The High Stakes Duel kicked off its fifth edition yesterday and now we have a new addition. So far all heads-ups have been played in NLH format, but now the organisers have come up with a new feature and so both NLH and PLO are being played. The format of the game alternates every 10 hands.
High Stakes Duel has been running since 2020 and so far we have witnessed 12 matches. It all kicked off with Phil Hellmuth beating Antonio Esfandiari 3 times in a row to take home $350,000. Phil then beat Daniel Negreanu 3 times as well and notched up another $350,000 along with his second title. Phil then defeated Nick Wright and immediately after that he ran into Tom Dwan, who he lost to. However, the rematch was already won by Hellmuth again and he faced Scott Seiver. But he didn't beat Hellmuth either. The next player was Jason Koon, who defeated Hellmuth and officially became the winner of HSD 3.
High Stakes Duel 4 took place last year and the winner here was Daniel Negreanu, who first beat Eric Persson and then Doug Polk.
High Stakes Duel 5
As we mentioned in the introduction the High Stakes Duel kicked off its fifth edition yesterday, pitting Patrik Antonius and Jared Bleznick against each other. Patrik Antonius is a new member of the WSOP Hall of Fame, has been playing poker for over 20 years, has over $29 million in live tournament winnings, and just a few days ago won the Triton Invitation, where he took home his career-high winnings of $5,130,000.
Jared Bleznick is the owner of a sports card shop in Las Vegas and has been playing tournament poker since 2006. His lifetime live tournament winnings are worth more than $7 million, and last year he was the winner of the first edition of the PLO Super High Roller Bowl.
Both players had to put in $50,000 and played at blinds of $100/$200. The players didn't deal anything to each other and the chips were moved from side to side. Most of the time, the differences in their stacks were very small.
Eventually, however, Jared Bleznick turned the game in his favor, ending it all in NLH format. Bleznick hit a full house on the last hand to become the winner of the first round. However, Antonius immediately challenged his opponent to a rematch, which will take place on November 19, but players will now have to deposit $100,000 each.
Source - PGT, Pokernews