"They should be worried about what I'm going to do."
Rob Gronkowski, the retired NFL champion known colloquially as 'Gronk', is a new wrinkle on Season 3 of The Big Game on Tour.
The show normally revolves around the "Loose Cannon" — a regular Joe or Jane who gets the bankroll to sit down with some of poker's biggest sharks. But with Gronk in the mix, there's bigger and looser cannon for the top pros to take into account.
"Does he have any idea what's coming?" Phil Hellmuth mused in the intro.
Antonio Esfandiari added: "This is the first time Gronk is playing cards on TV. If the opportunity rises where I can put him to the test, I will act on it."
"I grew up going to Chiefs games my whole life," TV's Nick Wright said about the rival New England Patriot. "So I want to cause him some pain."
"Here's the question," Hellmuth continued. "Am I trying to win money or am I trying to put on a show. I always try to win money. It turns out that I always somehow put on a show, too."
Hellmuth, Esfandiari, and Wright were joined by Rania Nasreddine to fill out the table of six along with the two Loose Cannons.
The actual Loose Cannon, a freestyle rapping Luke Wakelin, was chosen to provide Gronk with an equally cocky antagonist. He hails from Florida and has only a few thousand dollars in Hendon Mob earnings from just four tournaments over a week in October of 2024.
Wakelin was staked for $50,000 and he can keep his profit after 150 hands. Everyone else joined him at that buy-in, except for Esfandiari with $100,000.
So, how is the four-time Super Bowl champion perform at the poker table? About how you would expect, so far.
Opportunity presents itself
Things were fairly quiet and the chip stacks had not moved much when Esfandiari raised to $1,000 with "Sweat with Gronk" mystery hand. Gronk looked down at 
before he called to see a flop of 
. He was distracted by some table talk on the follow up, but Gronk eventually checked.
"Check for the bank," Esfandiari said as he tossed out $2,000.
"Alright fine." Gronk called. "It's just two."
The 
dropped and Gronk was very honest while he bet $4,000.
"That's what I was chasing."
"That's not good for me," Esfandiari said, but he called.
The river was 
and Gronk fired another $4,000, but Esfandiari raised it to $50,000.
"You're just buying your way to victory," Gronk said. "Take it back."
"Think about how much you win if you call," Esfandiari advised. "If you call, I'm going to show you the nuts. If you fold, I'm going to show you a bluff."
"That's a good line. I don't want to disappoint Phil and leave the table early. So I'm going to fold."
Esfandiari showed 
. He was bluffing.
Catch the full episode and see how it all turned out:
