Jungleman Pinch-Hits for durrrr in 'PLOMG' on Poker After Dark

Tuesday night’s “PLOMG” episode of Poker After Dark began five-handed due to Tom Dwan’s travel snafu but Isaac Haxton provided all the fireworks over four hours, basically running over the table. Dan “Jungleman” Cates stepped in for the last two hours of play on PokerGO to fill the empty seat and kicked the tables’ action up a bit.

Haxton played well, dealt an inordinate number of premium hands. “I’m making the nuts a lot and that makes poker pretty easy,” Haxton said on break to Anchor Drea Renee. “You don’t show up expecting to make the nuts every hand.”

“I like because it’s fun and you the money in with a bunch of equity and see who wins, so it’s kind of easier and relaxing,” Haxton added. “In Hold’em you’re always trying to guess ‘is he bluffing’ or ‘is he value betting?’ PLO is more about how good is your hand – it’s not a simple or easy game, just less stressful.”

The game featured a $100,000 buy-in with blinds at $300/$600 and Haxton’s rungood came at the expense of multiple bullets from opponents: Brandon Adams bought in three times while Ben Lamb and Phil Galfond both bought in twice. Rast, Cates and Haxton all just used their first bullet.

“How does it feel to not be the feature player Daniel?” Rast asked, referring to the “Rumble with Jungle” episodes of Poker After Dark a few weeks ago.

“No, it’s PLO with Phil,” Cates responded. “I just coined it.”

“No, it’s PLO with Ike,” someone else chimed in off camera to give the table a laugh.

Isaac Haxton topped out near $380,000 as his stack grew through the night.

The chemistry between the players made for the most interesting table talk of the PAD reboot episodes. Cates was in an especially good mood and shared a story where he half blamed Lamb for lending an unknown player €200,000.

“Whoa,” said Lamb. “Let me tell it from my perspective. I knew you were next to the guy and would say, ‘Oh, Ben said not to loan you money.’ But what I said to you was, that he asked me but I told him no because I didn’t bring enough – but I wasn’t going to loan him the money.”

“That guy shows up a year later at the same event,” Cates said. “I asked him for the money and he told me he was being staked so he couldn’t pay. I didn’t know what to say.”

But the conversation wasn’t the only thing happening – they were playing some deep level poker. Late in the night Lamb put in a big raise on the river against Cates and Rast with air for a sizable pot.

Ben Lamb pushing players off better hands.

The full replay of all the action is normally available under Event Replays on PokerGO within a matter of hours of the event ending. Night two of “PLOMG” continues Wednesday live exclusively on PokerGO at 8 pm ET and Dwan is confirmed to play the final two nights of Poker After Dark.