“How are you so good at poker?” Asked James Bord to Andrew Pantling a short time ago. The Canadian, who is the CEO of Matchbook, has some decent poker results on his résumé but had slipped to around half his starting stack by the time he got involved in a three-way pot.
It was Pantling himself who started the action, making it 75,000 to go, David Einhorn three-bet to 200,000, James Bord called out of the big blind and Pantling also called. On the flop, Einhorn continuation bet 350,000 and Pantling was the only caller. The turn was checked through and the fell on the river. Reasonably quickly Pantling bet 400,000 and Einhorn went into the tank before ultimately folding.
Some of the players in the Big One have "hired" a coach. What exactly the role of a coach is, depends on the team. Vanessa Selbst, for example, is on the rail sweating every hand of David Einhorn, while the likes of Andrew Robl and Jean-Robert Bellande are playing cash games and don't really seem too involved at the moment. Here's the match-ups:
I joined the table to see a flop on the felt and could see that Dan Shak and Pierre Garand were the only two players still with cards. The dealer had done a great job of lining up the chips so it looked as if each player had put in 160,000 each pre-flop, suggesting that this was a three-bet pot.
Shak had checked the action to Garand and the Canadian player fired out a bet of 250,000, Shak mulled this over for a while before check-raising to 625,000 in total. Garand was taken aback by this move but composed himself, thought for around 20 seconds and then folded. Pot to Shak.
Kamer Alyanakyan raised to 70,000 from under the gun and two players called: Guy Laliberté in the cutoff and James Strasser in the big blind.
The flop cames and Strasser checked. Alyanakyan continued for 105,000 and only Laliberté called. Alyanakyan bet again on the , this time for 275,000. Laliberé thought for a minute, then folded.
Bobby Baldwin was down to just 125,000 and lost those chips shortly after play commenced.
We missed it, but Antonio Esfandiari on the rail tol dus some details.
Baldwin found and moved all in. Alfred Decarolis on the button woke up with and was soon facing off against Baldwin.
The board brought nothing but blanks and Baldwin was the second player to be eliminated after Guy Laliberté busted earlier today. If Baldwin, like Laliberté, will buy back in remains to be seen.
You'll usually find Daniel Negreanu playing in the biggest buy-in events on the planet. The Canadian superstar is number one on the all-time money list, in part thanks to the $8,288,001 he won when he finished second in the Big One for One Drop in Las Vegas on 2014.
However, with the 2016 edition being for recreational players only, Negreanu’s route into the tournament has come via the coaching side. Each player is allowed to appoint a coach if they so wish and Negreanu is the wingman of none other than Guy Laliberté. So how did it come about then? “He approached me about a month ago,” Negreanu told PokerNews during a break in play. “I thought it sounded like fun and I wanted to support a great cause.”
During the course of play, players are allowed to consult their coaches whenever they like as long as they don’t have a live hand but the coaching between Negreanu and Laliberté started earlier than the shuffle up and deal. “I got here a few days early, we’ve been hanging out on his yacht and going through a few things.”
While those pointers may not have paid dividends on Laliberté’s first bullet, he’s confident in Laliberté’s abilities. “He’s more relaxed now, he’s cooled off a bit and so I’m going to let him come to me when he wants to,” said Negreanu.
Another 20-minute break for the players. The 1,000-chips are being raced off, the lowest denomination chip in play when the action resumes will be the 5,000-chip. The highest denomination in play has and will be the 500,000-chips.
![[user265690]](/img/avatars/avatar.svg){kind=avatar}
flop, Einhorn continuation bet 350,000 and Pantling was the only caller. The 
turn was checked through and the 
fell on the river. Reasonably quickly Pantling bet 400,000 and Einhorn went into the tank before ultimately folding.
and Tsang continued for another 80,000. Madden raised to 180,000 and Tsang called.
on the turn, and the river was the 
for a flopped set, and Madden mucked his cards.
flop on the felt and could see that Dan Shak and Pierre Garand were the only two players still with cards. The dealer had done a great job of lining up the chips so it looked as if each player had put in 160,000 each pre-flop, suggesting that this was a three-bet pot.
, this time for 275,000. Laliberé thought for a minute, then folded.
