Bill Perkins picked off a huge bluff attempt on the final hand of Wednesday’s session, ruining an otherwise dominant performance from Landon Tice.
The match began last month, and the two competitors have agreed to play 20,000 hands on the Americas Cardroom poker site at $200/$400 stakes. At the end, Tice must pay back $720,000 to his opponent as a rebate, the equivalent of nine big blinds per 100 hands, per an agreement between the poker players.
With the handicap in place, Perkins doesn’t actually have to turn a profit to win. In fact, he can lose up to $719,999.99 and still come out ahead. Thus, why it is crucial for Tice to play at a consistent winning pace even early in the match.
Heading into Wednesday’s session, the 21-year-old up-and-coming poker pro led by $112,269 through 3,728 hands. But what’s most important is he was winning at a 7.53 big blinds per 100 hands pace, which isn’t good enough to win the challenge.
Tice, however, picked up the pace for much of the session on Wednesday — Day 10. He built up a lead of nearly $100,000 for the day at one point and was dominating the match. Perkins had no answer for his big bluffs and big hands.
Perkins Not a Believer
More than three hours into the session, a lengthy one at that (they usually only play for two hours), Tice took a stab at a huge pot with a missed straight draw. On a board of 9-2-8-K-9, the young poker player put his opponent all-in with 10-7 for about $36,500 into a pot of $20,500. Perkins, who held pocket 10’s, tanked for a minute before deciding on a call. He shipped the $94,000 chip pot and then left the game immediately afterwards.
The session concluded at that point after 494 hands were played, the second most in 10 sessions, and Tice booked a $31,986 profit. That puts him at a $144,255 profit through 4,222 hands, approximately 21% of the entire challenge. More importantly, he increased his overall profit to 8.54 big blinds per 100 hands played, just barely off the pace needed to win. Had Perkins folded his pocket pair on that final hand, Tice would be ahead of pace. But he still has plenty of opportunity to win.
