The Chancer: Guy Laliberte

There is a French-Canadian player who is so bad at poker he single-handedly pumped over $3.5 million into the poker economy in October alone...

The Chancer has been deeply impressed by a small French-Canadian fellow on High Stakes Poker recently. He might be small but the size of his cohones and bankroll put even the likes of the mighty Finnish stud muffin Patrik Antonius to shame.

I am talking about Guy Laliberté, who is the founder and chief executive officer of a circus troupe, although this is no ordinary troupe – it’s the Cirque du Soleil.

Laliberté hit the jackpot as far back as 1991 when casino magnate Steve Wynn decided he loved Cirque so much he brought it to Las Vegas. Today the group has five permanent shows in Sin City. One of them replaced Siegfried & Roy’s show at the Mirage last year after one-half of the double act (Roy, I think) got eaten by a tiger.

Taking his troupe to Vegas was good news for Laliberté (he owns 95% of the shares) as he now has one of the biggest bankrolls in the US, and is even above his sponsor Steve Wynn on America’s top wealth list Forbes. His vast bankroll is put at $1.5 billion so putting up the $500k needed for a High Stakes Poker buy-in will never be a problem.

I’m not saying the parents back in Quebec had given up on Guy or anything but 25 years ago he used to hang with a bad bunch who weren’t expected to amount to much. They were street performers and young Guy’s contribution was playing the accordion and harmonica with a bit of fire eating thrown in. He was probably a bit of a loafer in all honesty but he had a dream and fortunes are based on these things as young Guy went on to prove.

He might be good at circuses but poker is a different story as he is lousy at the game we love. It is a day for rejoicing if he shows up at your cash game. Put simply, there is nobody contributing as much to the poker economy as Guy Laliberté.

As you would expect he plays the highest stakes available on Full Tilt Poker using the screen name of “noataima”. He holds the distinction of being the biggest overall cash game loser at Full Tilt on both the PLO and NLH tables for 2007, and is rumoured to have lost over $3.5 million dollars in October alone.

When he showed up at the South Point Casino to play in Season 4 of High Stakes Poker (HSP) the other pros couldn’t believe their luck sensing a major pay-day was in the offing to anyone who could entice the French-Canadian into a large pot.

The latest recipient of Laliberté’s largesse is Doyle Brunson. The legendary Texas rounder has just won what is now the second-largest ever pot on HSP – over $800,000.

In the hand Brunson raised to $11,200 with Ad-Td, and got called by four players, including Laliberté who sat with Ah-5h.

The flop came Ac-Js-4d. Brunson bet $40,000 and only Laliberté called.

Doyle then fired another bullet when the 2d fell on the turn. This time the bet was $110,000. In case you haven’t seen the vid yet I won’t spoil it for you, but needless to say it was spectacularly badly played by Laliberté.

I suppose it must be a case of once a clown, always a clown! But then again, if you’re a billionaire losing pin money like this must be kind of fun.