In the last edition of the High Stakes Duel TV series, which took place in November 2024, we watched WSOP Hall of Fame member Patrik Antonius and sports card shop owner Jared Bleznick duke it out.
Patrik Antonius was defeated in all three rounds, after which Jared Bleznick became the new High Stakes Duel champion, taking home $350,000 and the championship belt.
We were all anxiously awaiting a new challenger and we got to know him during the OnlyFriends podcast, where Matt Berkey introduced to the whole world that he would be the one to sit down against Jared in the latest edition of the High Stakes Duel.
When this duel is set to take place has not yet been made public. What we do know, however, is that the players will once again battle in both NLH and PLO formats. Matt Berkey is an NLH expert and Bleznick is a PLO expert, which he proved by winning the PLO Super High Roller Bowl in 2023 and then sitting at the final table of the same tournament in 2024, where he eventually finished 4th.
Jared Bleznick has lifetime winnings worth over $9.2 million and Matt Berkey has winnings worth over $4.7 million. Matt sat heads-up against Niko Airball at Resorts World in Las Vegas in 2023, where he managed to take down Airball for more than $1 million in less than 60 hours (100 hours total to play).
In the aforementioned podcast, Matt also told us that the minimum buy-in for both players against Jared will be $100,000 and the game is scheduled to start at $200/$400 blinds. After the first round, the buy-in will be doubled to $200,000 and this will continue with each successive round until the point where we know the new champion. Who do you favour to be the winner in this heads-up?
Source - Pokernews, OnlyFriends, Youtube, PokerGO