After a brief hiatus, the PokerStars Big Game returned for it’s seventh week of televised cash game excitement. As ever, five of the world’s best poker players gathered around the felt in Las Vegas, with the sixth seat filled by a Loose Cannon. The PokerStars Download qualifier has $100,000 of PokerStars’ money to play with. If he ends the week in the black he has the choice of taking his winnings home or coming back to play again.

This week’s contestant was Russell Harlow from Connecticut. He works as a night time bakery delivery driver, ferrying crusty loafs and springy muffins around the state. He also plays a lot of PC and Mac Poker online. A big win on the Big Game would be enough change his life. He had three kids and a wife cheering him on. Going into the contest, Mr. Harlow seemed upbeat. He also revealed that he had a secret target profit. If made money without reaching that amount, he promised to return next week for another shot, rather than retreating back to the cash games at top texas holdem sites.

Russell was going to have his work cut out for him. His top class opponents would be aching to take his stack from him. Representatives from the top us poker sites were out in force. Isaac Haxton, Jason Mercier, and Antonio Esfandiari were all present, as were old sparring partners Phil Hellmuth and Tony G. As the final episode started it had proved to be a tough week for Russell. He had just 30 hands to turn his fortunes around. Anything he’d learnt watching PokerStars free poker training videos was going to come in handy now.

2009 Bluff Player of the Year, Jason Mercier was on great form all week. He was by far the biggest winner from the session. In the week’s final episode, Jason took his foot of the accelerator and just marvelled in his own excellence for 40 minutes. Jason is a member of the PokerStars Bonus Code sponsored team. You’ll not be surprised to hear that the man hogging the most camera time was Phil Hellmuth. Russell Harlow was shoved further into the red by the all-time leading bracelet winner. With 15 hands left he rivered a full house to leave the Loose Cannon down over $40k.

With only 5 hands to go, a big hand gave the Loose Cannon a glimmer of hope. With KQ, Harlow put in a raise only to be re-raised by Phil Hellmuth. The call was made and a flop of K-5-K fell. A few hands earlier, Phil had been agonizing over whether to call an all-in bet from the loose cannon with a just a flush draw. He took almost 15 minutes to make the decision, prompting Tony G to berate him from the sidelines. This time he wasn’t about to wait around and pushed all-in with just A-high. It was a snap call for Russell, who dodged Phil’s few outs and racked in a big pot. Phil would have been dying for some PokerStars Rakeback after that hand.

At the end of the night the Loose Cannon had a shade over $100k. Enough for him leave with money or come back next week. The brave delivery man opted to take his chances and come back for another round next week.

PokerStars is one of the world’s top money poker sites and you can qualify now for future episodes of the Big Game by playing in one of their free qualification tournaments.

At the end of Week 7, the winners and losers were:

Jason Mercier (+ $150,800)
Ike Haxton (+ $33,600)
Tony G (+ $20,200)
Russell Harlow (+ $16,400)
Phil Hellmuth (- $89,300)
Antonio Esfandiari (- $131,700)