PokerStars The Big Game on Tour is back for Season 3 with the first episode having aired on Sunday, May 17. The new season of the popular show came a bit out of nowhere as PokerStars did not organize any auditions that would suggest there was more Big Game to come.
The reason for this became clear about a week ago when the new season was announced, explaining that the Loose Cannons we’ll be seeing in the coming weeks are actually candidates from earlier auditions who didn’t make the cut. A few of them were handpicked to receive a surprise opportunity, and the first one to take a seat at the table is Andy Taylor.
Andy Taylor, an operations manager from Canada who is also involved with non-profit work helping young athletes develop their skills and mindsets, is a poker amateur. However, from what we’ve seen during the first episode and the first two dozen hands, he has every intention of putting the time he has at the table to good use.
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Jumping Straight into the Mix
Most Loose Cannons are somewhat shy and timid at the start of the session, folding everything but premiums as they try to get comfortable. Andy is clearly not in that group, though, as he was eager to start putting his chips to work as soon as possible.
Just a few hands into the session, he was able to pick up a nice pot against O’Malley when his straight card hit on the river to take down O’Malley’s flopped two pair. This gave the Loose Cannon some additional ammo and more importantly, some confidence moving forward.
The most significant pot of the night came when he flopped the nuts with 7-5 in a hand against Shaun Deeb and ‘3Coin.’ ‘3Coin’ was the one driving the action with a top pair, but the board ran out pretty scary, with a possible flush draw appearing on the turn and the board pairing on the river.
Taylor may have missed an opportunity to win more money here, but he still picked up $17,000 that accumulated in the middle to put him over $21,000 to the good after the first session.
We don’t know what cards have in store, but it certainly looks like Andy Taylor won’t be sitting on his hands. From what we’ve seen so far, if he catches a few lucky hands, he could walk away a big winner, as he’s not afraid to get in there and battle it out.
Rough Start for O’Malley
While the Loose Cannon got off to a really solid start, Sean O’Malley couldn’t catch any breaks. The MMA fighter who recently fell in love with poker was having his TV debut, eager to see if he could duke it out with some of the best.
And with Jason Koon, Shaun Deeb, and Matt Berkey at the table, he certainly had a few opportunities.
Unfortunately, the cards refused to cooperate for the most part. While he didn’t lose any massive pots, it’s difficult to make any money in a session where you lose with flopped two pair and then also a rivered full house. So, it was no surprise that O’Malley ended with a deficit of nearly $30,000.
However, it’s still early days, and there is plenty of play left, so we won’t be making any predictions. It’s just great to see a Loose Cannon who seems willing to put the money he was staked to work. He can’t take any of that original $50k home anyway, so he might as well use it to try to make some hands and win some pots.
We could have a very entertaining few episodes ahead of us, provided Taylor doesn’t run into an unexpected cooler to stop him in his tracks. He was one card away from disaster already, but luckily, his flush did not materialize, or this article would probably have a very different title.
