The beginning of the year brought a record-breaking round on the popular TV show High Stakes Duel, in which Phil Hellmuth and Jason Koon battled for $1.6 million. The unstoppable PokerBrat didn't loose until this round, so Jason Koon was the one waiting for a challenger willing to put a 1.6 million buy-in into play. But no one like that was found, and the aforementioned Koon became the winner of the third series.
The producers planned the start of the fourth series for May 8, when Daniel Negreanu and Eric Persson were to face each other. The prelude to this fight was a heads-up with the attribute Undercard, in which Mike Matusow and Shaun Deeb played for $20,000. Both players know each other well from the Poker Night in America show, but even though Deeb got off to a great start by winning the first 9 hands in a row to take the lead, it was Mike Matusow who ultimately emerged victorious.
You can find the full record of the three-hour match-up here:
After this warm-up round, the main battle was about to start, where Phil Hellmuth did not appear for the first time after 11 matches. On contrary, Daniel Negreanu and Eric Persson both paid $50,000 each to meet in the first round of the next series. The first 10 minutes of the fight were traditionally opened by the weigh-in, a well-known joke, in which moderator Ali Nejad stirred up the fun, to which Daniel also contributed with a gesture typical of Persson.
After the diggers, the game itself got to the word, which started with friendly games and small pots. Subsequently, Negreanu was starting to come to the fore, and he gradually went up to a 4:1 advantage, which Persson managed to erase almost entirely. However, the Canadian professional completed his second run to the end and went on to win relatively easily.
"I'm relieved it's all over," Negreanu said after winning Round 1. "Today I was completely blown away, I had a lot of good hands, I read a couple of bluffs correctly, but other than that I didn't do anything special. I just he had a better run than Eric. I didn't focus on GTO, I know my opponent, I watched a lot of games he played in, which helped me a lot."
Although an immediate rematch between the two players was scheduled for tonight, reportedly due to scheduling misunderstandings, Persson pulled out, leaving his seat to another daredevil willing to invest $100,000. Each challenger now has 30 days to express their interest - will we see any previous HSD entrants in the game, or will a new player get a slot?
You can watch the first hour of this match for free on YouTube:
Source: YouTube, PGT, PokerNews
