Big 20 Players Awards: Vote for the Boldest Bluff Attempt

Voting in the PokerStars Big 20 Players Awards is open, with PokerStars players and fans invited to nominate their favourite moments from 20 years of televised play. Feast your eyes on 50 memorable moments in 10 categories, then pick your best.

Today’s category: Boldest Bluff Attempt

You’re most likely to hear about a brilliant bluff when it manages to win the pot. But that final step is far from guaranteed. In today’s awards category we look at the bluffs that were almost brilliant: they were bold, they were big and they were gutsy. The only problem was that they didn’t work.

Your task is to choose the player who made the boldest bluff attempt.

1. CALL IT A GIFT: MARTIN JACOBSON VS DAN COLMAN

Dan Colman barely needs anybody else’s help to win a poker tournament, but here’s former WSOP Main Event champion Martin Jacobson gift-wrapping some chips and sending them over to the American high-rolling superstar.

2. NOW THEY KNOW I AM FISH: GILLES BERNIES VS DZMITRY URBANOVICH

The pressure of playing Dzmitry Urbanovich heads up for an EPT title must be overwhelming. Just look what it did to Gilles Bernies, who put everything he had into this bluff attempt in Dublin, but, well, it didn’t quite pay off.

3. VANESSA THE AGGRESSOR: VANESSA SELBST VS DOC SANDS

Ever had that feeling when you’re trying to represent the exact hand your opponent actually has? Vanessa Selbst knows that feeling, as this PCA punt will ably demonstrate.

4. WORLD CLASS BLUFF: RONALDO VS TITO ORTIZ

Two world class athletes slugged it out in Shark Cage season two, with the Brazilian soccer star Ronaldo attempting to out-muscle the muscle man Tito Ortiz. It was very bold indeed, but it wouldn’t be in this category if it had worked out, right?

5. BLAST OFF: HOSSEIN ENSAN VS ELKY

Hossein Ensan is the only person to win the WSOP Main Event and a title on the EPT, and you don’t get those kind of results by backing down from confrontation. But if you live by the sword, you have to be prepared to die by it, and here’s Ensan getting his timing badly wrong.