back for another round next week.

PokerStars is one of the world’s top money poker sites and you can qualify now for future episodes of the Big Game by playing in one of their free qualification tournaments.

At the end of Week 7, the winners and losers were:

Jason Mercier (+ $150,800)
Ike Haxton (+ $33,600)
Tony G (+ $20,200)
Russell Harlow (+ $16,400)
Phil Hellmuth (- $89,300)
Antonio Esfandiari (- $131,700)