Gold Won and Friends Lost On This Week’s Game Of Gold

Last week on Game of Gold saw the mask slip on several of the contestants as the drama ramped up. The second week saw the remaining players shuffled into new three-player teams with a team heads-up tourney playing out in brackets.

Right off the starting blocks, the tensions mounted as Johan “YoH Viral” Guilbert‘s team all tried to balance strategic ordering of the team with ego, team strategy, and self-interest. The other teams achieved something closer to harmony. But the green rooms soon filled with purple language as the key winners and losers developed over the week.

Guilbert led the field at the start of week two, with his teammate Kyna England as tail-end Charlie. But with 30 additional coins and a bye to the final for the winner of this round, everyone brought their A-game, and the rankings took some interesting turns.

Game Of Gold Week One Results

Guilbert’s Gold

The first week of Game of Gold saw Ali Nejad wish four of the biggest names on the show all the best in their future endeavors. Team Clubs—made up of Negreanu, Soyza, Martin, and Koon—came in fourth out of four and were eliminated.

Week Two started with the victors of the team sit-and-go stage, Team Spades, split up. Each of the members, Holz, Luther, Guilbert, and Carrel, were made team captains for stage two—a team heads-up relay.

After they had picked the teams, the action kicked off with Team Johan v. Team Nikita.

The first match-up pitched the two team leaders against each other, with Luther taking the fall in round one after hitting the wrong end of a two-pair vs. straight situation.

Guilbert added 30 coins to his score for his win and took on PokerNews ambassador Lukas “Robin Poker” Robinson in his second round, during which Cates fell asleep while watching his team leader play.

Robinson was able to get a decent lead on Guilbert, but a few all-ins went against him, and Guilbert turned things right around.

Iermolcheva was the last line of defense for Team Luther, and Episode Five ends with Guilbert jamming into her middle pair with a flush draw.

Teams For Week Two

Jungle Heat

Episode Six reopens with Guilbert’s semi-bluff getting through. With the cards on his side, Guilbert was able to get Iermolcheva down to a point where she had to gamble with rags just as he picked up pocket queens. A queen on the turn sealed Iermolcheva’s fate and Guilbert pocketed another 30 coins.

All through Guilbert’s match, Cates’s gorge seemed on the up. Although Guilbert’s success meant good things for the team, it meant that Cates was not getting a shot at the match coins.

“I feel manipulated, actually,” Cates told Guilbert when he returned to the green room. England was rather more magnanimous, cheering the victor home. Cates continued to escalate being, according to England, “like a big baby.”

Up next was Team Charlie v. Team Holz. While Holz’s team quickly sorted out their playing order ahead of time, as soon as the team captain was out of the room, the mutiny began. Team Charlie’s members cleverly avoided this by gambling for their order of play.

The first round saw Carrel try to take on Holz, and after a rough start, he seemed to be holding his own. But Holz had an edge and used it to slowly shave away Carrel’s stack. In the end, with blinds rising, the match came down not to clever play but a 60-40 flip that ultimately went to Carrel.

Ho replaced Holz for one of the best matches of the series. Opening with her making a huge laydown on the first hand and going from strength to strength from there. Despite Carrel’s run of great hands, Ho managed to lose the minimum over and over until she had just 450,000 in front of her. Then the wave rolled back, and Maria started catching miracle hands, winning two preflop all-ins in quick succession. The chips moved back and forth for a while, while the blinds rose until, once again, it came down to a tennis match of 60-40 flips that ultimately went to Maria.

Andy Stacks was next to the table, playing a few hands before the credits rolled.

Get to Know Lukas “RobinPoker” Robinson, PokerNews’ First Online Ambassador

Stacks On Stacks

Episode Seven polished off the Ho vs. Stacks round, with the stacks going to Stacks. That left just Josh Arieh on Team Holz.

Arieh held his own for a while, but a brutal cooler put him on tilt. He still managed to get two very thin bluffs through Stacks to get back in good. A few more hands and Arieh was able to seal the deal, setting up the most inclusive match possible. Everyone gets to play.

Williams was the final player to get out of the green room and get much time on the felt, with Arieh winning the match, as Williams put it, “quick and easy” in the early stages.

With the first rounds sorted and the winners bracket set to kick off week three, the new coin rankings have shifted a bit. However, Guilbert remains at the top of the tree with 190 coins in hand.

More Action To Come…

The first episode of Week Three is now out on the GGPoker Youtube channel, with new episodes every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

Game Of Gold Week Two Results