A dozen years after its first, short-lived existence, PokerStars' The Big Game has returned in style. Newly reimagined as the PokerStars Big Game on Tour, the high-energy cash game made its American network debut on Saturday, as well as making its first global online-video appearance on PokerStars' YouTube channel.
Due to unplanned circumstances, the first episode was postponed about 24 hours from its originally scheduled debut on Friday. Originally slotted on FoxSports1 (FS1) behind the live broadcast of a NASCAR Craftsman Truck series race from Talladega, the planned Friday launch was pre-empted and moved to Saturday night after the caution-filled truck race stretched nearly an hour past its allotted space.
By the time the debut episode The Big Game on Tour made it onto FS2 on Saturday, the kickoff episode, 'Loose Cannon', had already dropped on YouTube, flipping the original plans. Whichever way the show rolled out, however, poker fans were treated to a modernized treat, along with plenty of action and antics at the table.
Phil Hellmuth the 'Big Game on Tour''s biggest poker name
When it comes to poker antics, no one matches the Poker Brat, 17-time WSOP bracelet winner Phil Hellmuth, and he led five well-known poker stars to the felt for the debut episode, which was filmed at Resorts World Las Vegas. Hellmuth's 'Brat' antics were largely absent, however, amid a game filled with plenty of friendly banter. The game featured a $50,000 minimum-buy-in game, though one player, Alan Keating, sat down with $250,000. Hellmuth was joined by actress/poker-player Jennifer Tilly, popular poker streamer Lex Veldhuis, entrepreneur and high-stakes aficionado Alan Keating, and actress/poker-player Arden Cho.
The five were joined on-set by the first player of the new show to win a 'Loose Cannon', $50,000-funded seat, popular streamer Nikki Limo, the first player chosen from a 200-player competition judged by show hosts James Hartigan, Joe Stapleton, and the original Big Game's first Loose Cannon, Nadya Magnus.
The game itself was a hybrid form of Texas Hold'em, played pot-limit before the flop, and no-limit after. The format was designed to further juice the action for the cameras, and the entirety of the session would last just 150 hands. Keating, as expected, drove the action at the table, including an early pot against Tilly that PokerStars used to tease the debut across social media channels (seen in linked Tweet above). Hellmuth, meanwhile, went from GOAT to GOAF, or Greatest Of Always Folding.
First episode spoilers below
If you want to watch not read, skip to the video at the bottom of the article.
When the lights dimmed, Veldhuis had logged a six-figure win, wiping out more than half a $200,000 loss he'd endured a dozen years earlier on the original Big Game. Most of Veldhuis's profit came from Keating, who led the betting and raising throughout but ran into several made hands, especially from Keating and Tilly.
Tilly posted the second-largest win of the six players despite having to re-buy early, while the Loose Cannon, Nikki Limo, also churned out a decent profit. Hellmuth dropped a bit and never won any of the episode's televised hands, while Cho and Keating were the debut episode's biggest losers.
Future episodes are scheduled to appear weekly featuring a slowly rotating cast of playes, with each episode likely to be teased on PokerStars' global and USA social-media accounts.
You can watch the full episode below, or – if the video below isn't displaying because of your location – on your local PokerStars YouTube channel.
Featured image source: YouTube / PokerStars
