The Dream Cash Game Table: Bilzerian, Dwan, Bellande & Baldwin Assemble!

Well, it’s a dream table for some at least – and despite Bobby Baldwin appearing to be holding most of the chips, you’d have to imagine Tom Dwan licking his lips at the prospect of the likes of Dan Bilzerian and his millions sitting on his left!

It was the Aria on Las Vegas Boulevard which saw Bilzerian drop in on his old friend Jean Robert Bellande, one of the movers and shakers behind the big games in Vegas, along with the eponymous Bobby of Bobby’s Room at the neighbouring Bellagio – Baldwin that is, seated next to his daughter.

Dwan, of course, has made a return to the US, his surprise appearance on Poker After Dark making the headlines last week, Dwan making a rather hefty profit against some of the biggest names in the game, Antonio Esfandiari and Daniel Negreanu chief among those to donate their hard-earned tournament prizes to the most enigmatic player the game has ever witnessed, prompting Chicago Joey Ingram of podcast fame to ask: ‘Is Tom Dwan a Poker God?’

Bilzerian, of course, is in a different league when it comes to poker – and it’s certainly not a higher league – but with his daddy’s bank account he has forged a name for himself in all things excessive, be it high stakes poker, guns, movies and women aplenty.

As my colleague Mateusz Kleczynski revealed last week however, ‘Up until recently, there were only three things certain in this world - death, taxes and Dan Bilzerian's distaste for monogamous relationships. Turns out that we might have to scratch the last item off that short list.’

Twenty-one year old Sofia Bevarly is apparently ‘the one’, but there was no sign of her at the private cash game organised by ‘BrokeLivingJRB’ – the Twitter handle synonymous with Bellande.

Bellande had somehow survived the ordeal of being seated next to William ‘Nine high like a boss’ Kassouf a few days previously on Poker After Dark, the mighty-mouthed Londoner spawning a host of new memes for Bellande to share on his page…

There is no word yet whether ‘durrrr’ managed to break the bank of Bilzerian or not, but at least the game seems to have suffered a better fate than some of the recent action in Bobby Baldwin’s own game at the Bellagio.

Twice this year there have been what might be described as ‘over-the-top’ behaviour, first up being Gus Hansen and David Opppenheim’s difference of opinion which reputedly saw $15K in chips go flying across the table and then in June we had the sight of Phil Ivey’s bodyguard bodyslamming a loud-mouthed (and rather silly) fellow player who evidently couldn’t distinguish a man-mountain from a coke machine.